By 2025, the Unified Communication and Collaboration market will reach a value of $55.24 billion. As companies strive to create more immersive single-pane-of-glass experiences for employees, investing in applications that align and consolidate is essential.
Today’s teams are working with a massive influx of tools and information. We’re constantly switching between apps and tools to connect with clients, colleagues, and other contacts. All the while, we need access to other software for things like analytics, relationship management, and business insights.
UC&C applications are a brilliant way to unite the workforce. However, businesses need to ensure that access to new applications doesn’t come at the expense of security.
Maintaining Security and Privacy in UC&C
UC&C applications are all about connecting people and data in a unified flow. The right tools can improve productivity for team members, strengthen company culture, and drive better customer outcomes.
However, UC&C applications also present a few challenges in terms of privacy and security.
For instance, a UC&C app that allows a team member to connect with their team from a distance is an excellent tool in today’s age of remote working. However, employees logging into a workplace from outside of a protected network presents issues with potential data breaches.
Business leaders need to ensure they have the right tools, policies, and systems in place to adhere to the latest regulations in their industry and overcome security problems.
1. Start with the Right Technology
Security and privacy have always been common concerns for companies. As the workplace becomes more complex, vendors are paying even more attention to these factors. For buyers, this means it’s possible to narrow your search for the right UC&C tools, by looking for vendors that put security first.
Look into the collaboration and communication tools that can promise encrypted conversations from end-to-end. Look at the kind of systems that companies have in place to keep you compliant with GDPR guidelines or help business leaders to sort through and manage data.
Having security strategies already built into your applications reduces the amount of work that IT teams need to do to make everything utterly secure.
2. Support Remote Users
UC&C apps are excellent at linking in-office employees with remote team members. However, it’s important to remember that your anywhere workers might not have access to the best security. Because you can never be sure of where your clients are logging in from, you need extra security measures in place.
For some companies, this will mean using a VPN to protect employees that log in from home network connections. It could also mean implementing things like mobile device management software. These tools allow IT teams and supervisors to keep an eye on the applications your team is using. If any potential security issues arise, the MDM system allows experts to handle them remotely.
3. Introduce the Right Policies
Beyond implementing the right technology for your team members, it’s also important to introduce policies that your employees can follow to protect themselves. For instance, teach your team members how to use strong passwords to protect themselves from a breach. You can also implement things like two-factor authentication to take security to the next level.
When your anywhere workers are logging into platforms for meetings and conversations, make sure that they’re aware of issues that they should never discuss in person. Ask your team to avoid public internet connections and keep a close eye on their devices.
If your company has a BYOD policy alongside your UC&C strategy, you might also ask your team members to avoid using certain apps not approved by IT. Making sure that you choose your applications based on what employees need reduces the risk of Shadow IT.
4. Track, Monitor, and Update
Finally, to ensure that UC&C applications remain safe, business leaders need to ensure that they’re keeping a close eye on operations. UC service management tools that track the end-to-end journey with a communication solution are essential. These systems can highlight areas in your policies and processes that need further attention.
Remote monitoring tools mean that business leaders can address potential security problems and deliver solutions from a distance. What’s more, intelligent analytics systems can ensure that supervisors intuitively know when security problems begin to emerge.
Keeping a close eye on everything happening in your UC&C environment makes it much easier to protect both your team members and your companies from unnecessary breaches.
