From transactions to trust: Transforming cybersecurity vendors into strategic advisors

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Executive Summary

In the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, enterprises seek partnerships that transcend transactional engagements. This report examines how cybersecurity vendors are evolving from product providers to strategic advisors within enterprise technology ecosystems. Based on comprehensive analysis of industry research and market trends between 2023-2025, we identify the key strategic and relational factors enabling this transformation.

Our findings reveal that leading cybersecurity vendors differentiate themselves through:

• Platform-centric and service-led strategies: Integrating capabilities across network, cloud, and endpoint security while investing in proactive threat intelligence and managed services

• Trust-based relational dynamics: Building credibility through customer intimacy, executive alignment, and shared-risk models

• Ecosystem integration: Establishing interconnected partner networks, aligning solutions with client operations, and positioning strategically within the value chain

• Organizational adaptations: Implementing governance models with C-suite oversight, redesigning workflows around AI capabilities, and developing risk management expertise

The shift reflects changing CISO expectations in an era of talent shortages, board-level accountability, and regulatory pressure. Modern CISOs, facing increasingly sophisticated threats and complex compliance requirements, value vendors who partner in risk management rather than simply supply technology.

For cybersecurity vendors seeking strategic advisor status, this requires evolving beyond product-centric approaches to outcome-focused partnerships. For CISOs evaluating cybersecurity partners, understanding these transformation patterns enables better selection of vendors aligned with long-term security and business objectives.

Introduction: The Evolution of Cybersecurity Vendor Relationships

The relationship between enterprises and their cybersecurity vendors is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Gone are the days when cybersecurity vendors' responsibilities ended at delivering hardware or software. Today, organizations demand far more from their security partners, seeking strategic advisors who contribute to broader security and business outcomes.

This shift is being driven by several converging forces:

Escalating Threats and Complexity

The threat landscape has intensified dramatically, with advanced attacks targeting every layer of the IT ecosystem. Meanwhile, security environments have grown increasingly complex – the average large enterprise now uses between 60 and 80 distinct security tools from dozens of vendors, creating a patchwork of solutions difficult to integrate and manage effectively.

This complexity has catalyzed a drive toward platform consolidation, with 75% of organizations pursuing security vendor consolidation by 2022 (up from 29% in 2020). Notably, 65% expected consolidation to improve risk posture – far more than those expecting cost savings. Organizations increasingly want fewer, more capable partners who can cover multiple needs and streamline security operations.

Digital Transformation Imperatives

As businesses accelerate digital initiatives and adopt cloud, IoT, and AI technologies at scale, security has become deeply interwoven with business innovation. CISOs and CIOs face pressure to enable digital initiatives securely rather than act only as gatekeepers. This heightens the need for vendors who understand business contexts and can proactively secure new technologies.

The surge in cloud adoption has driven particular interest in solutions like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) that combine functions into unified offerings, enabling strategic vendors to replace multiple point products.

Regulatory Pressure and Board Accountability

The 2023-2025 period has seen an onslaught of cybersecurity regulations, from data privacy laws to critical infrastructure mandates. Cyber risk is now firmly established as a board-level concern, with CISOs held accountable for compliance and resilience. Consequently, enterprises expect vendors to support compliance requirements and risk management strategy, not just technology deployment.

Top vendors help clients interpret how new regulations impact their security architecture and build features to ease compliance. They also adopt transparent security practices themselves, recognizing that trust works both ways – a vendor with poor security practices introduces third-party risk.

Expanded CISO Role and Business Alignment

The role of the CISO has evolved from technical protector to strategic business leader. By 2024, CISOs were expected to be "proactive partners in managing ongoing business needs rather than just crisis responders," as noted by KPMG. As CISOs align cybersecurity with business goals, they seek vendors who can operate at that same strategic level – speaking the language of business risk, tailoring security investments to business priorities, and engaging with C-suite executives or boards.

These forces collectively raise the bar for cybersecurity vendors. The expectation is clear: vendors must move beyond transactions and embed themselves as long-term partners. The following sections examine the strategic behaviors and relational dynamics that distinguish vendors who successfully make this leap.

Strategic Behaviors Elevating Vendors to Trusted Advisor Status

Our research identifies several key strategic behaviors that enable cybersecurity vendors to transition from suppliers to advisors. These behaviors expand the value vendors provide – from technology capabilities to intelligence and innovation – positioning them as indispensable partners in an organization's security strategy.

Integrated Platforms and Vertical Integration

One hallmark of strategic vendors is the breadth and integration of their solutions. Instead of offering single point products, leading vendors now provide platforms that cover multiple security domains under one comprehensive umbrella.

This vertical integration, often achieved through aggressive R&D and acquisitions, creates end-to-end portfolios spanning endpoint, network, cloud, identity, and other security domains. By reducing the heterogeneity of the security stack, vendors can simplify operations for customers and assume a more strategic role.

Industry analysts observe that security leaders are "dissatisfied with operational inefficiencies" of fragmented security stacks and are actively consolidating vendors. Companies like Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet exemplify this trend, having expanded their offerings to encompass firewall, SD-WAN, cloud security, and SOC automation on unified platforms.

Importantly, integrated platforms deliver more than just multiple products – they deliver unified value. The best vendors ensure their acquisitions and modules work together seamlessly, sharing data and analytics for greater security insight. This gives CISOs holistic visibility across threats and simplifies incident response, while opening the door for vendors to engage in higher-level security architecture discussions.

Another aspect of vertical integration is providing end-to-end services along with products. Many traditionally product-centric companies have added professional services, managed services, and consulting capabilities. This allows them to participate in the full lifecycle – advisory, design, implementation, operation, and optimization – rather than just the upfront sale.

This service extension trend is evidenced by significant growth in managed security services offerings. Several major vendors have seen double-digit growth in their managed service businesses, positioning offerings like managed detection & response (MDR) as extensions of the customer's security operations.

Proactive Threat Intelligence and Research

Strategic vendors don't just react to attacks; they help clients anticipate and prepare for emerging threats. Many leading vendors have invested heavily in threat research teams, intelligence feeds, and hunting capabilities, sharing those insights with their clients.

Vendors like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks (through Unit 42), Cisco (Talos), and IBM (X-Force) operate renowned threat intelligence units that continuously monitor global threat actor groups and campaigns. Their output – regular threat reports, alerts about new vulnerabilities, and tailored threat briefings – is an added value beyond tools. It arms CISOs with knowledge to make proactive decisions, such as patching critical systems or adjusting defenses before an attack hits.

This proactive stance significantly elevates a vendor's status to that of an advisor. Rather than waiting for the customer to experience an incident, the vendor is warning and guiding the customer based on global intelligence, building trust by demonstrating they are looking out for the client's interests.

Threat research often feeds into innovation and co-creation of new security measures. Vendors discover novel attack techniques and work with customers to develop defenses, creating a collaborative relationship where both parties work together against evolving threats.

Some vendors have gone further by offering financial guarantees or shared risk programs related to threat prevention. CrowdStrike, for example, began offering a breach prevention warranty covering up to $1M of incident costs for customers of its complete endpoint service, effectively putting "skin in the game" and standing behind its protection capabilities.

Co-Innovation and Solution Co-Development

Leading security vendors are increasingly engaging in co-innovation with their enterprise clients – working jointly to tailor solutions, develop new features, or build entirely new products to meet specific needs.

Co-innovation takes several forms:

• Customer Advisory Boards and Feedback Loops: Vendors invite key clients (often CISOs of major companies) into advisory councils to discuss product roadmaps, emerging needs, and pain points. By incorporating client feedback directly into development, vendors show alignment with client strategies while giving clients greater ownership and partnership in outcomes.

• Joint Innovation Programs: Some vendors formally partner with customers on pilot projects or R&D. For example, a bank's security team might collaborate with a vendor's engineers to develop novel fraud detection capabilities – combining the bank's domain knowledge with the vendor's technology expertise.

• Open Ecosystems and Integrations: Vendors that embrace an open integration strategy facilitate co-innovation by exposing APIs, supporting open standards, or providing marketplaces. This enables customers and third-party developers to build on top of the vendor's platform, extending solutions in ways the vendor alone might not have envisioned.

The benefits of co-innovation are clear: the vendor becomes deeply embedded in the client's innovation cycle, not just the procurement cycle. Instead of being late in the chain (after a need is identified by the client), the vendor is upstream helping to define the need and shape the solution. This role is much more consultative and strategic, leading to longer-term engagements as clients are less likely to replace solutions they helped create.

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