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7 Reasons why Financial Services Companies Need to Archive Email with A Hosted Service

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Do you know the one word that will cause your financial services company a catastrophic disaster? “Just.” Often it’s used by IT managers suggesting, “Why don’t we just host our email on our own servers?”

It’s cost effective and makes sense right? Wrong.

Every CFO knows email communication is vital to their organization. Last month Home Depot suffered one of the largest email data breeches ever when 53 million email addresses were stolen from their systems.

Read the Wall Street Journal story. Hackers posing as HD vendors were able to bypass their onsite email servers accessing the database.

Security

Ask any financial services company about checks and balances. They’ll tell you it’s accounting 101 to separate your accounts receivables from your payables departments.

The same protection is a must for your archived email. Too many companies make the mistake of ignoring security safeguards protecting their email on a third party hosting provider.

The first benefit is obvious. Security. Imagine your in-house servers are hacked. While your IT team troubleshoots the gateway breech, your email is protected offsite. Hosting your email with an expert host provider ensures your data is safeguarded 24/7.

Litigation Protection

Financial services companies need to protect themselves from liability. Therefore, archiving all email offsite safeguards their communications for search and indexing. Don’t forget you’ll also be able to easily pull reports of user messages, attachments and timelines.

Regulatory Compliance

Financial compliance regulations require that all email communications must be safely stored in original form. Hosting your email locally puts your organization at risk if your servers suffer threat.

Disaster Recovery

We’ve all seen news reports of natural disasters. It’s no longer whether your community will suffer a tropical storm or power outage, it’s when.

Archived email hosting by an offsite third party provider gives you the ability to safeguard your email and maintain banking operations.

You’ll provide services to your customers virtually while your local branches await emergency services to deem your hometown safe and ready to open your doors for business again.

Auditability

Accessing your archived email communications for audits is a breeze when you use an email host. Due to litigation and compliance regulations, your organization must safeguard all email communications for up to seven years.

Storage Management

As your company grows, your email quotas will require more storage. We often see an increase of our client email data storage increase by as much as 25% per year. Plan on allocating at least 150-200 MB per user.

By archiving your email with an outsourced provider, you no longer need to invest capital in onsite servers.

Cost

Your onsite servers are best used for your users, core business products and services. The concept allocates your capital on profit generating revenues rather than expenses.

It’s far less expensive to archive your email communications with an offsite host taking advantage of their server space. It’s economical and as your storage quota grows, you’ll save thousands of dollars letting your provider invest in resources to service your needs.

 

CES 2015 Enterprise Technology Review

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CES2015

Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas unveiled some amazing new advances in technology. More than anything, we noticed a shift in technology with the underlying theme thin is in. Lightweight computers, handheld smart devices are now the standard for those companies looking to minimize their employee’s work stations.

But if consumer electronics aren’t part of your core business model, why should you care? It’s a good question and one we pondered ourselves in a companywide staff meeting. The insight we gleaned is that digital disruption (shifts in consumer technology patterns) is lurking at every corner to sway your customers toward your competition.

So what new products were unveiled at CES 2015 that can improve your SMB?

Virtual Access

Our IT techs love the HP DL380z virtual workstation. It’s becoming popular among companies that are migrating from traditional desktop environments to work from virtual spaces. But with a price tag of nearly $1400 per device, it may not be a wise investment if your company employs more than 50 employees.

A less-expensive alternative is to consider using an IT Cloud-based provider. Many CFOs now realize outsourcing their IT connectivity with Cloud technology empowers their users to access hardware and software without sizable capital expense.

One of the smartest reasons to convert to a Cloud-based environment is it allows you reduce your hardware and software expenses. But it’s not just about saving money. In fact, the data analytic available using Cloud resources allows your IT technicians to pinpoint work flow trends among your users.

Connectivity Is Key

Despite CES 2015 centered around consumer product launches, we feel that’s a cue for businesses of all sizes to consider. With new consumer trends shifting every week due to online community interaction, staying ahead of the curve is vital to growth.

One of the most memorable interviews at CES was with Samsung’s President of Enterprise Business Marketing, Ed Abrams. He commented about one of the biggest struggles many organizations suffer is how to implement new technology into actionable, customer-centric measures. Abrams suggests companies should develop a more clear digital strategy that benefits the customer experience interacting with their brands.

It’s no surprise Samsung’s enterprise solutions are catching the attention of CEOs. For example, they’ve committed to streamlining their healthcare and B2B divisions into mobile spaces. Granted, for some companies converting to mobile platforms may not be as easy if they’re not properly funded.

In Samsung’s case, they developed a five year plan to integrate these divisions over time. Doing so is a mission-critical step to building their technology infrastructure. Then adjust based on user demand.

 

5 Outside The Box ROI Tips On Outsourced IT

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Last week one of our clients, Margaret, called our support staff. “We’ve saved more than 43% on our IT expenses in the last six months thanks to your outsourced IT,” she told us. How?

Look at your IT department’s hardware and manpower expenses. These are two line-item costs most finance managers ignore as they’re mission-critical factors in your core business. In the last three decades, too many companies have given their IT department’s a pass on expense management. However, new trends in expense management are catching the attention of many CFOs.

Outsourced IT Tip #1

Smart CFOs are investing in virtual outsourcing.

We’ve helped many of them develop a plan to win over their IT department senior technicians to consider the concept. But don’t ignore the human element. Face it, you’ve invested years of time and capital building loyalty among your IT team. The minute you suggest you’re considering outsourced IT, they’ll worry about one thing: job security.

It’s a delicate process. One that requires your IT team to feel as if they’ll remain on the payroll despite your efforts to cost-control your technology. The benefit of virtual outsourcing is that it offers your staffers to be empowered in the process rather than feel like an expense. Ask them to get involved in the vetting process when interviewing prospective off-site contractors.

Outsourced IT Tip #2

Negotiate rather than place orders for new technology products.

Your IT people have years (perhaps decades) of expertise keeping your servers and softwares working. Guess what? They almost always lack the necessary negotiating skills when ordering from vendors.

Are you paying retail? If so, it’s time to give up merely placing orders online and think about negotiating better prices. Have your IT gurus meet with your senior management. Develop a plan to negotiate all future purchases with a projected 10-15% discount.

Outsourced IT Tip #3

Let professional IT services help.

Professional IT services can pinpoint areas in your technology that can be reduced by implementing their outsourced IT protocols. Most of the time they can relieve your IT headaches much faster and more cost-effectively than having your in-house IT resources to do it. Why? Considering the limitation of a usually small in-house IT department: will having one or two part-time IT personnel(s) solve the problems quicker and better than a large and dedicated team of professional IT services?

The only challenge here is how to choose a really good professional IT service vendor – check out this list to get some ideas: although it talks about evaluating in-house IT team, it works equally well for IT outsourcing qualifications.

Outsourced IT Tip #4

Evaluate whether or not your company can benefit from cloud computing. It’s no surprise your IT resources can be scaled by consolidating your storage. Many firms discover by converting their server needs to pay-as-you-go streamlines their initial out-of-pocket expenses.

Read our outsourced IT recommendations for cloud computing…

Some companies are shifting their outsourced IT needs to our Amazon Web Services platform. Since 2006, we’ve been leaders in the process helping organizations migrate their resources to AWS servers.

Outsourced IT Tip #5

Learn how companies have moved their outsourced IT into an AWS quick start package. We recommend a transitional migration. Doing so allows you to try before you buy into the concept of moving all of your IT needs in one fell swoop. If you need help analyzing your outsourced IT possibilities, contact us today.

5 IT Upgrade Tips Many CFOs Ponder

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As a managing partner here at ComputerSupport.com, my duties include consulting with our team about our own IT upgrade planning.

If you’re a CFO, I suspect you struggle answering one question: is a technology upgrade needed for your company? ROI servicing your hardware, software and server demands is the only contributing to your final decision. However, there’s also another issue which is often overlooked called future-proofing your capacity.

IT Upgrade Tip #1

Meet with your managers at least twice a year to future-proof your technology needs for the next two years. Having worked with many companies, we understand the challenges CFOs experience weighing technology needs with financial conservatism.

Recently I sat with my CFO and IT department managers in our conference room. Our meeting was to analyze our own IT upgrade requirements and whether a capital investment would offer a strong ROI. We assess our future technology needs at least twice a year to future-proof our own resources. It’s a difficult subject as our finance officers always evaluate ROI as they should. However, our technicians and programmers focus on our company’s IT performance and more importantly, our clients. The concerns our IT team had were to improve our:

  • Hardware aging (desktops and laptops).
  • Outdated server components.
  • Software and bandwidth speed.
  • Off-site database back-up storage.
  • Cyber security threat protection.

Learn what we recommend to our clients…

IT Upgrade Tip #2

Evaluate your data loss prevention. No company can survive losing up to 75% of their data.

A December 1, 2014 article featured on Entrepeneur.com by technology writer, Keith Tanaka, brings another mission-critical topic to light: data loss recovery planning.

Tanaka reports a recent research study of IT professionals. The findings revealed nearly 45% admitted their companies suffered data loss in the last year requiring up to $9000 in recovery fees.

Read more how to calculate your IT upgrade costs…

IT Upgrade Tip #3

Look at the research how companies have experienced outsourcing their IT. Thousands of companies like the idea outsourcing their IT. However, many CFOs worry about service quality.

The decision to migrate your IT upgrade needs to a third-party provider is a difficult one. About once per year, we survey our clients. Specifically we ask CFOs about their IT upgrade expenses since working with our company. They report the following:

  • 98% reported no service quality issues.
  • More than half cut IT upgrade expenses by 54%.
  • 72% admitted their technology department expenses dropped by more than 35%.
  • 86% of CFOs surveyed reported zero transitional problems moving their technology support to our team.

IT Upgrade Tip #4

Evaluate your in-house IT expertise. Many of our clients confess they had no genuine method how to review their IT department’s technical skills.

Most CFOs leave hiring to middle managers and human resources. But the problem is these people do not have the necessary background to pinpoint skill sets needed to oversee their technology needs.

IT Upgrade Tip #5

Smart CFOs invest time evaluating their IT issue avoidance history. We recommend you discover the answers to the following questions:

  • Are problems solved or fixed? There’s a difference between fixing bugs and solving technical problems. The more often you rely on quick fixes the more you will pay in future IT overhaul expenses.
  • Do your current systems get upgraded every month? The problem we see with many companies is their IT technicians are overworked fixing daily problems.
  • What are your annual IT line-item expenses? Are they growing every year? If so, you’re probably overpaying for your IT upgrade needs.

What’s next? Contact us for a free review of your current IT upgrade needs.

CFOs and CIOs can keep up with Business’ growth with Cloud Computing, discovers Deloitte report

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The latest issue of CFO Insights from Deloitte investigates the role of cloud computing and focuses on the benefits and decision-making concerns offered by transitioning to this new technology environment.The assessment from Deloitte’s report addresses technology decision-makers, notably the CIOs and CFOs, who will soon need to face the reality that they need to transition their organization’s computing technology, it services, and data to “the cloud”. As cloud computing technology attains wider usage, more businesses will soon have to deal with the decision to shift from an on-premises technology setting to a cloud based one.The idea of cloud computing has prevailed for a long time. The basic premise behind it is that the business can outsource daily management of resources on a need-only basis, identical to buying utility services, such as water and power. However, one crucial factor is that the cloud computing resources are delivered over the Internet.

The Deloitte report underlines the need to have a productive working relationship between the CFO and CIO. The decision to embrace cloud computing is broader in scope than just the information technology department. The CFO can strategize cloud computing to execute financial objectives, and at the same time create a risk intelligent culture. The CIO can increase the visibility of the technology department as an esteemed part of the organization.

Cloud resources can broadly be classified into these four categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Most individuals assume SaaS to be the only cloud computing resource, which involves the administering of software applications on demand. The software applications can range from email, backup and file storage solutions to customer relationship management (CRM) and financial applications.

However, there are other use cases for cloud computing. For example, PaaS is used a software development platform to develop new applications, whereas IaaS is used an on-demand hardware resource platform.

The Deloitte report advocates the introspection of relative costs and benefits of different cloud resources before taking the decision. Most organizations reserve the use of cloud computing to low-risk projects, or tasks ideally unsuitable for on-premises technology.

The most cited benefit by various CFOs and CIOs in their interviews is the flexibility that cloud computing offers; it can scale and react to technology changes very quickly. Significant reduction in infrastructure costs and IT support staff requirements are also a few of the other benefits cited.

However, the CFOs and CIOs also raised a few concerns in their interviews regarding the safety and reliability of using cloud computing. Is the data safe? Where is it stored? Is the data backed up? What should a business do when it needs to shift from one cloud technology provider to another? These are all the questions that are asked frequently an organization before embracing cloud computing.

Nevertheless, the CFOs and CIOs also reported that cloud vendors are more likely to provide higher levels of performance and better security. The vendors have to perform as their business depends on it; if they fail to provide a good service, then they will lose all their clients and reputability.

The report recommends the business to assess its technology needs in the context of its purpose and needs. As the business changes and evolves, the technology also needs to keep up with it. By evaluating the business’ administrative concerns and how the availability of cloud technology will influence the organization, the CFOs and CIOs can make sure that their business transits fluently into a cloud computing environment.

If you’re interested in learning how ComputerSupport.com can help your business save money by utilizing cloud services, be sure to reference our cloud computing consulting services.