Sidebar: Ideas for Security ROI

Computerworld - •Better password administration can reduce the password problems that eat up a lot of IT staff hours and hurt user productivity.
• Improving patch management is a huge opportunity for increasing the productivity of your IT security staff.
• New technologies can roll firewalls and intrusion-detection systems into one package, with a corresponding reduction in maintenance costs.
• Consider outsourcing the monitoring of your security systems. Those intrusion-detection systems generate tons of information and need round-the-clock monitoring. You may want to hand off this job to someone who does it for a living.
• Proper security allows companies to safely Web-enable employee services such as human resources and travel reporting tasks, which will then yield administrative savings.
• The right level of security permits wireless networking, thus saving money on inflexible, wired campus networks.
• Better security may reduce the company's insurance premiums.
• You can even make the case that incremental revenue gains can be realized by implementing new projects that you would otherwise have put off because of data security concerns, such as Internet-enabling portions of your supply chain.

Read more about ROI in Computerworld's ROI Topic Center.