Communication has never been so easy.
Choice of channel, ease of use, quality of interaction: all have made the exchange of information a mobile-first and frictionless experience.
In broad terms, the evolution of unified business communication technology in particular has been a force for good; driving increased engagement, productivity, and efficiency.
However, in sectors such as banking, interacting with customers and colleagues is a rigidly-regulated affair where all communications must occur via authorised channels and in ways which result in compliant data capture and storage.
Indeed, get caught allowing workers to communicate via non-authorised channels and the penalties can be extremely punitive and, in the worst cases, catastrophically costly.
Thankfully, unified communication platforms can be integrated with solutions that bake-in the ability to automatically detect so-called ‘off channel’ interactions and help regulated businesses keep to the rules.
For those businesses – and their IT service providers – the return on investment can be immeasurably high.
“Typically, regulated knowledge workers communicate via voice calls, email, or the giant go-to platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex that their employers have authorised and which are monitored and managed compliantly – interacting via channels that are not authorised, such as, say, Slack, Snapchat, or Instagram breaches strict regulations and must not occur,” says Chris Stapenhurst, Senior Principal Product Manager at leading data management experts Veritas, whose discovery, surveillance, and file analysis products are supported by clever AI-powered ‘off channel signalling’ functionality.
“Of course, managers routinely issue workers with instructions designed to ensure compliance but often those instructions are forgotten or ignored. Deploying a technological means of reducing the risk of a breach is best practice.”
Cleverly, the Veritas surveillance solution listens 24/7 across an entire communication stack for any indications that workers may be considering or suggesting communicating on a non-authorised channel that is not recorded. A limitless number and configuration of key words or phrases can be input and, if any are detected, an alert mechanism is triggered.
