Poor collaboration between security and networking harms transformation projects

While 49 percent of security teams and 44 percent of networking teams report to the same boss, 37 percent of IT professionals state that these teams don't really work together much.

A new report from security cloud company Netskope shows that 50 percent of global CIOs -- and 51 percent of respondents generally -- say a lack of collaboration between specialist teams stops their organization from realizing the benefits of digital transformation.

Perhaps more worrying is that 44 percent of network and 45 percent of security professionals described the relationship between security and networking teams as 'combative' (13 percent), 'dysfunctional' (nine percent), 'frosty' (11 percent) or 'irrelevant' (nine percent).

This is despite the fact that network and security professionals identify similar priorities for their team’s activity in 2021, sharing two of each of their top three priorities; 'Supporting increased productivity for the organization as a whole' and 'Improved efficiencies within my team and its processes'. Security professionals also chose 'Increasing visibility and control' while networking professionals are working on the 'expansion of infrastructure to support business growth'.

"The evident divide between networking and security teams has been an issue for some time, but has been even more amplified with the rapid acceleration to remote work," says Mike Anderson, chief information and digital officer at Netskope. "These findings show the immediate need for IT and security teams to work collaboratively and transparently, without politics or bureaucracy. The good news is that there is much that leadership can do today to achieve that collaboration."

Transformation clearly impacts both teams 87 percent of research participants say they are either working on a DT project currently or have just completed one. 62 percent of these projects involve both networking and security transformation, and 60 percent have a sponsor within both networking and security teams.

When it comes to the role security should play in networking, 84 percent of participants say that security is part of the network team's responsibility (85 percent of security and 83 percent of networking professionals), specifically answering that 'security is built into the network architecture'. Looking at the last year's growth of remote working, 44 percent of security professionals and 42 percent of networking believe that security has been their biggest challenge.

The full report is available from the Netskope site.

Image credit: AntonioGuillemF/depositphotos.com