Managed IT Services Archives - Page 6 of 18

Doctor Who Regeneration for Digital Transformation

by Brad Feakes | Apr 18, 2022 | Cloud, ERP, ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation, Managed IT Services, Software

Regeneration as a Metaphor for Digital Transformation

As a Canadian living in the American diaspora, I’ve had fun, at times, playing with my adopted country’s misconceptions of my homeland. I once convinced a room full of Texans that I had a pet wolf back home, à la Jon Snow, and that I culled dinner from the nearby caribou herds with a hand spear. Easy pickings, they were — the Texans, not the caribou.

But as a Canadian, I’ve also fielded my share of awkward questions, most often in relation to my country of origin and its relationship with its ancestral United Kingdom. To summarize: no — we don’t send tax dollars to the queen anymore. And no — I couldn’t give a rip about Harry and Meghan. But when it comes to contextualizing Canada’s relationship with the UK, I often find myself quoting Robert Frost, who was himself quoting an Englishman, when he said, “Canada ripened off the tree — you fell off green!”

Digital Transformation ERP System Upgrades

Not to get too mired in post-modern discussions on post-colonialism, I will admit that I’ve long held onto my commonwealth membership card over the years, pulling it out whenever it was useful. One such case was the matter of Doctor Who. As part of my cultural inheritance, I was rather fond of that man of manners and madness. As a child, I remember wanting a characteristic Doctor Who scarf for my birthday almost as much as that red Michael Jackson leather jacket that was also popular at the time — the one with all the zippers… ah… the 80s…

ERP System Time Travelers

So when I heard that the latest rendition of the “The Doctor” was on the precipice of a regeneration into a new incarnation, it seemed fitting that my mind would wander into the dimension of digital transformation, and pluck a few parallels where they hung out in front of me. For all you time-travelers out there, the EstesGroup has helped countless companies over the years transition ERP systems that were 40+ years old — systems that go back to the Tom Baker era, if anyone is keeping track. For such companies, the shift from a character-based system to a contemporary ERP is enough to tear a hole in a company’s fabric of time. But what does that mean for a company facing such a change?

System Regeneration

Digital transformation is like a regeneration in the Doctor Who series. ERP systems are a new incarnation of the Doctor — they come into being, replacing their predecessors. They go on adventures, solve problems, and take their companion companies to unexpected places. And in so doing, they amass monumental amounts of experience and ingenuity, and ultimately encapsulate the worldview of the time in their rows and their columns.

The worldviews themselves amount to the business requirements of the organization, as they relate to the system in question. Worldviews are not fixed in time, and evolve gradually, as the system is further modified, fine tuned, reconfigured, and integrated with other systems. While this worldview continually changes, the changes are rarely as abrupt as a new body fitting an old suit.

A migration to a new ERP system, on the other hand, amounts to a much more radical shift in worldviews. The challenges really have to do with the wisdom and knowledge that is bundled up inside the legacy system, and with finding a way to translate that information into the new ERP system without compromising the integrity of the new system.

Don’t blink — it’s no easy task. In this context, the question you must ask yourself relates to how you approach a regeneration, knowing that it must happen. This might be a good time to lean on the good Doctor for assistance. Fortunately, there are several of them from which to choose:

You might approach the needed changes in the spirit of the Tenth Doctor and simply exclaim “I don’t want to go!” That is, you can fight the new system and cling to the old, as it slips away, like breath on a mirror.

Or you might approach an impending regeneration in the spirit of the Eleventh Doctor, understanding that “times change and so must I.” That is, you can get ahead of the transition and maximize the time you have, to remember as much of the legacy system as possible, such that it is not forgotten in the new system.

The truth is, regardless of your reaction, some form of digital transformation is inevitable. Any moment now, he’s a’ comin’.

I’ve had many customers migrate simply because the current state was no longer tenable: ancient hardware, out-of-date operating systems, applications lacking the faculties to keep up with the current needs of the business, much less lead them into the future.

I‘ve also seen customers delay a regeneration until the 11th hour, or a minute before midnight, and have thus dragged into a transformation without preparation. When it comes to transformation, preparation is key. Good preparation allows you to understand the business requirements that underly your legacy system. This gives you a better chance of incorporating your requirements into your new system, without trying to forcibly alter the new system to mirror the old.

In working with system implementations, one comes to understand that over the course of a company’s existence, systems change. And that’s ok, that’s good. You’ve got to keep moving, so long as your system remembers all the systems that it used to be.

We all wish that our digital transformations would have an orchestral accompaniment as the universe sings our legacy systems to their sleep. The truth is, you have to provide the soundtrack. And that soundtrack is a manifestation of the attitude you bring into your system’s story. The song of your legacy system is ending, but the story of your organization never ends — as long as time passes really slowly, in the right order, and the next season does not get cancelled.

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Talk to our consultants now to begin a conversation that will make your system sing. Get help now with business processes, ERP implementation, digital transformation initiatives and digital transformation strategy. Ready for digital transformation in ’22 style? Go cloud, and get ERP business consulting experts for time-consuming hard and soft digital technology upgrades. Create the ultimate user and customer experience with new cloud computing platforms, without losing historical data. Meet customer expectations by combining a new version of your ERP solution with cutting-edge technology and optimized control over both the data migration process and migrated data. Hoping to use a newer version of your software to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic? Use cloud hosting technology to compete with the best of digital businesses, incorporating third-party integrations easily, to maximize machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other cloud-based digital transformation services.

Go Hybrid Workforce, Go Hybrid Cloud

by EstesCloud | Apr 7, 2022 | Backup, Cloud, Hosting, Managed IT Services, Network Security, Security

As part of a post-pandemic plan, businesses are solidifying and strengthening remote worker infrastructure and allowing employees to bounce between casual and corporate office settings. As a long-term commitment to flexible work environments and work-life balance, companies are increasing remote worker support by deploying private and hybrid cloud infrastructure to secure, protect, and optimize a hybrid workforce.

Solutions Like Microsoft Teams for Remote Teams

Teams are divided like never before, and this has proven to be a good thing. By allowing a hybrid workforce, you empower workers to choose the best setting for the work at hand. Social distancing requirements necessitated home offices, but in a post-pandemic era, that same flexible cloud-based infrastructure can allow workers to tap into secure software solutions, like Microsoft Teams, and complete their work from home, or from a hotel or other remote setting. Microsoft Teams provides an innovative toolset, giving remote workers everything they need to communicate and organize workflows.

When employees are dispersed, employers have to be creative with the software solutions they choose for basic business communication and operation. A secure network infrastructure needs to be properly managed so that productivity levels stay high. Employees must understand the tools they’re given, and they also need to be trained so that they understand the risks of remote connectivity. A software like Microsoft 365 comes with basic cybersecurity by default, but these cloud-based solutions require trained users, good management, and often need supplemental software and services, like SECaaS (Security as a Service).

Benefits of the Hybrid Cloud for a Hybrid Workforce

The main objective of a hybrid system, whether it be a hybrid cloud or a hybrid workforce, is to create optimal work productivity, low turnover of talented staff, and high ROI (return on investment) of purchased software and services. When you’re combining on-premise technology with remote enablement tools, you’ll need to invest in a cloud management team that understands the risks of hybrid systems.

Digital Transformation Results in More Access, Better Resources

In a hybrid cloud environment, employers can create coast-to-coast and even international teams without increasing the risk of a security breach. With managed IT services in place, companies can use specialized external staff to maintain the cloud platform, using technology to stay relevant and competitive.

Working with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) helps your business by giving you a complete suite of technology solutions and skills for every IT need that comes with hybrid systems. If your employees need to access your company data from a home office, then you can ensure that the web browser is protected by state-of-the-art cybersecurity solution.

What Cloud Does Your Hybrid Workforce Need?

If you’ve always done business in an on-premises infrastructure, then the shift to remote work might have put your sensitive data at risk early in the pandemic when companies weren’t aware of the risks of public cloud services and public cloud environments. Now that hybrid work is becoming a “benefit,” similar to a company discount program or company car, hybrid cloud solutions are replacing the basic web-browser access of the remote workforce of the past.

An off-premises data center can create a cost-effect hybrid cloud architecture, giving you a robust backup and disaster recovery solution for all of your software, including those that work by default in a public cloud capacity.

Can Public Clouds Turn Hybrid Workforces Into Hybrid Monsters?

If you Google “cloud,” you’ll see that a business cloud strategy means something different to everyone. When creating the cloud-based infrastructure for your remote employees, you should carefully design your cloud to give you the uptime, backup, and security you need to manage your business. Be leery of promises of the simplicity of public cloud offerings. Take on-premise technology and private cloud solutions into consideration before letting a third-party vendor limit you to the public cloud.

Please Fill Out the Form Below to Get a Free Hybrid Workforce Assessment

Let’s begin a conversation and see if your business would benefit from a robust private or hybrid cloud solution. EstesGroup helps businesses by bringing industry expertise along with the best consultants and technology the world has to offer.

Putting Your Software Testing Strategy to the Test

by EstesCloud | Apr 5, 2022 | Business Consulting, ERP Consulting, ERP Implementation, ERP Selection, Managed IT Services, Software

Testing is the process that should use the most time in any software implementation. Why test? You selected this software and, of course, it should process transactions, shouldn’t it? Start testing, and some surprises will be exposed.

Testing basics, testing methods

To begin, you’ll need a testing team and a test suite. Form small teams of people from each discipline. The team leader will be from your implementation team and the remaining people will be on loan from the various functional groups. Select those people with care. They will become your “super user” core of trained people who will help others in their groups use the new software.

Pick any single-step transaction. Accounting might try a simple debit – credit journal entry. Customer service might enter a new sales order. Document the transaction: what general ledger account will you debit and which one gets the credit and how much money? What customer will place the order, what product will they buy, what is their purchase order number, and how much money is the order for?

Go to the transaction screen in the software and enter the transaction. Then enter the results in a log. If the transaction works as expected, record a green result. If the transaction completely fails, record a red result and note why it failed or why you think it failed. Sometimes the result will be yellow as it completed successfully but you found some kind of unexpected caution that probably should be corrected.

Corrective actions

The failure of a test could be a problem in the data loading. Maybe the general ledger you wanted to debit was not in your system. Try to figure out why and ask the data conversion group to correct the situation. When they make the fix, process your test again and now you might get a green result.

An unsuccessful test result could come from a failure in your training. You thought you could enter that new sales order but you need to read the instructions again.

There are many configuration settings in any system and these will affect test results. That sales order test failed because the customer you chose was limited to only buying products in a certain line and you chose a product that customer was not authorized to buy. The data team might have made an incorrect assumption which can be corrected. Their assumption might have been correct based on some other condition you were unaware of. Often more than one setting can be adjusted to yield the results your business needs. Keep the conversation going until a satisfactory result is found.

Test again and again

You performed a test today and gave it a green result. Tomorrow the same test was not green. People from across your business are performing tests in their functional groups and you will find the change they requested to fix their test inadvertently affected your test. This is normal. Your business is complex and the relationships within are also complex. Work through these changes and find what works for your entire organization.

More complex testing

As the single transactions become successful, begin to expand the testing to a series of transactions. You can receive the purchase order, now can you also see the product adding to your inventory and then can you pay your supplier? Late-stage testing might go from receipt of a customer order through producing the order, shipping the order, and collecting the payment.

Automated testing

Manual testing might not be the more cost-effective use of your technology staff’s time. Fortunately, AI-driven types of testing are now available at low cost. Software that can robotically reproduce tests is available and affordable. After the fifteenth time a group runs the same test, boredom begins. The test robot never gets bored. You had nothing but green for those fifteen tests. But only after the 115th test was there a failure because someone made a change. The robot will keep testing all day and night until you turn it off.

Even setting up and monitoring automated testing tools can be time consuming. Begin to formulate the best testing strategy for your business by fully assessing any system software in use.

There are many types of software performance assessments available to your business. EstesGroup’s IT experts are available for everything from basic operating system testing to full audits of your system. Our software testers and project managers can provide continuous testing services and external support when you need it: functional testing, exploratory testing, integration testing, unit testing, system testing, and more. Schedule a software assessment today to begin a conversation about how testing, checking, and testing your software again can help your business.

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Staff Security Training Tips: What You Get Is What You Click

by EstesCloud | Feb 25, 2022 | Disaster Recovery, Hosting, Managed IT Services, Network Security, Security, Software

Security Training for Your Employees is Critical in Times of Pandemic and Political Unrest

Do you have a “get this spam away from me” approach to digital communication management? It can be tempting to be strict, to set privacy and filtering settings at the max and limit online interactions from strangers. However, our email boxes often lead us to opportunities and relationships that will ensure future business success. With this in mind, we’d like to help you understand how staff security training allows you to keep your business open to outside communication while preventing a data breach.

Staff Security Training Secure Network Secure Server Grid

Digital Stranger Danger

Clicking on links is often something we do without thinking, so it’s important to provide staff security training that truly tests an employee’s impulsive online behaviors. Business owners can incorporate fraudulent link prevention strategies into routine security assessments, testing, and training by hiring a cybersecurity firm to randomly test users. This provides real data about user behavior in both the traditional office and in remote office settings.

Fake Link Identification and Education

Training your staff to know how to see a hacking attempt is considered a proactive cybersecurity strategy. Some business owners out there are comfortable with risk and choose a reactive strategy to security breaches.

Proactive Security

Backup and disaster recovery planning
Staff security training
Network assessments and testing

Reactive Security

Paying a ransomware fee to recover business data
Issuing a cyber incident alert after a breach
Testing backups and live system data for malware after a breach

If your goal is to prevent a security breach, then you need a proactive strategy, and this should entail staff security training.

Malicious Link Monitoring

To some business owners, a “bad” link is anything clicked that threatens privacy. In a world of email communication and marketing (often invited through a subscribe button), it’s best to train staff to recognize fake links, rather than to broadly and strictly limit communication to the outside world. However, robust endpoint security options might be your best option if you own highly sensitive data. You wouldn’t want a potential customer to end up in a spam folder, but you don’t want to risk losing compliance certifications, either. If you give your employees the tools and training needed to recognize hacking attempts, then you can safely do business online without the worries of ransomware.

URL Verification

Our top recommendation is to train your employees to observe all web addresses, or URLs. Phishing attempts often use recognized brands to trick you. With security training, your staff learns how to quickly recognize imitation URLs. Once you recognize the common patterns of cybercriminals, you can easily recognize links posing as legitimate companies. A URL might include an underscore or other symbol that doesn’t appear in the original web address.

Website verification falls into a spectrum of risk — like anything else in the world of cybersecurity. You might decide to train staff to be more aware of common edits hackers make to URLs. You might go further and train users how to right click on the address to gather more information about the hyperlink. You might use tighter measures in order to meeting compliance regulations for handling sensitive data:

Anti-phishing software
Virtual isolation protocols
Outsourced managed IT security

Education is readily available for your staff. The Phish Scale, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is an excellent example of free training available on their website.

Even the most careful clickers can fall into a hacker’s trap. This frequently happens when the name of a legitimate company is used as a malicious hyperlink.

Email Monitoring

How full is your “Junk Email” box? Smart mailboxes usually send suspicious, or unknown, emails to a junk folder. Some programs go one step further and prevent a user from opening a “junk” or “spam” email unless it it first moved to an inbox. Email monitoring software often comes with a free trial period, so you can gauge how effective the solution is at preventing security risks through a spam filter for incoming emails.

How can you prevent your staff from opening junk email? Phishing scams result in more than 90% of security breaches in some geographical areas, with around 3 out of every 4 American businesses falling prey to an email-based cyberattack.

Because of the prevalence of phishing attacks, email monitoring needs to include a human. Software is a step in the right direction, but staff security training makes your cybersecurity solution more effective.

Employees gain email monitoring skills that complement antivirus and malware monitoring solutions
Employees learn how to identify the authenticity of websites and URLs, email addresses and emails, phone numbers and text messages, as well as other contact information sources that could be altered to trigger malicious attacks
Employees develop intuition for recognition of a cyberattack and learn how to launch a proactive security alert to coworkers
Employees learn how to train and test one another, creating a self-monitoring environment conducive to productivity

Email boxes are a common information security risk for unauthorized access to company information, as well as personal information. View your mail server as a data security risk, and see your junk email folder as a soft problem-solving step toward more robust protection like full server monitoring intrinsic to a private cloud hosted environment.

Cyber threats are getting smarter and can take advantage of an operating system that needs to be patched or of a user mindlessly clicking on a “junk e mail” posing as a junk email. Small edits can help phishing attacks get through even the best software, and can trick even the most suspicious and judicious humans. If you need more robust technical support than your internal IT team can offer, then partner with a managed service provider (MSP) like EstesGroup for expertise when you need it.

IT Support and Staff Security Training Services for Your Business

EstesGroup is a leader in the fusion of cutting-edge enterprise resource planning (ERP), business software solutions, and human talent. If you are concerned about the rise in successful phishing attacks and other malicious cyberthreats, then you should sign up for a free technology assessment today. You are a short phone call away from knowing if you need a more advanced security audit or even a penetration test. For more security tips, please register for one of our virtual events. Do you have an immediate cybersecurity concern? Talk to an IT support specialist now.

Cloud Migrations: “Lift & Shift” vs. “Build-from-Scratch”

by EstesCloud | Feb 2, 2022 | Cloud, ERP Implementation, Hosting, Managed IT Services

EstesGroup is excited to announce that we are sponsoring Third Stage Consulting Group’s Digital Stratosphere event on February 8th – February 10th, 2022.

Digital Stratosphere Graphic Third Stage Consulting EstesGroup

“Lift & Shift” vs. “Build-from-Scratch” Cloud Strategies

Our keynote presentation at Digital Stratosphere 2022 is based on conversations with our customers who are looking for the best way to move to the cloud from on-premise infrastructure or from a different cloud environment. We hope to help businesses struggling to understand their future in cloud-based deployments of their applications and data. With our years of experience assisting complex manufacturers and distributors with IT infrastructure and cloud migrations, EstesGroup builds the best custom private and hybrid cloud hosting solutions for any business ready to take on the challenge of implementing new technology.

Moving How, Moving Where?

Are you wondering how to move your data, your history, and your business applications to a cloud computing platform? Or, are you wondering how to move from one cloud to another? Any IT infrastructural shift you take results in what is known in the industry as a cloud migration. The options in choosing a cloud computing service model are varied. You have to factor everything in, from the timbre of your cloud adoption culture to the state of your computing resources.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

In an IaaS environment, the customer procures resources from a cloud provider and is responsible for provisioning and configuring servers, and responsible for the installation, configuration and maintenance of the operating system and application layers. The provider maintains the underlying data center architecture and cloud infrastructure, and the customer assumes all subsequent duties.

In an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) context, a customer purchases services from a cloud computing company, then uses these services to provision the necessary virtual machines to build out the cloud ecosystem.

Within this ecosystem, the customer would subsequently install the necessary operating systems, the database management systems and the ERP applications themselves. The customer is responsible not only for installation and configuration of their specific cloud ecosystem, but also for its ongoing maintenance and the maintenance of any third-party integrations.

As you can see, Infrastructure as a Service bears the most similarity to an on-premise data center in that it places the most responsibility for the management of the ecosystem on the customer, which would require the internal roles to administer the network, the database, and the application itself. But unlike on-premise installations, and their colocation counterparts, the resources benefit from the scalability of a cloud infrastructure, and are able to dial in their needs accordingly.

Additionally, the customer would be responsible for constructing and managing any third-party integrations with the core enterprise systems in place. With this comes the cost benefits of a consumption-based model. From a control standpoint, customers benefit from the ability to define and manage their third-party integrations in a manner that is tailored to the needs of their organization.

Platform as a service (PaaS)

In a PaaS environment, the provider provisions and manages the underlying architecture, and this platform provides the foundation upon which customer applications are installed and operated. In an ERP context, a customer working with a managed hosting provider could provision virtual machines, install and configure the operating system and database management systems, and then install and configure the ERP system on the pre-established platform.

The maintenance of the platform is the responsibility of the provider, while the ongoing maintenance of the ERP solution may be the responsibility of the customer or the provider, depending on the relationship that has been established between them. As such, within the PaaS model variants exist which allow customers to control various elements of the cloud ecosystem while outsourcing other elements to the cloud provider. Depending on the support gradient, the provider may be responsible strictly for the management of the operating system and database, allowing the customer to control the installation and administration of the application.

In most enterprise system scenarios, the cloud provider will provide additional support, managing the application’s server-side administration, allowing the client to focus on the functional administration of the application, such as user access and permissions within the ERP system itself.

Depending on the capabilities of the cloud provider and the needs of the customer, the provider may also provide these functional needs. Additional administrative effort may similarly be divided across third-party applications that are integrated with the primary system. Given the different tiers of service, providers can tailor their pricing models to meet the specific needs of the specific customer.

In terms of scalability, the cloud provider addresses resource expansion and retraction needs, should they arise. This flexibility is often defined in the agreements themselves. In terms of seasonal usage changes, for instance, the costing implications of cyclical resource changes can be managed in a manner similar to an IaaS model.

Software as a service (SaaS)

In a SaaS environment, the customer consumes the application directly from the software vendor in most cases unless the SaaS code has been sub-licensed to others. The application is deployed to a cloud environment, and the provider is entirely responsible for the management of the entire cloud ecosystem.

In an ERP context, a customer could purchase a monthly license (usually based on “seats”) to a cloud-based ERP system and interact with the system through a web-enabled client, like a browser window. The customer never experiences the underlying infrastructure, or even the underlying application server itself, but only interacts with the application on a client basis.

Enterprise systems built upon a SaaS platform tend to have limited customization capabilities when compared to their on-premise counterparts. The emphasis here is on configurability in the place of customizability, with a customer bending its processes to fit within the parameters of the system configuration. Some customers benefit from a subscription-based model that bundles the cost of the application licensure and its underlying infrastructure into a single monthly cost.

Whose operating system are you sitting on? The most public of cloud-native platforms, SaaS applications provide a public cloud service. Amazon Web Services might come to mind as an everyday example of public cloud environments. An off-premises data center processes your business interactions in a park-like setting, with communication coming and going from businesses that are operating in the same cloud environment, which is supported by a large, and often global, corporation.

Types of Cloud Service are as Varied as Cloud Service Models

The choices are divergent, as are their implications to the implementing organization. Once a service model has been chosen, the implementation strategy can have a significant impact on the project’s timeline, budget, and scope.

That is to say, migrating to the cloud is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, and most companies migrating to the cloud normally face a choice between two options. On the one hand, they can opt to lift their existing on-premise platform and shift it wholesale to a cloud instantiation. On the other, they can choose to rebuild and reconfigure the new cloud platform from the ground up. The differences between the two approaches are significant, and a company should carefully consider the implications when approaching a cloud migration.

Cloud Migrations and Digital Transformation: Rations and Reasons

Reasons for cloud migrations are also nuanced. Companies tend to focus on security and compliance, flexibility and adaptability, and pricing when planning for a move to PaaS, IaaS, or SaaS.

Digital Stratosphere is the perfect cloud-based realm to explore your business strategies. Digital Stratosphere is a free virtual event designed for organizations about to embark on any digital strategy or transformation initiatives. Cloud migrations are the ultimate transformation for companies of all sizes and in all industries, and Third Stage Consulting Group’s online events provide the space to freely explore future possibilities.

Please fill out the form below if you’d like to see what cloud migrations look like in our EstesCloud private & hybrid cloud hosting environment.

Who Knows What You’re Doing For Data Privacy Week?

by EstesCloud | Jan 27, 2022 | Backup, Cloud, Disaster Recovery, Managed IT Services, Security

The EstesGroup 2022 data privacy initiative focuses on educating businesses on best practices for collecting data and promoting transparency, respect, and security.

Every second, EstesGroup cybersecurity experts work to protect the data of our customers, our employees, our partners, and our friends. In this spirit, we are once again a Data Privacy Week Champion. As one of the leading cloud providers in the nation, we know full well how important it is to recognize and support the principle that all organizations share the responsibility of protecting information.

Data Privacy Week Raises Awareness Within Organizations

The COVID-19 pandemic has blurred private environments, like bedrooms and living rooms, into corporate offices, given our increased dependence on remote workforces. A universal respect for privacy has never been more important: the pandemic has also increased international attacks on American businesses, and this has left the homes of remote workers vulnerable to cyberthreats most common in traditional office settings.

EstesGroup helps businesses manage data through advanced cloud-based solutions that offer the protection levels trusted by medical record keepers, law offices, manufacturers, distributors, and more. We promise to guard our clients at every level possible:

We protect online data, and we secure offline data with the same robust approach to risk management that makes even the most sensitive information safe in the hands of our IT staff.

We prevent unauthorized access and ensure that compliance regulations are not only met, but exceeded.

We secure employees wherever they are and train them to protect themselves against the perils of digital harm.

We educate our customers so that they handle their data wisely and keep everyone in their networks and supply chains safe from cyberthreats.

Data collection is only increasing, and the risks are following suit.

The Pew Research Center reports that 79% of adults in the United States are worried about the security of their data as it is handled by organizations. Here are a few tips to earn the trust of your employees and customers by deploying secure privacy management strategies:

Save now, secure now: There is no room for procrastination in cybersecurity. If you save the data, protect it.
Go now, know now: Choose your cyber pathways wisely, and know who in your company is traveling where and ensure that you are documenting digital tracks so that a breach can be traced after disaster strikes.
Collect now, share now: If you are collecting information, inform your employees and customers about how you are saving, using, and sharing information through clear and concise policies that abide by privacy laws.
Behave now, train now: Know how to behave and train your employees to do likewise.

Understand Data Privacy

Get a free cyber health check from EstesGroup.
Sign up for a full security audit at least once a year.
Enroll in educational programs at least once a year so that you’re fully informed about how the digital landscape is changing.

Manage Data Privacy

Distribute and post current policies to all employees.
Delete unused applications and move vulnerable data offline using secure backup plans.
Use firewalls, encryption, cybersecurity solutions, and disaster recovery planning services.
Move operations into a private or hybrid cloud environment for the most control over your data, ensuring cybersecurity and privacy at every endpoint.
Ensure that your partners and vendors have up-to-date privacy measures in place so that your employees and customers are also protected in your extended network.

For more information regarding adoption of a robust privacy framework to meet industry compliance regulations, please learn more about NIST. If you would like help understanding the details of NIST Privacy Framework, AICPA Privacy Management Framework, ISO/IEC 27701 – International Standard for Privacy Information Management, please contact the EstesCloud team.

As privacy management champions, we have your back — and can manage your backup, too.

VIEW OUR GUIDE TO REMOTE WORKER PRIVACY MANAGEMENT