Recent research we conducted with the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) identified three key barriers to digital transformation, including the use of outmoded enterprise content management systems (ECMs), data siloes that inhibit collaboration between departments and stakeholders, and data privacy and compliance worries. We polled 440 IT and security professionals to learn more about what is holding enterprises back from streamlined and improved collaboration.
Running out of gas
80 percent of IT and security professionals surveyed admitted their companies were still using traditional file folders to organize and share content, severely hindering how they collaborate on and share files both internally and externally. At the same time, 80 percent of enterprises also agree content collaboration is essential to digital transformation, illustrating a clear disconnect between the current and desired state of today’s enterprises. Most tools we use to improve our daily lives need to be maintained. Cars, for example, need regular maintenance, including oil changes, tire rotations, and regular service appointments. The same goes for content management – it needs to be updated and maintained to be effective.
Digital transformation often calls for a total “tech refresh”— a definition open to interpretation across many organizations. For one enterprise, it may mean a clean swipe of the data center, another company might just update one software model to replace the old infrastructure. Regardless, the first step to any digital collaboration initiative is to take a deeper look at how data is currently managed, stored and shared, and then see what needs to change to make processes more secure and efficient. While this may seem like a no-brainer, it’s shocking how far organizations still need to go before they get their digital transformation initiatives off the ground.
Daren Glenister is the Field Chief Technology Officer for Synchronoss. Daren serves as a customer advocate, working with enterprise organizations to evangelize data collaboration solutions and translate customer business challenges into product requirements. Glenister brings more than 20 years of industry experience and leadership in security, compliance, secure collaboration and enterprise software, having worked with many Fortune 1000 companies to turn business challenges into real-world solutions.
Potholes in an already bumpy road
Companies have managed data across multiple systems in different locations for years, but this disconnected method can end in unnecessary costs and infrastructure mismanagement. To help get content tools like ECM, cloud storage and SharePoint connected, organizations should turn to cloud computing.
It’s important companies implement the right capabilities and measure the preparedness of these technologies. According to respondents, 75 percent of companies have some digital transformation initiatives underway, which are most commonly championed by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) (42 percent). Our research also indicates that while organizations depend on CIOs to drive this transformation, they may not have full visibility into the depth of data within an organization.
Because current information-sharing systems don’t communicate effectively, vital information is stored within departments instead shared with stakeholders. Since this makes collaboration difficult, successful digital transformation becomes challenging, too.
Yield for new regulations before getting on the highway
Most enterprises are aware that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which tightens existing EU rules on data protection and privacy, will be implemented in 2018. Due to this new regulation, and others on the horizon, security and compliance risks are a top priority for IT and security teams – especially since companies are exchanging content with customers, employees, partners and regulators like we’ve never seen before.
To further complicate the issue, 82 percent of companies have some sort of restriction on regulated data in the cloud, indicating numerous data privacy challenges. 54 percent of organizations also noted their business is not prepared for global data privacy regulations, and ‘data location’ concepts in relation to these regulations are a bit fuzzy.
Many organizations are still struggling to understand global privacy regulations and are avoiding the concept of data in motion altogether. In fact, 80 percent of businesses are adjusting their strategies to keep personally identifiable information (PII) inside organizations, relocating PII to avoid legal ramifications and keeping their business operations in Europe— all because of noncompliance fears. Much preparation, education, and planning is still needed to help guide companies through this new digital enterprise environment.
Set cruise control
While the buzz around digital transformation has reached a new level, there are still numerous challenges enterprises need to overcome. Organizations are realizing their legacy ECM systems are holding them back from effective, secure collaboration as they prepare for numerous impending security and privacy regulations.
As enterprises tackle these substantial issues, it’s important they ask questions on how to handle, protect, share, or store content, and consider how third parties are impacting digital transformation initiatives in an increasingly mobile world. Once organizations evaluate the data lifecycle of their content, updating current tools and processes in place will take them one step further towards their digital transformation journey. From there on out, it’s the open road.
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