These ARE the droids you’re looking for

What happened

There’s an old leadership fantasy that goes something like this: The CISO surveys a sprawling technology estate, discovers 11 tools doing the work of four, calculates the licensing savings, selects a shiny new strategic platform and declares that consolidation has begun. Six months later, all 11 tools are still running.

The new platform is now number 12. The job was considerably less glamorous than the acronym suggested.

Tool sprawl is rarely just a technology problem but rather an organizational psychology problem. The industry’s solution has traditionally been consolidation.