Common Questions: Justifying the Investment

Security teams evaluating PSPM alongside existing CNAPP investments need clear answers to budget and strategy questions.

"Isn't this overlapping with our CNAPP?"

No. CNAPP and PSPM address different problems at different lifecycle stages:

CNAPP detects issues after deployment. Resources exist in production, configurations are set, CNAPP scans what's there. Detection operates in the "find and fix" model: discover issues, generate findings, create tickets, coordinate remediation.

PSPM prevents issues before deployment. Build-layer scanning catches problems in code. Access-layer policies block risky API calls. Config-layer defaults make resources secure automatically. Runtime-layer controls fix drift within minutes, not days.

Different timing, different mechanisms, different outcomes. CNAPP provides visibility into what exists. PSPM reduces what reaches production. Both are essential; neither replaces the other.

"Will PSPM reduce the ROI of our CNAPP investment?"

PSPM helps security teams use CNAPP effectively:

Before PSPM: CNAPP surfaces thousands of preventable misconfigurations. Security teams spend 60-80% of capacity on remediation coordination. Valuable CNAPP capabilities (threat detection, attack path analysis) get buried in misconfiguration noise. High CNAPP costs, low utilization of premium features.

After PSPM: Finding volumes drop 50-80%. Security teams focus CNAPP on sophisticated threats - the high-value detection work that justifies CNAPP investment. Threat detection, attack path analysis, and vulnerability management become usable. Lower cost-per-finding, higher utilization of premium capabilities.

PSPM doesn't reduce CNAPP value - it allows organizations to actually use the CNAPP capabilities they're paying for.

"Can't CNAPP provide prevention capabilities?"

Some CNAPP vendors add prevention features: IaC scanning, shift-left detection, limited policy enforcement. These provide value but don't match PSPM's prevention-specific depth:

PSPM differentiators:

• Unified visibility across all four prevention layers (Build, Access, Config, Runtime)
• Simulation of preventive controls before enforcement (query audit logs, predict impact)
• Safe deployment orchestration with phasing, monitoring, exception management
• Prevention-specific metrics: coverage expansion, finding reduction, capacity freed
• Deep integration with cloud-native prevention mechanisms (organization policies, secure defaults)

Think of build tools: some IDEs include basic build capabilities, but organizations serious about build quality use dedicated CI/CD platforms. Similarly, organizations serious about prevention benefit from PSPM's prevention-specific capabilities rather than CNAPP platforms with basic prevention add-ons.

"How do we justify spending on both?"

The business case for both is straightforward:

Without either: No comprehensive visibility, no systematic prevention, reactive security, high breach risk.

CNAPP alone: Comprehensive visibility but overwhelming alert volumes, 60-80% of security capacity on remediation coordination, valuable detection capabilities underutilized.

PSPM alone: Systematic prevention but no validation it works, no detection of sophisticated threats, no compliance evidence, blind spots in security posture.

Both together: 50-80% reduction in finding volumes, exposure windows eliminated for preventable issues, security team capacity freed for strategic work, comprehensive visibility plus systematic protection, lower total security cost with better outcomes.

Organizations with both PSPM and CNAPP consistently achieve better security outcomes at lower operational cost than organizations investing in either alone.

"Should we deploy CNAPP or PSPM first?"

Deploy CNAPP first in most cases:

CNAPP provides baseline visibility. You need to understand what issues exist before prioritizing which to prevent. CNAPP findings inform PSPM priorities. Without detection data, you're guessing at prevention investments. With detection data, you know exactly which issues appear most frequently and should be prevented first.

CNAPP demonstrates the problem. Overwhelming finding volumes and remediation cycles make the case for prevention. When security teams see 12,000 findings per month with 85% being repeat issues, prevention value becomes obvious.

CNAPP validates prevention works. After deploying preventive controls, CNAPP shows finding reductions. Before-and-after metrics prove prevention ROI and justify continued investment.

Exception: Organizations with significant prevention already deployed (organization policies, IaC scanning, runtime remediation) might adopt PSPM first to make scattered prevention visible and measurable, then use that visibility to optimize prevention-detection balance.

"What's the expected timeline to value?"

Both platforms deliver value quickly with optimization over time:

CNAPP: Immediate visibility into security posture (days to weeks), actionable findings within first month, compliance evidence collection ongoing.

PSPM: Prevention visibility within weeks, first preventive controls deployed within 1-2 months, measurable finding reductions within 3-6 months, systematic prevention expansion over 6-12 months.

Combined impact: Organizations typically see 30-50% finding reductions within 6 months of PSPM adoption, 50-80% reductions within 12 months, with continuous optimization ongoing.

"How do we measure the combined value?"

Track metrics across both platforms:

Prevention metrics (from PSPM):

• CNAPP finding volume reduction (50-80% typical)
• Preventive control coverage expansion
• Blocked risky actions per month
• Remediation capacity freed
• Cost avoidance from prevention

Detection metrics (from CNAPP):

• Current security posture score
• Critical findings requiring attention
• Threat detection and response metrics
• Compliance posture against frameworks
• Attack surface visibility

Combined business metrics:

• Total risk reduction
• Security team capacity optimization
• Cost per finding (decreases as prevention expands)
• Security posture improvement over time
• Incident frequency and blast radius reduction

Organizations with both platforms typically achieve better outcomes at lower cost than organizations with either alone - and can prove it through measurement.

"What if budget is constrained?"

If forced to choose initially:

Start with CNAPP if you lack comprehensive visibility. You need to understand current security posture before making prevention investments. CNAPP provides essential detection, compliance evidence, and vulnerability management.

Add PSPM when alert fatigue becomes unsustainable. When security teams spend most of their time on remediation coordination, when finding volumes grow faster than team capacity, when the same issues appear repeatedly - PSPM delivers immediate value by reducing what reaches production.

Plan for both from the start. PSPM and CNAPP together deliver outcomes neither achieves alone. Organizations that deploy both achieve better security at lower total cost. The question becomes not "Can we afford both?" but "Can we afford not to have both?"

The investment in PSPM pays for itself through reduced remediation costs, freed security capacity, and eliminated exposure windows. Organizations serious about cloud security maturity deploy both.