Cybersecurity Services for Optiv Security

Optiv is the inverse of most companies on this list. There is no hardware business underneath it and no infrastructure practice to fall back on. Accuvant and FishNet Security merged in 2015 to create a pure-play security integrator, which means security is not a line Optiv is trying to add. It is the whole company.

That changes what a delivery partner is for. Optiv does not need someone to supply cybersecurity expertise it lacks, because expertise is the product. What a pure-play runs into instead is capacity, and specifically capacity at the wrong moment. Security work arrives in bursts driven by breaches, audit deadlines and regulatory dates that no one controls, and a bench sized for the average is by definition wrong during the peak. Turning work away is expensive when the relationship is the asset.

CWS operates as overflow rather than as the practice. Consultants who work to Optiv's methodology, brought in when demand spikes and stood down when it does not, so the bench does not have to be sized for the worst month of the year. For a firm whose reputation rests on saying yes to the urgent engagement, that flexibility is worth more than another capability.