FedRAMP: Paving the Way for Secure Digital Transformation
FedRAMP can be as powerful as you need it to be. It can be a legal obligation for your cloud services when dealing with government agencies or a significant part of your digital transformation, with many benefits to your customer experience, staff, and profits.
There are many benefits to using FedRAMP for private organizations, as its capabilities can extend far beyond its use as a federal government-wide program.
Today, many digital transformation leaders are using FedRAMP to streamline their transformation as it impacts everything, from their business models to cloud service offerings.
We will show you how to use FedRAMP to streamline your digital transformation through the following topics:
- What is FedRAMP?
- Why is FedRAMP essential for your digital transformation?
- How to use FedRAMP to streamline your digital transformation
What is FedRAMP?
FedRAMP, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, was established in 2011 and based on federally funded research to help reduce federal risk in the government tech stack.
The US General Services Administration video below briefly explains how FedRAMP helps central government agencies adopt a standardized, cost-effective, and risk-centered digital innovation of cloud services.
This approach enhances the security of federal and corporate data while ensuring secure operations of digital technologies in large enterprises.
A FedRAMP Overview: Introduction
Because these standards are so high to protect critical governmental data and some private corporations have relationships with federal agencies, they also adopt FedRAMP to comply with them. This scenario is especially the case with the explosion in the popularity of remote work, which increases security threats.
Now we know what FedRAMP is, let’s move on to why it’s essential for your digital transformation.
Why is FedRAMP essential for your digital transformation?
Digital transformations are an excellent opportunity to leverage your FedRAMP authorization for three main reasons. The first reason is that a FedRAMP digital transformation can help staff to be more resilient to marketplace changes.
Help staff be resilient to marketplace changes
While your organization may have a preferred work methodology, teams must be able to use the best method to accelerate strategic delivery. FedRAMP can support this process.
Different FedRAMP methods like real-time security visibility, collaborative work between industries and federal agencies, and Lean-Agile delivery suit different requirements and priorities.
Therefore, teams should be able to adjust their position and align it with the best-suited methodology to accommodate changing circumstances in the marketplace.
It is essential to adapt to the evolving work environment for greater flexibility. To achieve this, your organization can implement robust security solutions that will facilitate diverse work within the company and provide a unified vision for data management across teams.
Promote responsibility for security
FedRAMP is all about the security of your cloud data, and when your staff is familiar with how it works, they can use its principles in every business process.
As part of your digital transformation, use FedRAMP to teach staff to ask questions when they perform any task. They can ask questions such as the following examples:
- Do I need access to these documents?
- Is this data stored securely in this location?
- Do I have authorization for too many files, and could this be reduced?
FedRAMP is not designed to teach every staff member every technical detail of cloud security, but it can be used to promote organization-wide awareness of data security. Doing so can avoid damages to your company’s reputation and legal litigation.
Understand the waste reduction from FedRAMP
FedRAMP represents not only the security of cloud data but also a vast reduction in the wastage of resources. Once staff understands this concept, their experience of the complexity of security becomes more expansive, and they will implement the idea of reducing waste into more of their business processes.
Some of the best examples of universal approaches within FedRAMP that can be applied in many contexts to reduce waste across the organization are:
- Reuse of existing security assessments across departments.
- The “do once, apply many times” strategy.
- A standardized approach to risk-based management.
These are the ways FedRAMP can help you understand and implement waste reduction into all your business processes. The way to train staff on how to do this is via our DAP (digital adoption platform), the only FedRAMP-approved DAP on the market, using in-app guidance to allow employee training as they work.
How to use FedRAMP to streamline your digital transformation
FedRAMP can support each of the seven principles of digital transformation in several ways. Let’s begin with how FedRAMP can help align the reasons you are starting a digital transformation to the security concerns that FedRAMP supports.
1. Use FedRAMP to align the whys of your Digital Transformation to security concerns
FedRAMP encourages questioning what security measures you have in place and, crucially, why you chose those measures to implement security in your organization. Use the philosophy of FedRAMP to question why you implement each new security measure as part of your digital transformation by answering the following questions:
- What is the security problem we need a solution for?
- What method are we using to find a solution?
- Would FedRAMP staff be able to support the finding of a solution?
- What have our staff learned from FedRAMP training that might help them find a solution?
2. Prepare for Culture Change with FedRAMP
FedRAMP can lead to a massive change in culture as all staff begins to see how to implement its principles into every task. These profound changes can help the team prepare for other cultural changes as part of your digital transformation.
3. Start Small But Strategically with FedRAMP strategies
To ensure the success of your digital transformation strategy, it is essential to prioritize the first FedRAMP initiative and carefully choose an impactful way to begin your efforts to integrate security into your digital transformation.
Take the time and steps to identify the best starting point to align FedRAMP with your digital transformation goals.
4. Map Your Technology Implementation
It is essential to understand that digital transformation is not initiated by technology but by business strategy. Once the groundwork is laid in the first three steps, technology becomes vital to achieving the predetermined business objectives.
Creating a grand vision to justify the digital transformation case is essential. However, the initial steps should be basic with easily measurable outcomes.
Although FedRAMP focuses on cloud technology, a typical list of DX technologies most commonly optimized with FedRAMP security standards as part of your digital transformation also includes:
- Mobile
- IoT (Internet of Things)
- Digital Twin
Mapping out how you can optimize your use of FedRAMP using these technologies is crucial to the success of your digital transformation.
5. Seek Out Partners and Expertise
Finding partners who complement your strengths and understand your business is essential to achieve digital transformation outcomes. Look for partners that will help you strengthen your core competencies and drive initiatives forward to accelerate results.
When considering technology and tech partners, keeping the future vision in mind is essential. Ask yourself these questions to ensure you are staying on track:
- Does the technology have the capability to scale up, and can the vendor provide support for it?
- Do the vendor and team have a common understanding or goal regarding a FedRAMP digital transformation?
- Will the vendor have the ability to assist you in achieving your long-term FedRAMP digital transformation goals?
- Can you explain how it integrates with your current technology?
- Do they possess the necessary technology and expertise to cater to your industry and use cases?
- Can you provide information on the outcomes achieved for comparable use cases/applications and among companies in similar situations?
Answering these questions may make you realize you have the perfect technology but not the right partner to implement it. If the people helping you don’t have the experience, knowledge, and background in your application, there will be struggles.
Those with expertise have learned from previous clients all the things not to do – and that’s very valuable as you execute FedRAMP as part of your digital transformation strategy.
Search for partners who can support and enhance your digital transformation goals by defining your goals straight from the beginning to help you find the right partner to achieve them.
6. Collect Feedback, Refine Your Transformation, and Repeat
Being agile is crucial for organizations undergoing digital transformation. Although having a strategic roadmap is essential, achieving success relies on being capable of and open to making changes as per the results.
Before proceeding with full implementation, it is essential to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) for each project and ensure that all stakeholders are aware of and accountable for the deliverables necessary to classify the project as a success.
While we already have a vision, a strategic use case, a technology roadmap, and a coalition of partners to support our digital transformation efforts, defining these KPIs will help us progress more effectively as part of the continuous monitoring of your FedRAMP project.
As you execute the digital transformation strategy, establish a robust feedback mechanism with all stakeholders to ensure that insights gained from the experience are shared and applied effectively.
To keep track of the progress and improve it, milestones can be helpful to ensure you’re on the path to success for your FedRAMP digital transformation.
7. Scale and Transform
Successful digital transformation initiatives are crucial because they provide a personalized roadmap to identify where change can be most effective for your organization. This action is vital within your digital transformation strategies, given that transformation may vary across organizations using digital technology that change with your shifting needs.
Your company is now experiencing the outcomes from the initial use cases mentioned in the digital transformation strategy. Use this success as an advantage to gather enthusiasm and teamwork toward the upcoming actions and the overall long-term strategy.
As digital transformation continues and FedRAMP evolves, there are new opportunities for digital technologies to transform physical experiences and security. These include scaling horizontally by applying similar strategies to multiple locations and vertically by connecting different technologies.
FedRAMP is about maintenance as well as transformation
FedRAMP is an incredibly helpful tool for successful digital transformation strategies. It can help organizations streamline their workflow and ensure their data is secure and their data management is compliant.
Utilizing this framework can add tremendous value to organizations regarding time, cost, and risk management.
As a reminder, it’s essential to consider both the transformation and maintenance phases when utilizing FedRAMP to minimize risks. Overall, FedRAMP is an incredible asset to business operations and is a tried-and-true resource for any organization considering digital transformation.
So what are you waiting for? Take the leap and experience how FedRAMP can revolutionize your organization’s digital transformation journey today!
