We’re concentrating on two closely conjoining areas this month, with June’s news round-up focusing on measuring the ROI of the cloud and the ever-increasing importance of security.
The cloud: innovation and return on investment
In her article for Smart Data Collective, Annie Bustos discusses the innovation from the cloud and the positive impact it can have on businesses. Reciting a Forbes Insights study, she reveals that 93% of leaders agree that cloud based collaboration tools do spur innovation. Innovation that can occur from the cloud includes adaptability, with Annie noting how companies can make significant changes quickly, without making large capital investments. She also mentions connectivity and how cloud based services can drive companies to collaborate with both customers and partners, resulting in opportunities for innovation. The article concludes by mentioning how cloud based services and infrastructure can allow for innovation to be more cost effective, impactful, and quickly implemented.
David Spark's article on CIO.com, presents us with the 20 ways to measure the success of your growing cloud investment. David speaks to a large number of experts, each being asked how they measure the value that the cloud brings to their business. The responses are fairly varied and very informative. Comparing costs, measuring revenue impact and surveying user satisfaction are some of the first points mentioned. Further down the list is a reminder to make sure that the cloud is fostering your own company innovation. What might work well for one organisation may not work as well for yours, and it’s important to frequently measure the success of your cloud investment and continually search for improvements.
Consumer tools in the enterprise
Another post on CIO.com, written by Matt Kapko, discusses how Google is slowly infiltrating enterprise and education. Matt outlines how Google’s suite of apps for work and education are helping organisations cut costs, while improving productivity, communication and collaboration across teams. Inevitability, traditional consumer tools are now infiltrating the work enterprise, such as Google’s Gmail. If an employee feels they are able to perform to a higher standard if using a tool, such as Gmail, that they also use personally, a company may want to encourage such thinking. A business should, however, be aware and prepared for the potential security risks that come with allowing pure consumer tools into the enterprise.
Security in the cloud
MSPmentor features an article, written by Michael Brown, on how it’s time to embrace cloud Security as a Service. Michael speaks of organisations and their occasional hesitance to embrace the cloud due to a perceived lack of security. This, therefore, puts the onus on cloud service providers to reassure companies of the security that comes with cloud-based file sharing, and that their service can keep companies’ sensitive data secure. Earl Perkins, an analyst at the Gartner IAM Summit 2015 in London, discusses the need to move beyond just IT security, and instead capturing the concept of a total cyber security package. This would include physical, operational and device security, with application security topping the list of priorities for companies.
Finishing off on a subject that should continually be on our minds, Nate Lord discusses security; specifically, bring your own device (BYOD) security. Writing for Digital Guardian, Nate examines BYOD security and expert tips on policy, mitigating risks, and preventing a breach. He states that despite the security risks that BYOD poses to an IT environment, the trend of bringing your own device to the workplace is continuing to grow. Employee satisfaction and increased productivity are some of the main reasons for companies being so accepting of BYOD, with 43% of employees apparently connecting their work emails to their smartphones.
For advice on keeping company data secure with BYOD in action, Nate speaks with 30 data security experts. Some of the expert advice includes encrypting data so you are prepared for a breach, making sure to have strong passwords, and having a well-defined email security policy. Perhaps the stand out piece of advice, from SecureHIM partner Mike Meikle, is whatever solution the enterprise implements for data security, it should follow the security principles of confidentiality, integrity and availability.
What are your thoughts on BYOD in the workplace? And if your company supports it, is your company’s data secure?
