Lessons from F1’s Cost Cap Applied to Cybersecurity

Formula 1 teams operate under strict budget constraints designed to level the competitive field and compel teams to innovate in order to achieve maximum performance from a limited set of resources. For sports fans this might seem to be unnatural interference in innovation, but cybersecurity teams face the same constraints (increasingly complex environments and challenges, with finite budgets), so it is a great analogy to work to in this year’s F1 season opener blog post (see previous year’s here, here and here).

F1 teams approach budget limitations by not viewing engineering challenges in isolation. Not only must every component create maximum impact, but it also needs to avoid creating debt elsewhere in the car. A great example of this kind of integrated thinking in F1 actually comes from 2009, long before the spending cap was mandated, when the Brawn GP team won both drivers’ and constructors’ championships with significantly fewer resources than their competition. The Brawn car featured an innovative double diffuser design which integrated multiple aerodynamic functions into a simplified, cohesive design. This integrated innovation gained the team a decisive competitive advantage on track. 

For a long time, organisations have relied upon point solutions that promise to bring advantages to point problems. A hyper-focus on each micro-problem, however, has left the door wide open for debt to build up elsewhere in the stack. That debt might be financial (literally paying twice when an integrated approach would require fewer vendors), or it might be performance related (for instance, where user experience is hit hard by poorly engineered security architectures). Security service edge (SSE) and secure access service edge (SASE) are the network security industry’s own double diffuser, and just as we saw out on track in 2009, a cohesive, consolidated, unified security architecture brings compound benefits. These benefits include:

Operational efficiency

Just as an F1 team simplifies car setup profiles for speed vs reliability, cybersecurity consolidation streamlines management, and reduces overhead by standardising policies and controls. With fewer tools and dashboards to manage, teams can focus more on strategic objectives. In fact, Forrester recently concluded that organisations using Netskope SSE achieved a 30% increase in network and security operations effectiveness. 

Improved reliability

Imagine what Gene Haas would say if you offered to get his cars over the finish line in 15% more races. Fundamentally, it’s unacceptable for security solutions to cause downtime for teams who are trying to be productive. Forrester’s researchers found that with SSE, organisations were able to solve problems in under half the time, with a 60% reduction in mean-time-to-resolution and a 15% reduction in unplanned downtime.

Cost reduction

Consolidation eliminates redundancy in exactly the same way that F1 teams remove unnecessary spending under annual budget caps. Managing simplified OpEx costs for what you use now vs. what you use over multiple 3-5 year hardware refresh cycles is a positive approach. Other cost reductions can be found in licensing fees, training costs and a decreased need for specialised personnel to maintain multiple solutions. Again, Forrester proved the scale of advantage that can be found here when it concluded that payback on an SSE outlay occurred within just six months… and over three years organisations claimed back more than the same amount again (109% ROI in three years). 

Improved agility

F1 teams adapt strategies to fit changing race conditions, and consolidated cybersecurity solutions provide similar agility including improved response times to threats and more efficient management of policy updates. As just one example, patching is often a slow and manual process for security teams. Forrester’s researchers found a massive speed advantage for patch management with SSE, with patching SLAs going from weeks  to “effectively on-demand.” SSE turns your team into the McLaren 2023 Qatar pit crew (who changed 4 tyres in 1.80 seconds!)

Enhanced visibility and control 

F1 teams rely on precise telemetry and data analysis to fine-tune performance; similarly, consolidating cybersecurity and network solutions increases visibility into security posture across the organisation. A central view improves decision making and allows for the definition of proactive security strategies. 

“Prior to Netskope, we were seeing a lot of SaaS application usage. We did not have visibility into that usage, and without visibility, we didn’t know what we needed to protect or where the risk was.” 

Head of Security Engineering, Hospitality Industry.

Reduced risk 

Reducing risk is a constant and critical goal of F1, where risk to life and limb is always in balance to performance (we talked about this back in our blog of 2022). A simplified and consolidated security stack reduces risk by closing gaps and limiting the attack surface, lowering the risk of misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. Forrester researchers determined that organisations using Netskope SSE achieved an 80% reduction in the risk of a severe breach caused by an external attack, compared to their legacy approach.

Resource optimisation 

Just as the spending cap in F1 requires teams to make careful decisions about where they allocate their limited resources, so security teams need to do the same with their annual budgets. In both cases, leaders are looking to gain the maximum advantage, cutting waste and ensuring their teams are focusing on the things that will bring the most important gains.  

“We’ve saved revenue by being able to implement the data loss prevention that [our customers] required. We are well into the black [with our Netskope investment]. Now, we are actually earning money in years two, three and four of our deal and only paying a fraction of the actual cost in year one.” 

Senior Enterprise Architecture Manager in the advertising industry

By adopting a cost cap mentality (and channeling their inner Wolff or Horner) technology leaders can achieve a more secure, resilient and cost effective cybersecurity programme that focuses on enhancing performance and efficiency whilst maximising the value of the investment. As the Brawn GP team discovered, superior results can be found in joined-up innovation and strategic architectural thinking, rather than by throwing money at problems, or viewing each challenge in isolation. 

For more about how Netskope SSE can unlock cost savings and business growth, read the Netskope SSE Total Economic Impact (TEI) study.