The effectiveness of ransomware attacks have caused organizations to move from a threat prevention strategy to a cyber resilience strategy. This is because companies now need the ability to respond to a security breach, mitigate damage and enable data recovery to restore normal operations when protecting their data. The shift has caused more companies to look at backup and recovery as part of the security stack. This holistic approach to attacks acknowledges that even with best-in-class defensive tools, you won’t have 100% prevention. A cyber resilient strategy also allows organizations to mitigate an attack while also protecting their data integrity and enabling successful recovery to normal business operations.
It makes perfect sense that being able to recover data after a cyber attack is crucial, but the alignment between security and DR teams needs work. In the 2022 Veeam Ransomware Trends Report, we found that the closer professionals got to having their hands on the keyboard, the more issues were seen with the alignment between these two camps. The upcoming release of Veeam Data Platform v12 will see significant improvements that can help organizations bridge the gap between cyber security and disaster recovery (DR).
The difference between cyber resilience and cyber security
Cybersecurity has traditionally been about blocking threats before they can do harm to the organization. The as-a-service model for attacks and the effectiveness of threats like ransomware have caused a shift to move from siloed solutions to integrated security stacks where tools share information with each other to create a complete picture of modern cyber threats. Cyber resilience is the next logical step that brings recovery into the response process. The alignment makes sense because security teams need to focus on reducing threats to the organization, and DR teams focus on maintaining service and recovering from outages. Cyber resilience as a practice is simply bringing these goals together as a cohesive ecosystem.
What are the components of cyber resilience?
Cyber resilience is a strategy that must be adopted enterprise wide. Since we are merging multiple processes, it’s imperative that you have all your security and DR processes documented to build a complete workflow to ensure business continuity. An effective cyber resilience plan should include the following elements:
Risk assessment: A thorough assessment of potential risks and vulnerabilities, including those related to cyber attacks, natural disasters, and other disruptions. You can’t stop a meteor, but you should know whether your industry is being targeted by specific threats and threat actors. To understand the risks to your environment, you first need to know what your critical resources are and where they’re located. This includes where your backup repositories live and how they’re protected. Version 12 of Veeam ONE improves visibility into your security posture so you’ll know exactly which workloads are immutable so you can take corrective action.
Prevention and mitigation measures: Knowing why you want to protect a system ensures it will have the correct level of protection and the proper placement in your priority list. Measures to prevent or mitigate the impact of disruptions, like implementing strong security controls, regular patching, and training employees on how to identify and report potential threats. Veeam Data Platform V12 will add multiple security features ranging from multi-factor authentication (MFA) to supporting direct-to-object immutable storage which adds a layer of protection from external threats or human error.
Response and recovery procedures: Detailed procedures for responding to and recovering from disruptions, including incident response plans, data backup, data and restoration and communication with stakeholders, is critical and often ignored. Veeam Recovery Orchestrator has given companies the ability to automatically create and update their DR plans for years. As part of V12 we’ll extend those capabilities to make planning and testing a regular part of your resilience strategy.
Regular testing and review: Regular testing of your DR plan and its components is important, as is periodic review and updates to ensure it remains effective over time. Unfortunately, most organizations only test their DR plans once per year. As organizations take a more resilient stance, DR teams should be brought into the overall security testing process and tabletop exercises. In V12, we’ll give you even more automated testing and reporting to prove you can meet your recovery time objectives (RTOs). It’s an important call out, since according to the 2022 Ransomware Trends Report only 16% of organizations have an automated testing process in place.
Moving forward together into 2023
Veeam has always been focused on recovery. We may not have said it outright, but everything we do is to help organizations improve their data availability and protect against data loss. We do this by providing innovative tools that simplify data security and don’t add to the complexities you already have. For example, we integrate with your existing malware detection tools and give your incident responders access to live data in a separate network for their investigations.
Our comprehensive monitoring and analytics give you control over your data with real-time visibility into your backup environment. This can provide assurances your backup jobs are running as expected, and alert you if there’s an issue that could indicate an attack.
Most importantly, we’re here to help our customers recover their data. At Veeam, we know every network is different and that resilience requires flexibility to create a solution that fits your needs. Whether it’s having the performance needed to meet a critical RTO, the need for multiple levels of data protection or the confidence that you can get your data back when you need it, we’re here to make you more resilient.
Enterprises routinely face challenges when it comes to protecting their critical workloads. Meeting demanding Service Level Agreements (SLAs), unsought multi-team workflows, and convoluted or sprawling toolsets are just a few of the common constraints that organizations routinely face. When these challenges start to compound, you quickly wind up in situations where simple tasks can grind your applications to a halt.
Operations such as backing up Microsoft SQL Server databases can be as simple as capturing an application-aware image-level backup. Complexities start to come into the picture when the discussion shifts to restores. Common questions that organizations need to ask themselves in such scenarios include:
Who should be able to restore this data? Database administrators, backup administrators, or both?
Whether it is protecting backups or concerns around transmitting data over the network, are security or compliance requirements being met? Is the backup admin even authorized to see the data being recovered?
Can your solution and teams effectively protect and quickly recover the application in question?
I recently discussed some of the security improvements that we’ll be seeing in the upcoming Veeam Platform v12. Although security is of paramount concern to many organizations, any tasks that require interaction from multiple teams can lead to inefficiencies. By implementing secure and robust tools that allow for well-defined and controlled delegation, many organizations can reduce friction. With the upcoming Veeam Backup & Replication v12 release, we’ll be seeing many such improvements, that will not only ease these pain points but may also provide opportunities for valuable collaboration between teams.
Fine-tuned workload protection
When it comes to enterprise systems, four of the most critical applications commonly found in large environments are SAP HANA, SAP on Oracle, Oracle RMAN and Microsoft SQL Server. Veeam has been providing application-aware processing for Microsoft SQL Server for many years now. Additionally, existing plug-ins for Veeam Backup & Replication have allowed users to protect the first three of these workloads safely and consistently. With V12, we are going to see improvements, particularly on the day-to-day management side of operations that will make your DBA smile!
Customers who have used Veeam Agent, an integrated part of Veeam Platform, are likely familiar with Protection Groups as they provide a quick, easy and automated path to install, configure and manage endpoint installations. A similar functionality will now be available for SAP HANA, Oracle RMAN and SAP on Oracle plug-ins. Tasks such as installing the plug-ins and managing group backup jobs can now be handled right from the Veeam Backup & Replication console. Not only will this provide increased control to backup administrators when required, but it will also provide an opportunity to entrust database administrators when it comes to protecting their applications.
Extending application support
Veeam Backup & Replication has long been touted as not only one of the pioneers, but as one of the leaders when it comes to application-aware backups. With the ability to define SLAs or perform granular restores, database and backup administrators alike have long loved the consistency and reliability provided by Veeam. In addition to the existing plug-ins, V12 will introduce a new Microsoft SQL Server plug-in which will grant even more granularity when it comes to protecting enterprise data.
The new plug-in will bring features such as specifying individual or custom sets of databases to protect. No longer will entire database instances need to be backed up when not required, resulting in reduced storage utilization. If technologies such as SQL Always On availability groups are in place, administrators will now be able to provide the same level of protection while only backing up the preferred backup replica.
To provide the best fit into existing workflows, the plug-in will integrate right into SQL Management Studio, a tool that database administrators should already be comfortable with. If SQL Management Studio is not available, the plug-in will still be configurable via separate executables. Tasks such as creating backup jobs or restoring databases to points in time will be available without logging into the Veeam Backup & Replication console or Veeam Enterprise Manager. In the same vein, automation such as creating SQL Agent Jobs to perform scripted backups will be available with the click of a button.
Securely delegate restores
Backup administrators typically have no shortage of items on their to-do lists, and many of those items often include performing restores. Whether full VM restores, application-level restores, or individual files, performing any or of all these tasks can quickly take up a significant amount of time in the workday. For years now, organizations of all sizes have been using Veeam Enterprise Manager as a one-stop portal. By leveraging Active Directory corporate network directory accounts, and limiting permissions and scope, it’s the perfect tool to grant non-backup administrators, including application owners and database administrators, the permissions required to restore critical data in a timely fashion.
To offer increased flexibility to users, and hopefully lighten their workload, Veeam Enterprise Manager will be seeing some advances as well. Firstly, Instant Recovery will now be a recovery option right from the web interface. This is something that will assist application owners who are requesting copies of their backups be restored “right now.” Hand in hand with that, the Entire VM Recovery restore option has also been improved to allow for a more granular and streamlined process. Lastly, virtual machine templates will be available for Veeam Enterprise Manager restores as well. Perfect for those situations where an OS update has gone bad and the team responsible needs to roll it back.
Protecting your physical workloads
Physical servers are still commonplace in many enterprise organizations, despite the year-over-year increase in continued virtualization and cloud adoption. One challenge, especially at scale, is dependably protecting these physical servers that may be running your largest applications on bare metal. Whether protecting physical workloads or deploying in a virtual workload, we’ll be seeing considerable enhancements coming to Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux, both included in Veeam Platform v12.
From a storage perspective, both Agents will support direct-to-object storage as a backup target. When paired with immutable S3 Object Lock technology, this creates a powerful layer of security and defense against hackers, ransomware and possible internal threat actor. For organizations that are looking to reduce their interactions with tape backups, this can be an ideal replacement.
If disaster does strike your Windows or Linux Agent protected application, Secure Bare Metal Recovery is an option to get you back up and running quickly and securely. As part of the restore process, a unique recovery token can be generated, which is then entered as part of the recovery process. This will allow backup administrators to ensure that only specified restore points are available and will prevent unauthorized recoveries.
In addition to supporting Modern Authentication for email notifications, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows v6 will also be introducing changed block tracking support for file-level backups. Previously with this type of backup job, if only a small portion of a file was altered, the entire file would have to be backed up again. With the new optimizations, when not exceeding size thresholds, only changed blocks will be copied. In addition to the improvements already mentioned, the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows installer has decreased in size.
Summary – empower your enterprise
Complexity is a common foe in enterprises, and typically the larger the environment, the more complexity there is to fight. Veeam is here to help you strengthen your cross-functional team by putting tools in place that reduce limitations. By consolidating and standardizing the tools in your cross-functional environment, enterprises can maximize their efficiencies while reducing risk exposure. The above list (and recent webinar) is but a glimpse of some of the advancements that enterprises of all sizes will be able to leverage with the upcoming Veeam Platform V12 release. Be on the lookout for an invite to our exciting launch event!
2023 is fast-approaching, as is the release of Veeam Platform v12. Now is a great time to take a closer look at your backup strategies from all directions: To the cloud, of the cloud and even from the cloud. From consistent cloud bill shock, to the overwhelming tyranny of choice in cloud platforms and services, to the ever-looming threat of a cyber-attack, there’s a litany of reasons organizations should consider taking time to evaluate and optimize.
Examining hybrid cloud backup from every angle
‘The Hybrid Cloud’ carries a sort of monolithic connotation, generating eye rolls and “it’s just someone else’s computer” reactions. At Veeam, we like to break our cloud story down by directions, platforms, needs and capabilities, thus reducing the mystery.
Backup to the cloud
Veeam sees some key business drivers for why organizations leverage the cloud for backup and archival storage instead of tape or other storage options.
Transparent data retention: Gain visibility into retention times and recoverability
Resiliency: Be confident that your data is secure and recoverable in the face of a cyber-attack or disaster
Cost savings: Tier backups to ultra-low cost, cloud object storage
As organizations evaluate their retention goals, recovery time objectives (RTOs), security needs and more, the diagram below can help you see if an object storage backup target is the right fit for your backups.
In our latest webinar, Rick Vanover (Senior Director, Product Strategy) shared some considerations across latency, capacity and bandwidth – a great rubric to evaluate the pros and cons of object storage.
Veeam’s Scale-out Backup Repository offers users a skillful, well-designed mechanism to confidently tier backups to object storage and leverage the immutable storage options that too-often provide the last line of defense against a ransomware attack. Download the latest version now, and get ready for the next wave of enhancements coming to our object storage support in V12!
Backup of the cloud
As workloads move to the cloud, the sphere of control for backing up and protecting data becomes thinner and leaves too many opportunities for one accidental deletion to cause chaos. Veeam continues to push further into the cloud with solutions like Veeam Backup for AWS, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure and Veeam Backup for Google Cloud – all of which have new versions coming in V12.
For those who haven’t tried these solutions yet, they’ll find that they have much of the same look and feel as Veeam Backup & Replication, which shows a continued commitment to having a consistent experience for our end users.
In many ways, the story of these solutions is a return to the basics of backup. In our upcoming webinar, Rick Vanover discusses some of the steps users should plan for and consider when implementing a resilient backup strategy within the cloud.
Backup isolation: Setting up a dedicated cloud account for backups, storing backups in another region and even considering an exfiltration strategy are all great best practices for backing up cloud-hosted data. These concepts are inherent to on-premises backup strategies (i.e., logical separation), but must be intentional steps in the cloud.
Least-privileged access: Identity and Access Management (IAM) are critical concepts of the cloud, and backup should be no exception. 2023 planning is a great time to audit access rights and implement Role-based Access Controls (RBAC).
Encryption: Veeam’s cloud-native solutions integrate with many of the key management services cloud users know and trust.
So, if you haven’t tried Veeam’s cloud-native solutions, now’s a great time to deploy from your cloud-of-choice’s marketplace and get started. Get started guides, design schemas (like the one below) and more are available in Veeam’s Technical Documentation Center.
Veeam’s commitment to cloud mobility
In our recently released Cloud Protection Trends Report for 2023, one of the most buzzed-about stats among the Veeam Team centered on organizations’ experience with bringing a workload back from the cloud to on-premises. While “disaster recovery (DR)” and ”dev/test to production” were somewhat expected responses, the preponderance of workloads that were expected to run in the cloud, but ultimately were brought back to on-premises storage was staggeringly high.
So, while Veeam continues to build advanced techniques to backup, secure and ultimately save storage costs in the cloud and rapidly release enhancements for the biggest hyperscale clouds in the industry, we also continue to remain committed to the promise of portability: Portability of data, licensing, storage support and more.
As we approach the end of 2022 and the upcoming release of the Veeam Platform v12, this is an opportune time to ensure that your organization enters 2023 with a strong security posture. All too often, security is treated as a one-time effort: Audits are performed, new policies are drafted and changes are implemented. Unfortunately, most organizations don’t go back and routinely update and review what they currently have in place. Instead, it usually takes a threat or an incident to shine a light on gaps that should have been plugged.
With the holiday season quickly approaching, the last thing any IT professional wants is to get that dreaded call that their environment has been compromised. Fortunately, there are a few best practices that you can implement to help you enjoy a quiet and restful holiday season. Not only will these tips help keep your environment in optimal shape, but it’ll also pave the way for a successful V12 upgrade.
Implement immutability
When it comes to ransomware or bad actors, immutability is one of the first technologies that you should implement to protect your valuable backups. When data is stored on an immutable repository, you can define a policy for a set period. Until the policy is over, the data cannot be altered. This means that whether you face ransomware attack or a rogue administrator, or even if you simply have regulatory compliance requirements to meet, your data will be safe. Immutability is available today in Veeam Backup & Replication v11 when you use a Linux repository, Amazon S3 Object Lock, tape or other immutable storage targets.
With Veeam Backup & Replication 12, immutability will see some vast improvements that will make Day 2 operations easier for enterprises. Hardened repositories and a few other on-premises object storage options will streamline the process of creating immutable repositories for the greatest level of control. For customers who want to backup directly to virtually limitless cloud object storage, V12 will bring support for Microsoft’s new object level immutability for Azure Blob Storage.
Trust, but verify your backups
An untested backup is a roll of the dice — it’s not the backup that matters, it’s the restore. Although jobs may complete without warnings, it is still imperative that you test your backups. Why? There could still be a large number of issues that throw a wrench into your restores, and your business when problems arise. However, there are other elements to consider in addition to restorability, including:
Is application-aware processing required to reliably backup your workloads?
Are your workloads in a healthy state when they’re backed up? Are reboots pending, and could they be problematic when restored?
Is your repository’s underlying storage system healthy?
Fortunately, features like SureBackup® can help you with customized and automated testing. Veeam first introduced SureBackup in 2010 as a way to guarantee that your backups were truly tested. Automating backup testing takes the pain out of the task while giving you peace of mind knowing that you’re protected.
In situations with increased complexity, Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator v6 (coming soon), offers zero-impact testing. Key new features like orchestrating Windows and Linux restores, restoring anything to cloud and ransomware rollback capabilities will provide the flexibility that you need to test, document and recover fast. With these new features, customers can orchestrate restores of their Veeam backups, whether physical or virtual, to vSphere or Azure, while scanning restore points for threats as part of the recovery.
Documentation
Creating and maintaining documentation is a task that few of us enjoy, but it’s something that many IT professionals wish they did more. This can be time-consuming and laborious to create and validate, and unfortunately, the quality of documentation can vary widely depending on who is creating it, and who’s reading it. Unfortunately, it’s not easily replaced. Whether it‘s an app migration that went wrong, or a cyber threat that took out a datacenter, planned recovery tactics with documentation to help you rebuild fast is one of the best tools for getting operations back up and running.
Good news is, there are tools out there to help. Whether you want to find a good screenshot program to quickly grab setup details, or tools to assist you with logical diagramming, good documentation is nearly irreplaceable. On the Veeam side of things, Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator v6 is just around the corner, within weeks of V12. Among the update’s new improvements is one of the true gems of the product: Automated documentation. Automating your documentation (and your recovery) takes the pain and guesswork out of the task and strengthens your odds for a successful recovery. Empower your executives with the confidence that your business is compliant and ready when disaster strikes.
Reporting and compliance
Whether required by law or your best practices, enterprises need to understand what their current health is. Are there areas that need more attention? Are there service level agreements (SLAs) that are being violated? Visibility into the good, the bad and the ugly is the only way to measure the overall health of your infrastructure. Having well-defined recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) are table stakes. Being able to monitor your organization’s compliance in real-time, before you need them, is one of the keys to success.
With Veeam ONE v12, you’ll see an increased level of focus on reporting on your overall security posture. With the upcoming immutable workloads report, teams will be able to see granular details like what jobs or workloads aren’t protected with immutable backup repositories. For enterprise-grade workloads with aggressive targets, Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator provides an at-a-glance view of SLA compliance with documentation. With the ability to define targets and test plans, IT departments will have the knowledge and confidence to know that their workloads are being protected. Be prepared!
Planning for success starts today
Maintaining a strong security posture is an iterative event, meaning that it’s a task that needs to be continually revisited and re-evaluated. It is also key to a healthy environment. Reviewing and implementing the best practices outlined above will assist you in creating a safe and robust environment. Furthermore, that environment will be in an optimal state to benefit from the Veeam Platform V12 launch with the various security, immutability and enterprise-grade capabilities.
Escape Business Solutions Business Insights and Ideas
Building your business
If you read the business press, you know that big business has embraced the idea of “digital transformation” to enhance collaboration, improve connections with customers, and increase data security to stay competitive. What you might not realize is that the benefits of digital transformation are available to small businesses, too. In fact, upgrading digital resources in any organization can deliver a force multiplier effect that helps people achieve more every day.
Enabling new ways of working
For many businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a cultural shift that continues to pay enhanced employee engagement dividends. In fact, in the 2022 Work Trend Index survey, 52% of employee respondents say they’re likely to consider transitioning to hybrid within a year. They also said they’re more likely than before to prioritize well-being over work. In short, they want a better employee experience. With hybrid and remote work now commonplace, many businesses are realizing workplace flexibility can help attract and keep top talent. Supporting this new reality with effective collaboration technology is smart business.
Modern collaboration applications make it possible for workers at any business to meet, share information, and track projects more efficiently. What’s more, they enable small businesses to connect with distant customers and suppliers while avoiding the time and cost of travel. Such enhanced collaboration helped many businesses survive and thrive during office shutdowns and showed business owners and workers that a daily trip to the office wasn’t necessary for a business to stay productive.
Strengthening customer connections
Today’s customers are more sophisticated and demanding than ever. Their ability to research and compare companies they might want to do business with gives them a lot of power.
Increasingly, the first contact businesses have with customers is digital, so being able to capture data about who’s visiting your website, responding to your digital ads, or engaging with your social media is key. By harnessing that data and drawing actionable insights with easy-to-use digital marketing tools or a powerful marketing platform, business owners can shape individualized customer journeys that attract and engage target audiences more effectively and foster deeper business relationships with them.
Reining in cyberthreats
Data security is now among the biggest concerns for small-business owners, and for good reason. Research shows that small businesses make up one-half to three-quarters of ransomware victims, and overall ransomware attacks have risen 300% in recent years.1 Traditional antivirus software is no longer your best defense against the phishing, social engineering, web applications, and mobile malware that today’s cybercriminals use in network attacks. Such cyberattacks aren’t just inconvenient, they’re also dangerous and costly.
Unfortunately, security threats are likely to keep increasing. A recent article from Microsoft found there are now 921 password attacks per second—or 79.5M attacks per day—a data point that has nearly doubled in the past year.2
Small Business Solutions
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Digitally transforming a business’s approach to security is the best way to protect its data, people, and profitability. Upgrading from traditional antivirus software to an enterprise-grade security solution protects a small business’s apps, data, identity, and devices. That gives owners peace of mind and more time to focus on growing their business.
Simplifying digital transformation
Although digital transformation might sound like a big undertaking for a small business, it’s anything but that. It’s really just the process of empowering people to achieve more using technology. Taking your small business digital will save you time, protect your data, and allow you to focus on what’s most important: your customers.
To get an idea of all the ways Microsoft technologies can support digital transformation in your business, schedule a consultation with a product expert to learn more about the right solutions for your business.
About the author
The Escape Business Solutions 365 team is focused on sharing resources to help you start, run, and grow your business.
Tackling today’s challenges while building a stronger digital future
How digitization is helping leaders address the uncertainties and priorities of the present and lay the foundations for a better tomorrow
Building a stronger digital future
Leaders across Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) are dealing with an unprecedented series of challenges—the war in Ukraine is having a tragic human cost, and its impact is
reverberating across societies and economies in the region and beyond. Major disruption to supply chains that started with the COVID-19 pandemic remains high, and inflation is fueling a cost-of-living crisis.
Managing risk, bolstering resilience, and navigating pressure on budgets have become the most immediate and urgent priorities for businesses. The need to address long-term commercial, economic, and societal issues remains, even as new ones emerge. We have a responsibility to help people and organizations use our technology to reinvent their business models, address a variety of challenges and opportunities in a comprehensive
and forward-looking way, and to unlock more value with less—less resources, less energy, less investment.
Our recently published Digital Futures Index established that more digitally advanced countries are greener, more productive, innovative, and competitive. CEE experienced a spur of technology adoption and digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. It proved the value of digitization in helping make economies and organizations stronger. Further accelerating digital progress will better us to respond to the opportunities and uncertainties of the present, while building the new capabilities and solutions we need to tackle those of tomorrow.
How do companies make the case to prioritize digitization? How can technology be used to help countries achieve both their near-term and long-term goals?
To help leaders make more informed policy and investment decisions, this eBook shares some key insights from the Digital Futures Index alongside inspiring case studies. It sets out an agenda for why and how digitization will help tackle today’s challenges while building a stronger digital future. It is a guide for strategic thinking and offers
jumping-off points to discover more on the topics and issues raised. We’d also be delighted to carry on the discussion in person we‘re ready to partner with you to help advance your digital journey.
Industry-structured resources with solutions to help you navigate and define next steps
Selection of success stories of digital transformations from CEE which will inspire and enrich your digital agendas
Skilling resources that will empower your teams to achieve their goals
The Digital Futures Index analyzes the digital journeys of 16 European countries—from those at earlier stages to recognized ‘front-runners’. Using over 1,000 data points from trusted public sources, it maps digital development and models
its relationship with societal and economic outcomes. It was designed to provide actionable insights to help leaders chart an accelerated path forward for every country.
The Digital Futures Index shows that digitization is a path to stronger, more sustainable societies and economies. It’s profoundly changing the way we work, live, and do business—reshaping entire industries and the delivery of public services.
In the near future, digitization can help mitigate risk and enhance resilience. At the same time, it creates a springboard to achieve long-term goals through fueling more innovation and improving sustainability.
Economic and societal gains score
On every measure of digital progress, we found that more advanced countries scored higher on key outcomes that matter to people, businesses, and countries.
Czechia
Slovenia
Malta
Portugal
Estonia
Denmark
Netherlands
Finland Sweden
Romania Croatia
Poland
Hungary
Greece
Serbia
Digital development score
5
Are Europe’s digital aspirations still on track?
“If anything, they’ll be accelerated. Neither digital transition nor fighting climate change can stop.”1
Margrethe Vestager,
EU Commissioner
Increasing productivity is a priority for both government and business leaders and is key to growing long-term competitiveness. Economic performance is closely linked to Total Factor Productivity—a measure of the overall efficiency of how capital and labor are used to generate output and enhance contribution to GDP. By focusing on productivity, organizations build the resilience needed to navigate dynamic markets, manage tight budgets and margin pressure, and to absorb shocks.
Productivity
The Digital Futures Index shows a significant correlation between digital development and increased productivity (GDP per hour worked), as well as higher average salaries.
The Index also revealed that digital competitiveness—the ability of organizations to generate value from technology and digital innovation—is one of the leading correlations between the digital progress of a country and overall economic and societal gains.
But while technology is foundational, skills are turnkey: organizations need skilled information and communication technology (ICT) professionals who can implement advanced digital technologies and bring their benefits to life across the organization.
As the number of ICT specialists in the workforce goes up, innovation and productivity increases.
Innovation performance rating
Netherlands
Sweden
Denmark Finland
Romania
Hungary Poland
Czechia
Malta Estonia
Portugal Slovenia
Greece
Serbia
Croatia
Percentage of ICT-specialists of
total employment
7
Government also plays a key role through creating a favorable policy and regulatory environment that enables and fosters digital progress.
The Index shows a strong relationship between the ‘ease of doing digital business’ and productivity gains.
Productivity
Slovenia Poland
Sweden Netherlands Denmark
Finland
Malta
Romania
Hungary
Czechia Estonia Portugal
Serbia
Greece Croatia
Ease of doing digitial business
The bottom line?
A thriving digital economy is more productive and resilient. It will be better positioned to weather the challenges of the present, while providing a platform that enables everyone to unlock new opportunities and live a better life.
Countries that gain the most from digital progress have advanced digital economies.
Economic and societal gains score
Slovenia
Czechia
Denmark
Finland
Malta Sweden
Romania
Croatia
Greece
Poland
Serbia
Portugal Hungary
Estonia
Netherlands
Size of digital economy
8
Key takeaways
Sustainable countries and higher resilience go hand in hand with a strong digital economy. Nations and leaders need to start looking at how they can provide the right foundation for innovative ideas that will solve the issues we are facing now, and will face in the new future.
Actionable insights to driving creativity and growth:
Digitization is a path to stronger, more sustainable societies and economies.
Interested in exploring others’ perception on transformation imperatives?
The Digital Futures Index found that every category of digital development strongly correlates with increased innovation. In other words, innovation is a product of a connected ecosystem. To intentionally cultivate it, policymakers and leaders need to take a holistic approach that encompasses business, the digital sector, digital infrastructure, start-ups, talent, and the public sector.
Importantly, the public sector isn’t just a small cog in this ecosystem—it’s a major catalyst. The public sector is delivering ‘lighthouse’ projects that blaze trails for others. It is encouraging private-sector digital infrastructure investment, advancing the country’s technical skills base, launching open data initiatives, and cultivating a diverse local ICT supplier base.
Putting more emphasis on digitalizing the public sector will become more and more vital in the future if leaders want to catalyze more innovation in their countries.
Find out how these organizations leveraged cloud technology to streamline operations and set the right foundation for a greener future.
Czech energy leader Innogy
drives sustainability by simplifying photovoltaic system customization.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia cooperates with Microsoft on the development of the Estonian virtual assistant Bürokratt.
Expectations of working culture have permanently shifted since the COVID-19 pandemic to offer a more flexible working culture. Hence, simply reverting to traditional ways of working will put competitiveness at risk as employees are seeking more flexibility.
The key word is flexibility—the best outcome is not obtained by having either remote or on-site work only, but rather a blend of both. Hybrid working enables everyone to bring their best, anytime, anywhere because work is no longer defined as a place, but something people do. Transforming working culture in this way will help keep key talent in the region, as well as attract people to return after gaining experience abroad. And to gain the most benefit from hybrid working, we need to ensure we are continually growing and deepening employees’ digital skills.
Level of innovation
Sweden
Netherlands Denmark Finland
Malta
Czechia
Slovenia
Hungary Poland Croatia
Estonia
Portugal
Romania
Serbia Greece
Percentage working from home during COVID-19 pandemic
12
Key takeaways
Innovation takes a village, and leaders should look to invest in people and partnerships to help it flourish. Empowering talent through digital skills and a hybrid working culture leads to greater innovation- which is great for job satisfaction, and helps organizations deliver better products and services to their customers and clients.
Actionable insights to driving creativity and growth:
Digitizing the public sector boosts talent attraction and retention and encourages
There is an undeniable urgency for leaders to take action to meet carbon emission targets and accelerate the shift to a more sustainable economy. And when it comes to prioritizing budgets and resources, it’s not a case of compromising, because what’s good for the planet is also good for businesses.
Combining ‘digital’ and ‘sustainability’
In particular, sustainability can enhance both efficiency and resilience—which are key priorities right now for every organization. The Digital Futures Index shows the powerful
relationship between digitization and a country’s environmental performance. It provides empirical evidence to underscore why ‘digital’ and ‘green’ strategies should be combined to produce the greatest impact.
Digitization and sustainability should be brought together as part of national resilience and recovery initiatives. Investing in both digital technology and skilling people will help nations reach their green goals more quickly and effectively.
Enviromental performance
Sweden Denmark
Finland
rating
Slovenia
Czechia
Malta
Netherlands
Greece
Romania
Portugal
Croatia Hungary Poland
Serbia
Estonia
Spending on digital technology & services
Having more digitally proficient citizens and workers plays an important role in giving us cleaner air and a greener environment.
Enviromental performance rating
Denmark Sweden
Finland
Czechia
Greece
Slovenia
Portugal
Malta Estonia
Netherlands
Romania
Hungary Poland
Serbia
Croatia
Digital skills of general population
15
Key takeaways
Investing in digital technology skills should be a top priority for advancing sustainability to make our societies and economies stronger and greener.
Actionable insights to creating greener and more sustainable operations:
Having higher sustainability can improve the efficiency and resilience
Security is top of mind for every leader. Protecting critical infrastructure and operations, safeguarding data, and ensuring business continuity have been paramount issues for organization.
Across Europe, nation-states, people, businesses, and supply chains are facing a rise in cyber threats. In 2021, the number of cyber-attacks reported against critical European targets more than doubled to 304 serious attacks, up from 146 in the year prior. Unfortunately, it’s an upward trend that is continuing in 2022, with high-profile cyber attacks having already taken place on telecommunications networks, government servers, energy facilities, and more.
Security and the cloud
With cyber threats increasing in both frequency and complexity,
it’s clear that security is foundational in enabling the shift to a digital-first economy and society. It’s a key factor in the accelerated adoption of the cloud, where security is built in
‘by design’ with hardened data centers, managed services, and predictive threat mitigation. The benefits go beyond security and resiliency, however. The Digital Index Futures shows it also drives greater productivity and unlocks more innovation. It’s a win-win situation that makes a compelling case for leaders to continue to prioritize cloud investment.
A key insight from the Digital Futures Index is the interconnected benefits of digitization. For leaders developing their digital strategies, it underscores why considering both the immediate need and broader benefits can help make a more compelling case to prioritize investment.
Innovation performance rating
Sweden Netherlands
Finland
Malta
Denmark
Czechia Estonia
Hungary Portugal
Poland
Romania Greece
Croatia
Slovenia
Percentage of
Serbia
businesses using cloud computing software
18
Digital Leadership
If senior leaders in your business aren‘t digitally-savvy, it puts you at a disadvantage.
For every organization today, it’s impossible to over-emphasize the importance of skilling programs and continual learning. It’s just as critical for leaders as for employees to ensure everyone has the digital skills they need to be successful.
Innovation
Netherlands
performance
Sweden
Finland
rating
Czechia
Estonia
Malta
Denmark
Poland
Hungary Portugal
Romania
Serbia Greece
Slovenia Croatia
Percentage of individuals aged 45-64 with above basic digital skills
19
Key takeaways
As security threats become more advanced, it’s crucial for organizations to stay ahead by investing in technology that provides secure access and data management. Internal ICT professionals should also be equipped with up-to-date
knowledge of deploying crucial turnkey technology.
Actionable insights into shaping a safe, digital-first society
Using cloud technology allows for better security
features when shifting their workflows online
Your digital leadership in empowering the workforce with right skills to support positive changes is crucial. Microsoft supports leaders in this process.
Europe’s ambition is to be a leader in the global digital economy. As such, it is mobilizing trillions of Euros to drive innovation and accelerate digital transformation.
Central and Eastern European countries can be the catapult to reaching our shared goal—if we progress, Europe leaps forward and countries and businesses alike secure our competitive future on the global stage.
As this eBook has shown, digitization can help address near-term priorities while advancing long-term goals. Leaders in both the public and private sector have a pivotal role to play in setting the agenda and making the case for investments in digital transformation. Far from pressing pause on digital initiatives, we need to hit accelerate. The current context only increases the urgency. Particular focus should be given to:
Growing everyone’s digital skills, especially those in decision-making roles
Digitizing more operations and services to increase efficiency, enhance resilience, and deliver more benefits to customers and citizens
Embracing digital technology and a hybrid working culture to empower talent to bring their best
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About the Digital Futures Index
Using highly credible public data sets we created a data model to map digital development along a wide range of parameters. We also collected and modeled key economic and social benefit indicators, enabling us to do cross-correlations to
understand the positive relationships that exist between the level of digital development and outcomes for countries, businesses, and citizens.
In total, our model includes 55 individual data parameters. These are organized under categories and sub-categories to make it simple and logical for the model and navigation. Data sources were selected on the basis of geographic coverage, date of publishing, and credibility.
Digital Development categories:
Digital Business
Digital Infrastructure
Digital Government and Public Sector
Economic and Societal Gains categories:
Governance Efficiency
Level of Innovation
Digital Sector
Human Capital
Sustainability Performance
Primary data sources included Eurostat, OECD, UN, WTO, Euromonitor, IMF, European Investment Bank, European Commission, European Environmental Agency, the World Bank, and more.
To create the Index, raw data was ‘normalized’ so that a score of 100 represents the CEE-average. A score of 110, for example, means that a country performs 10%
better than the CEE-average on that parameter. The reason for taking this approach is so that we are comparing like-for-like numbers between parameters of differing types and values (e.g. $ value of e-commerce sales and % of individuals with above basic data skills).
The Index includes data for the following CEE countries:
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Greece
Hungary
Malta
Poland
Romania
Serbia
Slovenia
It also includes a select group of advanced benchmark Western European countries. These were chosen on the basis of being identified in various authoritative reports, including those from McKinsey, as digital frontrunner nations.
Denmark • Finland • Netherlands • Sweden Lastly, we included Portugal as a recognized entity to provide an additional
The modern experience in Microsoft SharePoint is designed to be compelling, flexible, and more performant. The modern experience makes it easier for anyone to create beautiful, dynamic sites and pages that are mobile-ready. But what are the differences between the classic and modern experiences, and how do you go about creating a modern experience for your organization? This guide is a starting point for people familiar with the classic experiences in SharePoint to help you learn about the modern experience and how you can begin to take advantage of it.
Information architecture and hub sites
Classic SharePoint architecture is typically built using a hierarchical system of site collections and subsites, with inherited navigation, permissions, and site designs. Once built, this structure can be inflexible and difficult to maintain. In the modern SharePoint experience, every site is a site collection and can be associated to a hub, which is a flat collection of sites that share navigation, branding, and other elements. This type of structure is far more flexible and adaptive to the changing needs of your organization. Learn about how to plan for Hub sites.
Navigation
The most effective SharePoint sites (and web sites in general) help visitors find what they need quickly so that they can use the information they find to make decisions, learn about what is going on, access the tools they need, or engage with colleagues to help solve a problem. The fundamental principles and good practices for site and page navigation are equally applicable to both classic and modern SharePoint architectures. However, your options for implementing navigation differ based on the framework for your sites and intranet. For example, the “inherited” navigation experiences available in classic SharePoint site hierarchies (sites with subsites) are not available in the modern experience, but hubs provide a great way to achieve the cross-site navigation features previously available in managed navigation and site hierarchies in classic SharePoint.
In the classic SharePoint experience, there is a set of default themes and site designs that can require a considerable amount of customization to get them to match your organization’s brand. Also, they aren’t very responsive, making the experience on different devices inconsistent. Most site branding requires the use of custom master pages or alternate CSS configurations. SharePoint includes an updated set of default site themes and site designs (or templates) that are responsive and look great on any device. With site themes, you can customize your site’s logo and colors to match your brand. You can also align the mobile SharePoint app for your users to match your company branding. Site designs provide specific layouts and other functionality for your site. Additional branding can be achieved using custom themes or site designs without worrying about something breaking when SharePoint is updated. To learn more about modern branding options, see Branding SharePoint sites in the modern experience.
Publishing
If you’ve implemented publishing sites or publishing-enabled sites in your organization, you know how important it is to create attractive and performant pages to distribute communication to a large number of people. In the modern experience, communication sites make it easy to create beautiful, dynamic, and performant sites and pages that are mobile-ready. There are differences from classic publishing, though, and things you’ll want to think about planning your move to the modern experience. For more info, see Moving from Publishing sites to Communication sites.
Search
Search is an important part of any site – you want people to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. SharePoint has both a classic and a modern search experience. Microsoft Search in SharePoint is the modern experience. The most visible difference is that the Microsoft Search box is placed at the top of SharePoint, in the header bar. Another difference is that Microsoft Search is personal and contextual. The results you see are different from what other people see, even when you search for the same words. You will also see different results based on where you are when you search. For example, searching at the root of your tenant looks across all of SharePoint. Searching from a hub finds content in all sites associated to the hub. Searching from an individual site finds content on that site. Searching from a list or library finds content in the list or library. You will also see results before you start typing in the search box, based on your previous activity and trending content in Microsoft 365, and the results update as you type. To learn more about the Microsoft Search experience for users, see Find what you need with Microsoft Search. There are other differences, especially around customization. To decide which experience your organization should use, see When to use which search experience.
Sharing and permissions
SharePoint continues to provide both SharePoint groups and security groups maintained by Azure Active Directory. Microsoft 365 also provides a third grouping option for SharePoint, Microsoft 365 groups. Microsoft 365 groups are similar to security groups, although Microsoft 365 groups include many additional benefits. Microsoft 365 groups are provided a group email address and additional tools such as a group calendar, notebook, Planner, and a SharePoint Team site. Users assigned to a Microsoft 365 group may also be classified as either a group owner or a group member, in comparison to security groups where all group members have equal access under the group. To learn about the differences, benefits, and best practices for permissions and sharing in the modern experience, see Sharing and permissions in the SharePoint modern experience.
Performance
The modern experience in SharePoint is designed to be compelling, flexible and – importantly – more performant. Both SharePoint performance as a whole and the performance of individual SharePoint components such as search, lists, and document libraries are affected by many factors, all of which contribute to the decisive performance metric: perceived end-user latency, or the speed with which pages are rendered in the client browser. For more info, see Performance in the modern SharePoint experience.
Multilingual
Classic SharePoint publishing sites can use a feature called variations to create a site that supports multiple languages. Modern communication sites leverage a multilingual experience to make content in your intranet sites available in multiple languages. User interface elements like site navigation, site title, and site description can be shown in the user’s preferred language. Additionally, you can provide pages and news posts on communication sites that you translate and that are shown in the user’s preferred language. One of the most important differences in the modern experience is that, unlike the variations feature, which creates a separate subsite for each language, the modern multilingual experience creates a corresponding page in the same site, but in a language-specific folder in the Site Pages library. To learn more, see Create modern multilingual communication sites, pages, and news.
Το LinkedIn OutReach είναι μια στοχευμένη στρατηγική προσέγγισης νέου κοινού στο LinkedIn, το οποίο ενδιαφέρεται για τα προϊόντα και τις υπηρεσίες που μπορεί να προσφέρει η εκάστοτε εταιρεία. Με απλά λόγια, ένα LinkedIn OutReach Plan έχει στόχο να παρουσιάσει την εταιρεία σε ένα δυνητικό πελατολόγιο με σκοπό να δημιουργήσει leads.
Γιατί όμως να Χρησιμοποιήσουμε το LinkedIn;
1. Το κοινό που βρίσκεται στο LinkedIn: Το LinkedIn διαθέτει πάνω από 750 εκατομμύρια επαγγελματίες με το 4/5 να είναι decision makers. Καθώς το LinkedIn είναι ένα πλήρως επιχειρηματικό κανάλι, οι χρήστες το επισκέπτονται για να δικτυωθούν, να βελτιώσουν την καριέρα τους και να ενημερωθούν για τις εξελίξεις γύρω από τον κλάδο τους. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι η στόχευση γίνεται σε ένα κοινό το οποίο είναι ανοικτό να ακούσει και να αλληλεπιδράσει. 2. Το περιβάλλον της πλατφόρμας: Ο αλγόριθμος του LinkedIn προωθεί την αλληλεπίδραση και θέλει το κοινό του να δημιουργεί, να επικοινωνεί και να προβάλλεται. 3. Τα εργαλεία: Το LinkedIn περιέχει τα κατάλληλα εργαλεία όπως το Sales Navigator και τη διαφημιστική τους πλατφόρμα, για να βοηθήσει τις επιχειρήσεις: να βρουν τους κατάλληλους δυνητικούς πελάτες, να διαδράσουν μαζί τους και τέλος να τους μετατρέψουν σε πελάτες.
Σε ποιους απευθύνεται;
Όπως προαναφέρθηκε, το LinkedIn OutReach Plan για Lead Generation απευθύνεται σε όλους όσους θέλουν να βρουν στοχευμένα leads. Για την ορθή και βέλτιστη λειτουργία ενός OutReach Plan είναι σημαντικό να εξετάσουμε τις ανάγκες της εταιρείας μας, καθώς και το στάδιο το οποίο βρίσκεται το δυνητικό της πελατολόγιο στο conversion funnel. Οι ενέργειες που θα ακολουθήσουμε, βασίζονται στη δημιουργία επαφής και σχέσης με τον δυνητικό πελάτη με τελικό στόχο τη δημιουργία του lead.
LinkedIn OutReach Strategy:
Η δημιουργία στρατηγικής για ένα LinkedIn OutReach Plan για Lead Generation περιλαμβάνει 5+1 βήματα.
Step1 – Προσδιορισμός του κοινού στόχευσης.
Ο προσδιορισμός του κοινού στόχευσης αποτελεί βασικό βήμα κάθε marketing στρατηγικής, και είναι εξίσου σημαντικό για τη δημιουργία ενός LinkedIn OutReach Plan. Φανταστείτε τον προσδιορισμό του κοινού ως ένα χωνί, το οποίο όσα πιο πολλά χαρακτηριστικά προσθέτουμε τόσο πιο μικρό και συγκεκριμένο γίνεται.
Step 2 – Δημιουργία ή βελτιστοποίηση του ήδη υπάρχοντος Linkedin Profile
Για την ολοκλήρωση του OutReach Plan είναι πρωταρχικός στόχος να βελτιστοποιήσουμε το profile ενός ή περισσότερων εργαζομένων με σκοπό να τρέξουμε την συγκεκριμένη ενέργεια μέσα από το profile τους. Όσο πιο ενεργό και βελτιστοποιημένο είναι ένα προφίλ τόσο πιο αξιόλογο φαίνεται στον δυνητικό πελάτη.
Ένα άλλο μέτρο αξιολόγησης μας από την πλευρά του πελάτη είναι και η σελίδα μας στο Linkedin, η οποία πρέπει να αναδεικνύει όλο το φάσμα των υπηρεσιών και των προϊόντων που θέλουμε να προωθήσουμε. Πολύ σημαντικό στο στάδιο αυτό είναι να τρέξουμε την ενέργεια αυτήν μέσα από profile υπάρχοντος ατόμου και όχι από την σελίδα της εταιρείας ώστε να φαινόμαστε πιο άμεσοι και προσιτοί προς τους δυνητικούς μας πελάτες.
Τέλος, είναι σημαντικό οι κύριοι εργαζόμενοι της εταιρείας να έχουν ένα βελτιστοποιημένο profile που να αναδεικνύει την θέση τους στην εταιρεία καθώς λειτουργούν ως ambassador της.
Το LinkedIn Sales Navigator, επιτρέπει την αναζήτηση χρηστών του LinkedIn με βάση τα χαρακτηριστικά των profile των δυνητικών πελατών που θέλουμε να στοχεύσουμε. Επιτρέπει την εύρεση κοινού με εξειδικευμένα χαρακτηριστικά που αφορούν τον κλάδο, την εταιρεία, την θέση & την εμπειρία του δυνητικού πελάτη.
Η αποστολή του Connect Request πρέπει να συνοδεύεται με ένα προσωποποιημένο -όσο γίνεται-μήνυμα. Συχνά τα προκαθορισμένα μηνύματα παραβλέπονται και θεωρούνται spam επειδή γίνεται πολύ συχνή χρήση τους.
Με την αποστολή του Connect Request είναι καλό να εξάγουμε και να διατηρούμε τα προσωπικά στοιχεία των χρηστών που προσεγγίσαμε, με σκοπό να τους επαναπροσεγγίσουμε και να τους περάσουμε στην βάση του CRM μας.
Step 4 – Αποστολή μηνύματος ή σειράς μηνυμάτων
Αφότου γίνει η αποδοχή του αιτήματος, μπορούμε είτε να περάσουμε σε προσωπική επαφή με τον κάθε χρήστη είτε αν θέλουμε να ζεστάνουμε κι άλλο το lead να ακολουθήσουμε μια σειρά αυτοματοποιημένων μηνυμάτων. Είναι σημαντικό να γίνεται επίβλεψη των μηνυμάτων και να περνάμε σε manual επικοινωνία με τον πελάτη ο οποίος ανταποκρίνεται στα μηνύματα μας και πιθανό να είναι έτοιμος για συνάντηση.
Step 5 – Φιλτράρισμα των Leads
To φιλτράρισμα και ο διαχωρισμός των leads είναι εξαιρετικά σημαντικός για την σωστή διαχείριση του όγκου των χρηστών που θέλουμε να προσεγγίσουμε.
Προτεινόμενος τρόπος διαχωρισμού: 1. Cold leads: Το σύνολο των ατόμων από την έρευνα στο Sales Navigator 2. Follow up Leads: Το σύνολο των ατόμων που έχουν κάνει αποδοχή στο αίτημα connect αλλά δεν έχουν απαντήσει στα μηνύματα μας ή το σύνολο των ατόμων που μας έχει απαντήσει ότι δεν ενδιαφέρεται αυτήν την στιγμή. 3. Hot Leads: Το σύνολο των ατόμων που έχουν δείξει ενδιαφέρον για τα προϊόντα ή την υπηρεσία μας και θέλουν να γίνει συνάντηση
Step 6 – Αποστολή Emails σε Cold Leads
Αν και προαιρετικό, σκοπός μας σε αυτό το βήμα είναι η επαναπροσέγγιση του κοινού που δεν μας έχει απαντήσει. Οι λόγοι που μπορεί να μην μας έχει απαντήσει, ποικίλουν και για αυτό, περνάμε σε μια δεύτερη προσπάθεια, εκτός του Linkedin με σκοπό να πάρουμε το Lead.
Ένα OutReach Plan είναι πολλά παραπάνω από έξι βήματα, μια συχνότητα μηνυμάτων, και μερικά Newsletter.
Για την σωστή υλοποίηση ενός OutReach Plan χρειάζονται:
1. Μια ολοκληρωμένη Στρατηγική προσέγγισης του σωστού κοινού. 2. Η χρήση automation tools, για την αυτοματοποίηση της αποστολής των διαφόρων μηνυμάτων, την εξαγωγή στοιχείων επικοινωνίας και την ενημέρωση του CRM. 3. Σωστή βελτιστοποίηση του Profile και άριστη γνώση του Linkedin, με σκοπό την αποφυγή του μαρκαρίσματος ως spam από την ίδια την πλατφόρμα και κλείσιμο του profile οριστικά. 4. Συνεχής επίβλεψη, με σκοπό την αποφυγή αυτοματοποιημένων μηνυμάτων σε χρήστες έτοιμους για συνάντηση ή σε χρήστες που θέλουν περισσότερες πληροφορίες. 5. Δημιουργία στρατηγικής για αποστολή Newsletter σε Cold Emails, με σκοπό την αποφυγή του μαρκαρίσματος ως spam.
Το Linkedin έχει επιτρέψει σε εκατομμύρια εταιρίες να αναπτύξουν το πελατολόγιο τους. Ανακάλυψε και εσύ, πως μπορεί να επωφεληθεί η δικιά σου εταιρεία από ένα Linkedin OutReach Plan με σκοπό να αποκτήσει νέα Leads.
Introduction Even before the global pandemic introduced new security challenges to organisations, CISOs were dealing with a complex security landscape. Technology stacks for security have evolved into a jumbled mix of point solutions as security teams address multiple threat types from a variety of endpoints, apps, services and networks. As CISOs pivot to prioritise around post-COVID-19 security strategies, it’s a good time to revisit ways to streamline and strengthen security environments. Rather than cobbling together individual point solutions, consider a more integrated approach that provides comprehensive protection and enhanced capabilities for today’s workers, with tools that take advantage of intelligence and automation capabilities to simplify management and reduce risk.
Deliver unified end-user experiences for greater security Consolidate security with a more cost-effective solution Reduce cyber risk with integrated, best-in-class protection
How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 4 As the security landscape evolves, with new threats cropping up almost daily, security teams face a heavy burden to keep pace. In some cases, technology has added to the challenge instead of mitigating it. A complex mix of siloed, single-point security solutions are time-consuming to deploy and inevitably lead to a patchwork of consoles and reports that are difficult to monitor and manage across the enterprise.
In a study by Forrester Consulting, 59% of organisations acknowledged the challenge of correlating security alerts from disparate technologies to detect threats. “Reducing the number of disparate security point solutions that must interact with each other – particularly older, legacy ones – brings complexity down to a manageable level,” the study notes.¹
In addition to reducing complexity, a consolidated solution can improve your overall security posture by filling gaps created by a lack of integration across the technology stack. For example, a separate study by Forrester Consulting found that organisations deploying Microsoft Defender for Office 365 P2, which provides a holistic, integrated approach to security, reduced the likelihood of a security breach by 60% and decreased the time required for investigation and remediation of security incidents by 89%. Consolidate security with a more costeffective solution ¹‘Security Through Simplicity,’ Forrester Consulting, December 2018. How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 5 60% decrease in time required for investigation and remediation of security incidents 89% reduction in the likelihood of a security breach Another benefit of vendor consolidation is improved cost management – a critical consideration in these extraordinary times, when every penny counts. In a recent study by CIO, 75% of IT leaders expect IT budgets to remain flat or decrease in the next 12 months and 45% expect to be spending more time on cost control and expense management in the months ahead. “We recognised the best-in-suite value of Microsoft 365 E5 not just from a security perspective.… We realised we could get everything we needed with one licence. If we had used separate vendors, it would absolutely have cost more, in addition to the complexity of managing multiple products and contracts.” Customer perspective – Doug Howell, Director of IT, The Little Potato Company
How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 6 Deliver unified enduser experiences forgreater security
CISOs have long known that security is only as strong as individual users across the organisation. More than two-thirds (68%) of organisations in a recent survey by Cybersecurity Insiders believe they are vulnerable to insider attack and less than half (42%) said their ability to monitor, detect and respond to insider threats is very or extremely effective.
Insider risk includes the unintentional leaks that may occur due to overly complex security tools and policies. The shift to remote work makes it imperative to provide easy-to-use tools for securely accessing data, apps and systems from any location. Modern security tools provide strong, secure access to applications while removing the traditional friction points that can inhibit productivity. A seamless single sign-on experience provides quick access from anywhere to the dozens of applications users need daily to perform their job duties. And it can save users an average of 10 minutes per week and save the organisation USD 2.9 million annually, according to Forrester Consulting. of organisations in a recent survey by Cybersecurity Insiders believe they are vulnerable to insider attack said their ability to monitor, detect and respond to insider threats is very or extremely effective.
68% 42%
How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 7 Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) is one proven method to address the dreaded password reuse issue. It’s well known that users often reuse passwords across multiple accounts, which flies in the face of good security hygiene and also puts an organisation at greater risk of a security breach. Passwords were tied to 80% of breaches in 2019, according to the 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.
Another option that’s gaining favour is to remove the password entirely. Passwordless methods such as Microsoft Authenticator, Windows Hello and FIDO2 security keys provide a simpler and more secure authentication experience across the web and on mobile devices. Based on the FIDO2 standard, these methods enable remote users to authenticate easily and securely without requiring a password. Windows Hello uses biometrics, providing a convenient option that is three times faster than using a password. MFA and passwordless access are just two examples that represent a broader shift from perimiter-based defence to identity-based management and a Zero Trust security model. Using identity as the control plane lets organisations treat every access request as untrusted until the user and device are fully verified. “If you make security hard, people may work around it. With Microsoft 365, we get native capabilities, visibility into our operational environment and simplicity for all employees.”
Customer perspective – Simon Hodgkinson, Group Chief Information Security Officer, BP How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 8 80% of breaches in 2019were tied to passwords
How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 9 Reduce cyber risk with integrated, bestin-class protection
Poor security posture is often rooted in complexity. Security teams have historically struggled to keep up with threats and signals across a patchwork of poorly integrated solutions that fail to cover the breadth of workloads, clouds and devices that businesses run on. A consolidated tool set can improve your organisation’s overall security posture by reducing complexity and integrating protection across the enterprise. An integrated solution will also help security teams more effectively deploy and leverage automation and AI technologies to further improve protection.
Automation is critical for modern threat protection, in part because it can help correlate, consolidate and analyse an often-unwieldy volume of alerts for anomalous behaviour, particularly now that much of the workforce is outside the office. For example, the AI and automation capabilities in Microsoft 365 Defender reduce alert triage and correlation by 50× on average, empowering teams to more quickly detect and respond to threats.
The cloud has given rise to a new generation of modern security tools that simplify the defender experience by combining signals and automating responses to catch threats that would otherwise go unchecked. The most important emerging tools are cloudnative Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Most vendors only offer one or the other. How a consolidated security stack can reduce your risks and costs 10 Microsoft offers a unique approach that empowers security professionals with both cloud-native SIEM and XDR tools from a single vendor. This brings a new level of integration that gives defenders the best of both worlds: end-to-end visibility across all of their resources and intelligent alerts built with a deep understanding of individual resources, enhanced with human and machine intelligence. Microsoft 365 Defender provides best-in-class real-world detection according to a MITRE ATT&CK evaluation, which found that the Microsoft solution provides: Microsoft SIEM and XDR solutions can help reduce ‘alert fatigue’ significantly – as much as 90% in some Microsoft evaluations.
Nearly 100% complete coverage across emails and docs, endpoints, identities and apps across kill-chain stages.
Leading out-of-box visibility into attacker activities to dramatically reduce manual work for the security operations centre.
“Going with a best-of-platform security approach from Microsoft was the right choice because of the rapid innovation across the platform.” Customer perspective – Erik Passchier, Global Head of IT Infrastructure, Rabobank
Microsoft Office 365, propelled in 2011, is a finished bundle of uses and administrations, which is right now being utilized by more than 155 million individuals all around the world. It is a cloud-based model and gives the clients a variety of features which will help support your business profitability. Read on to find out more about the comparison between Microsoft 365 Business vs Enterprise.
Introduction to Microsoft 365 Business
Microsoft Office 365 Subscription offers various types of pricing plans. Even though the basic features remain the same, there are some differences that can make a difference in the way you work.
Recently, Microsoft has changed the naming conventions for its Office 365 Business plans and now they are called Microsoft 365 Business.
Following are a couple of highlights which separate the two:
a. Mail Storage Limit for different Microsoft Office Online Plans
With regards to email storage, Microsoft Office 365 / Microsoft 365 Enterprise have much more to offer than Microsoft Business. The Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Enterprise give their clients access to a bigger Exchange Online post box size of 100 GB and boundless stockpiling as an archive mailbox, when contrasted with the Business which offers a capacity of 50 GB.
b. On-Premise CAL Rights Equivalency to Office 365
OneDrive storage limit is another difference which differentiates the two families of Microsoft Plans. The Enterprise family offers unlimited while the Microsoft Business Premium maxs out at 1TB of cloud storage.
c. Sharepoint Plans
Microsoft Business Family provision Sharepoint Plan 1 at max while the Enterprise Family do come with the option of SP Plan 2
d. On-Premise CAL Rights Equivalency to Office 365
Another significant contrast between the Microsoft Office 365 / Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Business is the on-premise CAL (Client Access License) rights. Microsoft Enterprise gives its clients the ECAL Suite which gives them the right to use On-Premises Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, Windows, and so on.
e. Business Intelligence and Analytics
Microsoft Office 365 / Microsoft 365 Enterprise accompanies a wide scope of Intelligence and Analytics apparatuses which are not offered in Microsoft Business. The Enterprise provide services like Advanced Excel, Delve Analytics, and Power BI Pro, which help the clients perform systematic errands and picture information on one stage.
Thus, Microsoft Enterprise can be useful for any organization engaged with performing significant level explanatory tasks.
f. Security and Compliance
Microsoft/Office 365 Plans for Enterprise offer very vast features in Security and Compliance and Advance Threat Protection sections as compared to Business plans which would prove saving an organization from huge losses and great productivity without compromising over security. Things like Advanced Threat Protection, Desktop Analytics, Device Guard & Creds Guard, Cloud App Security and Endpoint Configuration Manager (Device Management Solution) for the devices securing from unauthorized office apps & device access, generated reports of security for desktop devices and cloud apps, blocking anonymous codes from running on desktop devices for automated real-time security from malware, viruses etc. would prove very efficient solutions for your company security.
When we talk about the security and features of Azure Active Directory, Business Family only supports upto Azure AD Premium Plan 1 while the Enterprise do come with the option of Azure AD Pl
Any organization with very sensitive data that’d not like to miss out any Security and Compliance and Advanced Threat Protection features for tightening the security of environment and not ready to comprise the loss of critical data should opt for the Enterprise.
g. PSTN Calling Capabilities
Microsoft & Office 365 Subscription for Enterprise may come with Phone System license by default and one wouldn’t need to buy an add on for it which is required to make PSTN phone calls. Business plans may be brought together with Phone System using add on, but the Phone System isn’t already built into the plans.
Any organization looking for some productive apps, very tight security and PSTN calling capabilities in one bundle should always opt for the Enterprise one.
The essential contrast between the Microsoft Office 365 / Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Microsoft Business is the quantity of users advertised. Microsoft Business can be utilized and imparted to up to 300 users, though Microsoft Office 365 / Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans can be imparted to a boundless number of users.
Henceforth, the Business Subscription is an answer intended for little and developing business, though the Enterprise plan is fitting for bigger firms.
A significant contrast which each business will consider before buying Microsoft is the expense of the two. While the fundamental highlights in both Microsoft 365 Business vs Enterprise continue as before, the previous one comes at a lower cost.
The base cost for the Business plan ranges from $5 to $20, while the Enterprise features come at a more significant expense going from $8 to $57.
Along these lines, for any individual who wishes to utilize only the fundamental feature of Microsoft, the Business plan would be the correct alternative.
Microsoft 365 Business
Microsoft 365 Enterprise
Max Mail Storage: 50 GBOn-Premise CAL Rights: NoneBusiness Intelligence and Analytics: None Max Users Count: 300Cost Range: $5-$20Flavors: Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Max Mail Storage: 100 GBOn-Premise CAL Rights: PermittedBusiness Intelligence and Analytics: Permitted Max Users Count: UnlimitedCost Range: $8-$57Flavors: Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise, F3, E3 and E5 & Office E1, E3 and E5
You can find the comparison between the different Microsoft 365 Business flavors, the comparison between various Microsoft 365 Enterprise Plans, and that for different Office 365 Enterprise Plans in these articles. Of course, if you feel indecisive, our consultants would love to help you choose the right plan – often offering additional discounts and promotions based on number of users. Who doesn’t like discounts, right? Just book a meeting with us and let us help you get started!
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