Remote and hybrid workforces create immense demand for companies to develop reliable and secure off-premise network solutions. It requires a focused plan to establish a cloud-based infrastructure, but the rewards are tremendous. Far from just a matter of convenience, research from McKinsey & Company found that the efficiency of mobile work meets or exceeds that of on-premise labor when up to a third or more of a nation’s labor hours are done remotely. We’ll discuss key considerations for facilitating the most private, productive, and secure remote work infrastructure going forward into 2023.
Major Transitions and Changing Needs
However complex the movement of company infrastructure to a SaaS-based platform may seem, advanced SaaS- and cloud-based solutions have made the transition much more manageable. Advanced security protocols also keep up with wide-scale business needs, securing private company data outside exclusively on-premise networks. Doing so calls for a host of services to provide security at each point of contact between your cloud-based data and your employees – no matter where they happen.
Not only do decentralized cloud-based networks need to be securely accessible, stable, and scalable, they must offer options for businesses operating in various conditions. The first matter to attend to is common to all: securing your new infrastructure to function safely on the clearnet.
Security Is Still Primary
Even the most quickly transitioning business needs to be certain their data is secure, especially if they handle digital payment information and other sensitive data on behalf of customers. Whether your workforce is technically savvy, your system’s security protocols must be highly consistent and as automated as possible. All it takes is one breach to fake administrator privileges for the entire network to suffer – and if severe enough, cyberattacks can put whole companies out of business.
At the same time, it doesn’t hurt to raise awareness of the contributions employees can make to the overall security of their system. As over 90% of all cyberattacks begin with phishing email scams, for example, transitioning to remote work is an excellent time to start building a company culture on the responsible and secure use of network resources.
Overall, consistent encryption protocols are essential for keeping confidential company information secure within the cloud perimeter. Still, it only goes so far if perimeter access points are not themselves secured and network credentials are easy to fake. Verifying the authenticity of data sent between workers and cloud databases is incredibly important for detecting malware and unauthorized file modifications.
Related: Flexibility vs. Risk – Creating Security Methodologies That Don’t Hold Back Your Business
Balancing Security With Usability
As “the office” has spread into numerous locations, digital security must be incredibly flexible – but that doesn’t mean inconsistent. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Security operations have found the greatest success in these new digital frontiers by managing access points to a company’s web properties and the employee’s devices. With the proliferation of the zero-trust security philosophy, attempting to secure each potential location or device is less effective than securing each digital transaction.
It can also be done rapidly, especially with highly insular network control. Using secure, organization-specific VPN tunnels allows organizations to opt for more or less security with features such as multifactor authentication or one-time passcodes. Further, you can implement these custom security processes for only employees with particular credentials or as standard operating procedures.
As more advanced SASE and SD-WAN methods are continually being discovered, you can more reliably integrate cloud security by design into the network under various circumstances. This allows companies and their remote workers to use the systems more efficiently, with security procedures operating more smoothly in the background.
Features such as storing tokens on employees’ devices allow them to log into work platforms just as easily as any other web application, which can occur almost as quickly. This is even true for protocols where data authentication occurs with every packet exchange rather than once at the point of entry at the cloud’s edge. For all but the most media-intensive applications, remote workers hardly notice a delay in information transmission.
Authentication procedures must still be as efficient as they are accurate – and along the lines of improving remote workforce habits, be sure you are clear about the most effective procedures to keep your employees safely engaging with sensitive business information. This is nearly impossible without one of two things:
- An advanced IT department of your own
- A highly experienced and trusted partner in cloud-based SaaS infrastructures
Most SMBs do not have the former; even if they do, the field is continually changing. With an innately custom system, you can’t afford to apply general knowledge to specific needs.
Leveraging the experience and expertise of an entire network of IT professionals is the best (if not only) way to ensure your system’s security protocols are as secure as possible by design. From there, only the most attentive and service-oriented cloud administrators will further oblige your company’s needs to quickly and thoroughly learn how to use the system most effectively.
From there, your administrator will take you beyond security and ease of use. Once those foundational standards are established, your company needs help setting its sights on leveraging your system’s features to help your remote workforce become as efficient as possible. In the new cloud-based business environment, your future revenue depends on it.
Related: When Growth Sneaks up on You
Is Your SASE Administrator as Committed to Your Growth as You Are?
As important as security and basic functionality are, many companies are intent on finding piecemeal solutions to assist their newly remote workforces as they go. While it’s completely understandable from a short-term gain perspective, it leaves most of the advantages of cloud-based infrastructure, which are only possible with advanced insights into integrating systems into the most cohesive remote work platform possible.
BCMOne has been providing world-class service by helping companies resolve their most critical IT pain points rather than simply providing services and letting the customers figure out how to use them. If your remote workforce needs a new system, ensure they also have the white-glove support necessary to make your new cloud-based platform run as efficiently as possible. For more information, contact us today.