Data integrity and corporate governance ‘critical’ to business

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

Small to medium sized firms which do not have the time, capital, or know how to invest in expensive technologies, are turning to cloud based services to empower them to tackle their business challenges and remain competitive.

The struggle is not over for SMEs that have managed to survive the economic downturn. They continue to wrestle with ever-growing issues, from increasing costs, to complying with a rising number of regulatory pressures. Yet because of their size, many small firms do not reap the same scalability benefits as larger corporations. With GDP growth less than robust at 0.2 per cent and persistently high unemployment figures plaguing the UK economy, the continued survival and growth of small to medium sized enterprises is more critical than ever.

This week, 12,000 information security professionals met in London for Europe’s number one security information event Infosecurity, to discuss the latest advancements and threats in security. Like their corporate rivals, small and growing firms are increasingly supporting a mobile workforce across multiple locations. Most of them have a growing need to safeguard sensitive hard and soft copy information and protect themselves against potential breaches of confidentiality. Industry experts flagged data integrity as ‘critical’ to business success.

In addition to security threats, corporate governance is of the utmost importance to companies operating across a variety of sectors, almost all of them under intense national and international regulatory scrutiny. With a growing array of complicated regulations to adhere to, from Sarbanes-Oxley, to ISO 9000 and Basel II, many professional service organisations as well as businesses across many other sectors do not have the time or the inclination to think about data migrations and upgrades.

Tim Wallis, CEO of Content and Code says: “Microsoft’s cloud computing offering, Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS), is a hassle-free and secure approach to managing IT for companies, allowing them to focus on growing their core businesses. It is not about spending large sums of money on ‘new’ technologies; it is about capitalising on what they already have. BPOS brings together enterprise email, calendaring, team and project sites, instant messaging and web conferencing to create a more productive workplace and deliver cost-savings from day one.”

Tim Wallis adds: “The businesses we are supporting with BPOS are reporting greater levels of efficiencies, savings and increased productivity – these are all major contributing factors which are helping them to survive and grow in challenging economic conditions.”

BPOS brings together familiar Microsoft products with added benefits; Exchange Online benefits including improved email security, while SharePoint Online allows businesses to create specific team and project sites, facilitating internal and external collaboration with third parties via a simple web based interface, thereby increasing security. Meanwhile, Office Live Meeting’s desktop and application sharing features allow users to work together as if they were in the same room, and video chat can be setup in less than one minute.

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