Build or Buy? Deciding Between Internal IT and a Managed Service Provider
June 13, 2025
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For many leadership teams, cybersecurity reporting is a challenge. Dashboards are filled with technical data, alerts, and acronyms that may be meaningful to IT teams but fail to answer the questions executives care about most.
Are we more secure than last year?
Is our investment paying off?
How does cybersecurity support revenue operations, and growth?
If cybersecurity cannot be measured in business terms, it becomes difficult to justify budgets, prioritize initiatives, or demonstrate return on investment. The key is shifting away from technical metrics and toward metrics that matter to leadership.
In this third installment of our Securing Value: The ROI of Cybersecurity series, we explore how organizations can translate cybersecurity performance into clear business outcomes that executives understand and value.
Many security reports focus on activity rather than impact. Common examples include:
While these metrics may show that tools are working, they do not explain what those results mean for the business. Blocking 10,000 threats sounds impressive, but leadership wants to know what risks were avoided and what costs were prevented.
Without context, traditional metrics can unintentionally reinforce the idea that cybersecurity is a cost center rather than a value driver.
Executives evaluate investments based on outcomes, not activity. When it comes to cybersecurity, leadership is focused on four core areas:
Effective cybersecurity metrics should align directly to these priorities.
Cost Avoidance
One of the most powerful ways to demonstrate ROI is by estimating costs avoided through proactive security.
Examples include:
While these figures are estimates, they help leadership understand the financial value of prevention compared to the cost of recovery.
Stronger security controls often result in:
Tracking changes in premiums, deductibles, or coverage terms provides a direct financial metric tied to security improvements.
Downtime Reduction
System outages are expensive, these metrics directly connect cybersecurity to productivity, revenue protection and customer satisfaction:
Mean Time to Detect and Respond
Executives may not care about the technical details, but they care about speed.
Metrics to track:
Faster response times reduce operational disruption and limit financial exposure.
Risk Exposure Over Time
Rather than listing vulnerabilities, leadership benefits from seeing trends such as:
These trends show progress and help guide strategic decisions.
Compliance Readiness
Metrics tied to compliance resonate strongly with leadership, especially in regulated industries.
Examples include:
Strong compliance metrics demonstrate reduced regulatory risk and fewer potential penalties.
Human error remains one of the leading causes of security incidents. Measuring and managing human risk is critical.
Useful metrics include:
These metrics show leadership that investments in awareness and training are delivering tangible improvements.
Cybersecurity increasingly influences customer and partner decisions. Metrics that demonstrate trust and credibility include:
These outcomes tie cybersecurity directly to revenue enablement and competitive advantage.
To be effective, cybersecurity metrics must be presented in a way leadership understands.
Best practices include:
Instead of saying “we blocked 5,000 phishing emails,” say “email security controls prevented potential fraud and downtime, reducing financial exposure.”
A strong metrics framework should:
When metrics are tied to outcomes leadership cares about, cybersecurity becomes a strategic asset rather than a technical function.
If your cybersecurity reports are filled with technical data but lack business impact, it may be time to rethink how success is measured.
Talk with a cybersecurity expert today to learn how to align security metrics with business outcomes, demonstrate ROI, and strengthen decision-making at the leadership level.
