Interviews are inherently challenging and stressful for candidates, and everyone makes mistakes during an interview. Avoiding these seven common mistakes does not guarantee that a candidate will not advance to the second interview at a consulting firm; however, candidates who commit multiple of these (particularly concurrently) won’t be asked back.
Our fifteen-year legacy of organizations implementing the relevant regulatory standards and still suffering cyber security breaches has led forward-thinking organizations to focus on risk management rather than compliance for compliance’s sake.
This article will examine the costs and budgetary considerations for a new bad actor, lacking global resources, to set up a single privileged identity theft campaign to be able to launch insider attacks. The costs shown will assume corporate targets in the greater Seattle metropolitan area. This article will also briefly examine countermeasures.
The good news is that it is still possible to become an evil villain for an initial investment of under $1,500 USD, despite rising labor costs.
However, the biggest utility for my Pebble was two-factor authentication from my bank. My bank has had a somewhat tortured Consumer Identity and Access Management rollout over the years. They initially had single-factor authentication – a username and password. They briefly flirted with pictures, until they realized the Internet has an insatiable love of cats. They then deployed Knowledge-Based Authentication, safe in the knowledge that no-one would post their first spouse’s name, the name of their elementary school, and their favorite band on Facebook. Thus, they reluctantly deployed SMS-based two-factor authentication.
Password reuse by individuals is one of the great failings of IAM programs. The fundamental assumption of a successful IAM project is that an organization can correctly identify an individual user. Although this sounds like a low bar, many organizations are failing to clear it because of password breaches happening outside of the corporate firewall.
Attitudes towards remote professional services engagements have changed as technologies have improved to encompass screen sharing, audio, and video. However, there is a persistent myth from the Marissa Mayer school of management theory that work can only happen when people are physically together. This article explores where many common types of professional services can be delivered.
Since our initial deployment of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for variable compensation at my Professional Services Organization (PSO) two years ago, there are five lessons learned that are broadly applicable for other PSOs that are considering adding NPS to the mix. We chose to deploy NPS because consultants can strongly influence the outcome and benefit from the results. NPS measures whether or not your consultants are creating advocates or adversaries for your brand, which is critical to landing add-on sales at existing clients as well as new customers.
A manager or purchasing person is far less likely to sign a contract if they believe the work is unlikely to be delivered. Especially if they need to put up half the estimated cost of the project at the start.
Like sailors who can feel a storm brewing on a calm day, most consultants can sense a train wreck pending in an ITIL change control meeting. This article discusses a proactive communications best practice for avoiding or reducing the odds of contentious meetings after the fact.
On June 8th and 9th, 2016 I hosted two webinars about estimation at Professional Services Firms. My favorite question from a viewer was, “how do you organize your data for Monte Carlo simulations of duration?”
A significant portion of new business for small professional services firms comes through referrals. How many times have you as an individual consultant or professional services manager let an email sit in your inbox for a day or two, from a frustrated client? Alternatively, chose to let their phone call ring through to voicemail rather than answering? Or they gave up in a convoluted IVR system that your operations manager recommended as a 'cost savings measure'? Moreover, what is the reputational risk to your business when that disaffected client becomes a 'Detractor' on the Net Promoter Score spectrum?
This was one of my favorite questions from a viewer during my April webinars about scheduling professional services projects. I shared a very simple skill and resource availability matrix with the attendees, which is what prompted the question.
Here's how to make sure you're not pranking your CFO on April Fool's Day. You can reliably forecast your consulting revenue for the coming quarter by following these easy steps.
If you want to open a new professional services business, you'll need to know about the quote to cash process, scheduling an engagement, creating and negotiating a Statement of Work, creating reliable estimates, strategic portfolio management, how to manage and motivate consultants, and how to report and influence Key Performance Indicators for the health of your business.
