As CMO of Level 3, I spend a lot of time with our customers and suppliers. While the conversations are not always picture perfect, that is customers are not always happy and suppliers are not always perfect when it comes to us helping our customers, one thing we readily agree on is the importance of being aligned when it comes to network and service security, and the co-dependent roles we have.
It’s not enough to simply “have” a managed security product to provide our customers. It’s really important that every aspect of our service creation and delivery is done with security in mind. That includes ensuring that the partners and suppliers that make up our supply chain uphold our standards of security relevant to their role in the solutions we provide. Â This is not a one-time event. It requires methodical planning, consistent improvement and understanding of our environment from the ducts our fiber runs through to the applied network services we create on top of our network globally.
It’s the same thing for our customers. To some degree our technology and product set are almost always part of our customers’ supply chains as it relates to the end product or service they create either for their internal or external customers. As a result our planning conversations with customers increasingly cover a much broader scope, taking  into account exactly how our services have been produced by us and how they will be deployed and used by our customers.
Knowing that we have the ability to be a secure business partner in our customers’ supply chains takes the business partner conversations to the next level. It’s a good place to be, a place we have to constantly re-earn and a place that allows us to secure our customers’ environments from the earth…to the cloud.
I will be talking about multiple dimensions of security as a service as well as other topics regularly. I welcome your feedback.
Here is my next post on securing customers [10/08/2012]
About Anthony Christie
