ENGAGEMENT
A global chip manufacturing and technology organization found itself at a critical crossroads with its cybersecurity operations. The company’s Cyber Defense Operations team responsible for monitoring, responding to, and mitigating cyber threats—had been fully outsourced to a managed security service provider (MSSP). While outsourcing initially appeared to be a cost-effective and scalable solution, the organization began experiencing a steady decline in service quality and effectiveness.
PROBLEM
Multiple issues emerged under the MSSP’s stewardship. One of the most pressing problems was a market skills gap. The MSSP struggled to keep pace with rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats and modern technologies. This led to stagnation in service capabilities, particularly in areas such as automation, threat intelligence integration, and response agility. Compounding the issue was a significant lack of knowledge sharing. The MSSP did not foster an effective transfer of institutional knowledge, leaving the internal Cyber Defense team ill-equipped to manage or even understand the full scope of operations. The organization saw a number of alarming metrics including a 45% increase in the true-positive rate of alerts since onboarding the vendor, a full 40 hours of additional effort per week spent meeting with or resolving issues on behalf of the vendor than were expected in the contract, and finally a 20% rate of missed Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) SLAs.
Service degradation was evident to internal stakeholders and external customers alike. Escalation paths were unclear, and incident resolution timelines lagged behind industry expectations. Key metrics pointed to a lack of proper task administration and ownership, with critical alerts and vulnerabilities left unaddressed or handled inefficiently. Strategic decision-making suffered due to poor visibility into threat landscapes and incident histories.
The contract with the MSSP was nearing expiration, forcing the organization to quickly consider a new operational model. The internal Cybersecurity leadership recognized the need not only to terminate the existing contract but also to chart a path forward that would enhance capabilities, reduce risk, and regain operational control; however, they lacked a coherent transition strategy, including a sourcing plan, budget justification, staffing approach and roadmap for modernization.
SOLUTION
To support this complex transition, the organization engaged DayBlink Consulting to help design and implement a strategic pivot away from the current MSSP model. DayBlink Consulting began the engagement by conducting a comprehensive current-state assessment, which revealed over 30 critical pain points and capability gaps. These issues were either directly tied to the MSSP or exacerbated by the organization’s reliance on the vendor and were identified across not only the defense organization, but also the additional technology and support teams throughout security.
With a solid understanding of the operational landscape, DayBlink worked closely with the Cyber Defense team to define a new sourcing strategy. The approach emphasized the repatriation of core strategic cybersecurity services—such as threat hunting, incident response, and detection engineering. Recognizing that not all services required the same level of in-house expertise, DayBlink recommended retaining commoditized or low-security services, like Level 1 alert triage and certain monitoring tasks, though with new more specialized vendors.
To mitigate the risks associated with relying on a single provider, DayBlink introduced a multi-vendor sourcing model. This approach reduced single-source dependency, encouraged competitive pricing, and allowed for
specialized vendors to be selected based on unique capabilities aligned with the organization’s specific needs.
These sourcing decisions manifested in the deployment of a Target Operating Model (TOM) that redefined how the Cyber Defense Operations team would function post-transition. The TOM focused on resourcing strategic core functions internally while ensuring cost efficiency by outsourcing lower-tier activities. We created a detailed resource hiring plan was created, outlining roles, skill sets, and timing to fill approximately 15 new positions necessary for the revamped in-house operations.
To support executive-level planning and budgeting, DayBlink produced a three-year cost model. This model demonstrated the financial implications of the transition and supported the case for an additional $2 million in budget allocation. The analysis factored in costs associated with hiring, new tooling requirements, vendor contracting, and capability enhancements. It provided a defensible forecast of how the investments would increase maturity and reduce long-term operational risk.
Another critical output of the engagement was a six-month MSSP turndown and service transition plan. DayBlink mapped out a phased exit strategy that included knowledge transfer protocols, system access revocation, shadowing procedures, and checkpoints for validating internal team readiness.
The transition plan was designed to ensure zero disruption in service continuity while empowering the internal team with increasing control at each milestone – it was composed of four key phases:
- De-Risk the Vendor: hire resources immediately to support the incumbent vendor team in areas that are currently identified as critical risks for support to avoid potential incidents or issues.
- Uplift to Remove the Vendor: repatriate all target state services from the MSSP, mature capabilities through professional services including planning and beginning automation & integration activities.
- Transition from the Incumbent Vendor to the Target Operating Model: implement Target Operating Model, align roles & responsibilities to target operating model, complete knowledge transfer from the MSSP and roll off.
- Mature Capabilities and Run the Operating Model Steady-State: mature work management practices, continue automation and integration efforts, hire non-critical resources, align to support teams, and increase the overall maturity of the organization.
Finally, to anchor the transition in strategic improvement, DayBlink Consulting synthesized the identified pain points into seven thematic transformation activities. Each theme—ranging from automation and tooling upgrades to knowledge management and vendor governance—was supported by a concrete action plan. These initiatives were designed to modernize the security organization, positioning it to be more agile, responsive, and resilient in the face of future threats.
RESULT
The engagement resulted in a clear, actionable path forward for the cybersecurity team and a tangible improvement in operational strategy. With DayBlink Consulting’s guidance, the client now had a comprehensive roadmap to exit the legacy MSSP relationship and regain ownership of its cyber defense functions.
The new Target Operating Model enabled the organization to differentiate between strategic and commoditized work allowing for smarter resource allocation. By focusing internal talent on high .
impact areas and using specialized vendors for basic tasks, the team was better positioned to scale its capabilities efficiently and cost-effectively.
The three-year cost model provided leadership with a strong financial narrative that justified the $2 million increase in defense operations budget. This budget enabled the hiring of critical cybersecurity roles, the onboarding of new vendors, and the procurement of advanced tools that would have been out of reach under the previous MSSP arrangement.
Download here: Cyber Sourcing Strategy & Operating Model Design