Even if they put it near the top, it's still going to be reduced in effectiveness by the actual needs and goals of the organization. Any company that has a VPN and remote employees is objectively and inherently weaker from a cyber security standpoint than an otherwise equally equipped company with no external access to the network. But they do that because remote employee access means they can do their actual business better. Any company that uses networked computers in objectively and inherently weaker from a cyber security standpoint than one which requires physically moving data from one machine to another by way of personal handoffs between employees at the same physical location, but they do that because it means they can do their actual business better.

It does not matter if cyber security is at the top or the bottom of your budget list, if the choice is ever "better cyber security" or "do more business", cyber security is always going to lose that battle. You will never convince a company to use E2E encrypted email for all communications with all customers and vendors, no matter how high on the budget list cyber security is, because doing so would actively hinder the day to day operations of the business.