In my role as a sales and business development consultant, I come in contact with sales professionals and business executives across numerous industries. I understand the trends involved with the integration of physical security, IT infrastructure and cyber solutions. The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), perhaps more appropriately described as the “Integration of Things,” has created more visibility to the convergence model generally and cyber threats specifically. That said, I see a fundamental problem with sales organizations, outside of the cyber industry, with initiating a cyber discussion. This is the first step in aligning cyber threats in the context of overall business risk, and for providing the managed services and secure products that the industry increasingly requires.

This Cyber 101 Discussion is more of an informal conversation than a deep technical discussion. Cybersecurity is a confusing topic to many people and is at times assumed to be overly complex. In reality, it is a crime and espionage discussion with a rich history and interesting as a business case study. Put into this context, it is actually a compelling narrative and promotes a lively conversation that inevitably turns to the topic of operational risk and specific business issues.