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Posted 2 décembre 2019

To ensure their success, organizations must increasingly integrate both new “nomadic” ways of working and the growing challenges of internal and external collaboration. In 2019, 83% of employees express the need to collaborate (work in a team, encourage exchanges and mobility)[1] to intrinsically improve their productivity. To do this, they rely on new collaborative tools often designed for personal use. By doing so, the risk of data leak is significant.

However, within agile companies increasingly opening their ecosystems, it is now impossible to do without collaboration tools, such as those widely adopted by consumers. Social networks, instant messaging, videoconferencing, chat… are now an integral part of a working environment. As a result,on a daily basis, 58% of employees are in favor of using collaborative solutions at work[2]. Their main assets? They improve responsiveness and communications, and thus increase productivity.

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Cyber-attacks are on the rise

With users turning to their own personal unsecure tools for professional purposes, hackers are turning their attention as well to these communication tools. An increase in cyber-attacks expose users daily and make it difficult to manage cyber-security: theft or loss of mobile phones, man-in-the-middle attacks and connections to unsecure public Wifi networks, ransomware by email, phishing or smishing…

 

Security by design: The answer to productivity and security expectations

How can we improve employee productivity without sacrificing data security? By choosing solutions that reflect consumer uses expected by users, easily deployable at scale within an organization, and developed with “security by design” in mind, placing security at the heart of product design, and validated by recognized third-party organizations. Security must therefore focus on user experience. Tools and software must be functional enough from the design stage to easily integrate into user workflows.

 

Conclusion

To ensure the highest level of security for your business data, the solutions you choose should include three essential features:

  • End-to-end encryption for data exchanged (between sender and recipient devices), as a completely transparent process for users,
  • Users must keep control over their data. Your administrator or hosting provider may be breached, so they should not have access to data encryption keys exchanged between users,
  • Solutions must be accessible anytime, anywhere, and on any device, and cover all modes of communication –instant messaging, video, voice, conference, files… – for faster appropriation by users.

 

If these three conditions are met, then cybersecurity will not be an obstacle to your employees’ productivity. On the contrary, it will become its foundation.

 

[1] Ipsos 2019

[2] Scholè Marketing Study, October 2017 – https://www.docaufutur.fr/2017/10/24/schole-marketing-revele-dernieres-evolutions-matiere-de-communications-unifiees-entreprise/

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