This article was originally written by Avanade alum Wil Klusovsky.

In the Star Wars movie series, the Death Star was destroyed twice, then they built a bigger one (also blown up). After the Empire fell, the First Order came up with a massive fleet. For those who never watched Star Wars, the theme is: The bad guys continually change and don’t go away. Similarly, cyber criminals, security vendors and products do too, and as a result, security leaders and business must as well.

At Avanade, we recognize where more value is needed with our clients and how we can help make a positive impact. So, we’re investing heavily in growing and improving our capabilities within our Cybersecurity Services practice.

We continue to see clients struggle with a number of problems

One of the biggest concerns we are seeing from clients is how to spend their limited budgets and if they are spending in the right areas. In addition, we see many clients who are just unsure where to start when it comes to security.

Often, while trying to contend with the complexities of a growing and diverse cybersecurity landscape, many organizations are simply managing risk “on the fly” with minimal direction. For those organizations that do have a plan, they are looking for validation and thought leadership on “what’s the next thing I have to prepare for” or “what does this new regulation mean for us?”

Growing our capability to address future needs

An experienced partner can help organizations prepare for “what they may not know.” Our approach is to partner with clients to gain a holistic understanding of their cybersecurity risk strategies and provide guidance with maturity-based assessments and planning. We help to develop a robust strategy and manage cybersecurity programs to enable better risk management end-to-end.

We’re continuing to directly support our clients’ CISOs, CDPOs and leadership to address complex multi-domain security risks with a full perspective.  To help deal with the complications of security frameworks, compliance requirements and real work risk, we have developed our capabilities.

Our approach is to first understand the industry, the business, risk appetite and threat landscape so we can design target end states with reasonable and achievable security goals. We’re aligning security to the business – and positioning for success – to ensure the doors are locked before you install lasers and motion sensors in the air ducts.

We want clients’ security projects completed on-time and on-budget and programs implemented effectively so they can continually manage risk. By assessing capabilities and costs, we are helping clients achieve success in a timely manner and with financial sense. Our clients get the benefit of highly experienced consultants who can help strategize as well as drive programs with the confidence that priority risks are being addressed.

Bringing insight and a fresh perspective

As leaders we tend to say, “we can do that” and sometimes we can, but sometimes we can’t, or we need a little help.  Our clients get great value leveraging our teams who are working across multiple industries, regions and varying business models. We ensure we brings insights to help address board room and C-Level concerns, as well as context to increase confidence in prioritization and decision-making when it comes to security programs, tool selection and budgets.

A strong strategy and framework better define operating processes and technology requirements, which in the end should not only improve security posture but make employees jobs easier. It’s our goal to work side-by-side with our clients to provide long-term continuity and be a trusted advisor for cybersecurity. After all, the bad guys will never stop building the next “Death Star.”

For more information on how we can help head over to Avanade.com/security.