To safeguard and grow your business : Invest in Information Security

If you need evidence to make the case to invest in Information Security, here is the startling evidence – security breaches are on the rise and the damage they are inflicting on businesses are enormous, as illustrated by these charts.

Market Watch, May 25, 2018

Significant data breaches have gone up from less than 200 in 2005 to 1300 in 2017. Although, the data is specific to US, it would make business sense to assume that something similar is happening in Canada.

Amount of monetary damage caused by reported cyber crime to the IC3 from 2001 to 2017 (in million U.S. dollars). From statista.com

The monetary damage cyber crime inflicted on global companies in 2017 was a staggering 1.42 billion US dollars, up from 782 million US dollars in 2013.

If this is what is happening to global companies, imagine the damage a cyber attack can have on a small or medium-sized business (SMB). It can put it out of business.

So, it is time for Canadian SMBs’ to make information security central to their growth strategy.

RTI Consulting Services through its partnership with Microsoft is focussed on helping Canadian SMBs’ safeguard and grow their business, with Microsoft 365 Business: An integrated solution that provides SMBs’ with advanced security and device management capabilities along with the proven productivity enhancing capabilities of Office 365.

Talk to us about how we can help you implement and utilize Microsoft 365 Business to safeguard your data from external threats and leaks with security tools such as

  • Advanced Threat Protection: For protection against malicious email attachments and links, and advanced threats such as zero-day threats, ransomware.
  • Selective wipe from Intune: To remotely wipe company data from lost or stolen devices
  • Data loss prevention: To safeguard sensitive data
  • Azure Information Protection: To label and set permissions on files to ensure confidentiality
  • Information rights management: To control who has access to company information
  • Windows Defender Exploit Guard : To provide prebreach threat resistance in Windows 10
  • Windows Defender: To enforce malware protection on Windows 10 devices
  • Exchange Online Archiving: To ensure email is never lost

 

Source: Protect Application Assets: How to Secure Your Secrets

Information security : A pre-requisite for business agility

It is a given that businesses need to become agile to remain competitive, and businesses become agile by embracing digital technologies and the digital way of working. However, a non-negotiable pre-requisite for digitally enabled business agility is information security.

At RTI Consulting Services, we believe Microsoft 365 offers a simple, elegant and cost-effective way of ensuring information security, with easy to implement features such as

  • Azure information protection to classify and protect documents to prevent data leakage
  • Cloud app security that monitors documents access rights, document downloads and any unusual activity
  • Intune to remove customer data with one click on lost or stolen mobile devices

Watch this brief video of how a recruitment company uses Microsoft 365 to ensure information security and to drive business agility.

With Microsoft 365 you can be both secure and agile. Talk to us about how we can help you become a secure and agile business with Microsoft 365 and our professional services – starting with an in-depth security assessment of your current state information security.

Go agile or go extinct : Reiventing project management for the digital age

As this is fundamental to getting Agile right,  let me begin by reiterating what I said earlier,the two aspects of Agile  – an agile mindset, and agile methods and their associated practices need to go hand in hand. A mindset without the methods and practices is non-practicable Agile, while methods without the Agile mindset will result either in abandonment  of Agile or  more likely – given that Agile is the in thing to do – “Agile in name only ” implementation. However, getting agile right intellectually and getting agile right in practice – in a  project context, is going to be tough, unless project management practitioners make this mental shift.

Continue reading “Go agile or go extinct : Reiventing project management for the digital age”

Agile practice guide : What is Agile and why getting the definition right matters

Agile – It is both the mindset and the method

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Agile is everywhere in the world of work – in casual conversations, in formal management meetings, even in boardrooms – there is constant chatter about Agile.Where ever you turn, some one seems to be mouthing an ever-expanding stream of agile phrases – daily standup, xp, retrospectives, lean, test driven development, kanban, devops, the list goes on. While this is great fodder for lively debates, you as a project leader have a more immediate task of  leading your teams to get stuff done in this era of digital disruption. You have been told Agile can help you deliver programs and projects – smarter (value is delivered quickly and incrementally), faster (on time), and better (cost less to deliver).  However, there is very little practical guidance available on how you integrate Agile into projects. Agile methods focus on various aspects of project work – for example, Scrum is focussed on product development, XP on development practices , Lean / Kanban on process improvement – but don’t provide guidance on integrating Agile at a project level. As a consequence, projects and their sponsoring organization struggle to integrate Agile effectively at the project level and never fully realize the benefits of Agile.

Continue reading “Agile practice guide : What is Agile and why getting the definition right matters”

Agile practices without an agile mindset = Cargo cult agile

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Something similar to Cargo cult science, seems to be happening with the way the Agile is being implemented in projects. Cargo cult science is a phrase describing practices that have the semblance of being scientific, but do not in fact follow the scientific method.( Here is a link to  more detailed description of   Cargo cult science )

Projects are implementing Agile practices ( Daily stand ups, User stories, retrospectives, Work in process limits et al) without fully understanding and embracing the Agile mindset. An Agile mindset is an absolute must for these practices to succeed and for projects to experience the full benefits of Agile.Without an Agile mindset, an Agile equivalent of Cargo cult science occurs, and these projects risk becoming Agile in name only. So, what is an agile mindset and how do teams get an Agile mindset.

Continue reading “Agile practices without an agile mindset = Cargo cult agile”

Leverage project management to maximize the value of agile

There is little doubt that organizations are embracing the agile way of working , in a big way. What is also clear is that organizations fail to fully realize the value of agile. The primary reason for this failure to maximize the value of agile, is the overlooking of the role of project management to manage the transition from the current way of working to the agile way of working.

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Continue reading “Leverage project management to maximize the value of agile”

Deliver a better customer experience with Office 365

Businesses large and small must innovate to set themselves apart. They must meet their customers’ needs, but also put practices and tools in place to quickly pivot as their customers’ needs change. Kelly Services has helped millions of people find jobs by doing just this. They quickly match the right people with the right jobs, and Microsoft Office 365 has helped to give them a competitive edge in the market. Watch how Kelly Services recruiters and employees use tools, including Skype for Business, OneDrive, Power BI, and Delve Analytics, to connect, respond, change course, and deliver a world-class customer experience. To learn how Office 365 can help you too, contact us today.

Amplify your team’s output with Office 365

You can’t maximize your collaborative potential if you’re tied to a desk. At RTI Consulting Services, we often see businesses that want to focus on increasing collaboration, yet they are using archaic communications tech. In any industry, you need the right tools to produce a superior product. And today, tech is a vital tool for increasing collaboration. Contact us and check out this video on how Detroit Wallpaper Co. is using Office 365 to make their 10-person business feel like 50.

Become a digital leader in your business with Office 365

Collaboration and communication are the keys to any well-run business. With over 300,000 employees, GE knows all too well the challenges of such an endeavor. Thanks to Office 365, GE can focus on creativity instead of on the processes that drive it. With teams forming dynamically, GE employees now work together better to solve the world’s toughest problems. RTI Consulting Services wants to help your teams integrate Office 365 so they can collaborate and focus on what matters.

Scale collaboration with Office 365

From working out of a basement to having over 400 employees across the globe, Lovepop has employees from Boston to Vietnam. But scaling their organization so quickly across such a large geographical area presented its own problems–collaboration. But Lovepop didn’t skip a beat thanks to the mobility and ease of communication they experienced from integrating Office 365. RTI Consulting Services wants to help your teams integrate Office 365 so they can collaborate just like Lovepop.