"No one has all of the story we want," Durso adds. "You´realways ending up with some kind of trade-off."

As Durso now realizes, outsourcing security is not buyingyour way out of work but rather buying your way intoexpertise and then managing it. But expertise is still thething. She´ll sacrifice only as much of it as is necessary inorder to find a company that won´t go out of business andforget to tell her.

Playing It Safe

ABOUT THE SAME TIME DURSO SHOOK hands on her discount, theCIO at a major health-care organization on the West Coastcalled a meeting with a Pilot executive. This CIO, who askednot to be named because he believes it would paint a targeton his network, had been an early sign-on for Pilot.

About 10 months ago, he watched his service lag and Pilot´sstock swoon at the same time. It gave him pause, so he set upa "frank discussion" with a high-level Pilot executive. Atthe meeting, the CIO challenged the executive on servicelevels and asked direct questions about the health of Pilot´sbusiness and its capability to support him. The Pilotexecutive answered each question, and the CIO was reassured.