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The story of the CFO and CEO...

Published: 2017-05-06. Last Updated: 2017-05-06 06:50:44 UTC
by Xavier Mertens (Version: 1)
4 comment(s)

I read an interesting article in a Belgian IT magazine[1]. Every year, they organise a big survey to collect feelings from people working in the IT field (not only security). It is very broad and covers their salary, work environments, expectations, etc. For infosec people, one of the key points was that people wanted to attend more trainings and conferences. The salary is not the key element. When I was visiting the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam a few weeks ago, there were flyers distributed to participate in an online survey about trainings & infosec[2].

When I twitted[3] about the Belgian article, the author of this survey contacted me and told me that the results of his survey demonstrated that 76% of participants are ready to search for a new position if they aren’t allowed to attend (enough) security conferences! This reminds me the joke of the CFO speaking to the CEO:

CFO: What happens if we train them and leave?
CEO: What happens if we don't and they stay? 

We are working in a field where things are changing at light speed. We must attend trainings, we must meet peers and share our experience! Have a nice weekend!

[1] http://www.datanews.be
[2] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfnkJ_tqKyWWgNXG-PMXdWvigKR5j77bfN0mGOTxmj-RjORIw/viewform?c=0&w=1
[3] https://twitter.com/xme/status/856577692975628289

Xavier Mertens (@xme)
ISC Handler - Freelance Security Consultant
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4 comment(s)
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CFO: What happens if we train them and leave?
CEO: What happens if we don't and they stay?

CFO: Good thought. Let's just outsource them. We'll cut training expenditures because that's on the outsourcer. We'll cut headcount and we'll cut benefits costs. We won't be paying for people not working because they're on vacation or claiming to be sick. And you will love this part, we can cut people from HR because we won't have so much headcount! Win-win!

CEO: While our people costs will go down and the skill pool will go up, we will be paying more in consulting costs than we would for having the employees. But if we manage staffing correctly, the direct costs could be break-even and we'll have just-in-time staffing available rather than just-in-case staffing levels. And no more bad press when we do layoffs because we won't have any. We'll promote it as cost containment in this era of rising costs. Win-win-win!

CEO: By the way, just how many people do you have working in Finance and Accounting anyway?

CFO: Ummmm...
When I worked in aviation, one of the jet engine manufacturers (Garrett AiResearch?) had a nice graphic at the beginning of all of their training manuals. It was a caricature of a mechanic: A smiling guy wearing baggy coveralls, a mechanic's hat, a wrench in one hand, a rag hanging out of their back pocket and holding an old-fashioned oil can. The caption was:

"If you think training is expensive, try ignorance."
[quote=comment#39488]When I worked in aviation, one of the jet engine manufacturers (Garrett AiResearch?) had a nice graphic at the beginning of all of their training manuals. It was a caricature of a mechanic: A smiling guy wearing baggy coveralls, a mechanic's hat, a wrench in one hand, a rag hanging out of their back pocket and holding an old-fashioned oil can. The caption was:

"If you think training is expensive, try ignorance."[/quote]

Our motto while having Garrett as a customer.. you think computer maint (mainframe) is expensive, wait until it crashes.
A problem with many companies is that they have failed to realize that they are now a IT technology company who simply makes their money currently by doing _______. Their management who came up through the ranks still thinks they are a ________ company who just uses IT technology to get some things done. The world and their business model changed without them noticing.

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