We were brought in to help craft a three-year strategy for the cyber defense center (CDC) of a major organization. The primary goal was to align the CDC’s capabilities and development with the company’s broader IT and digitalization strategy, ensuring they could scale effectively.

Drawing from the company's information security and digitalization plans, we led a structured strategy development process. This process unfolded over three phases, with workshops and interviews involving key stakeholders and experts. In the first phase, we defined the CDC’s mission, long-term goals, and guiding principles. The strategy focused on five core aspirations: fostering continuous improvement, enhancing adversary-focused security operations, optimizing capabilities, driving operational excellence, and boosting analytics and automation. During the second phase, we collaborated with senior leadership to turn these aspirations into actionable one-year targets and detailed steps. The final phase saw the creation of a governance and execution model, complete with a roadmap, assigned roles, and a digital planning tool for tracking progress.

The strategy earned the client’s approval and the endorsement of the CISO, who tasked us with leading its implementation. The initiative delivered three key results:

• A CDC strategy in harmony with the overall business and security objectives.
• An actionable roadmap with clear KPIs and responsibilities.
• A robust governance model to keep the strategy on track.