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Rhymer Rigby

Rhymer Rigby is a journalist who writes for the FT, The Times and The Telegraph in the UK as well as magazines including GQ to Management Today. He is the author of two books: 28 Business Thinkers Who Changed The World and The Careerist.

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Latest stories by Rhymer

people missing ink productivity

Why your staff aren’t using your amazing productivity tools

  • Opinions
  • min read
    • I deal with many kinds of businesses and organizations in my work. They all use different productivity tools. As I get my head around learning that new software for a new project, I've often found those working in the company have no greater knowledge of their tech tools than I do. Many companies find productivity tools don't deliver. I see that, but I think the problem isn't the tools. Nor is it the people who don't know how to use them. It's something in between. Software is becoming more elaborate Most of us don't use much of the capability of our tools. Software company Pendo says we rarely or never use 80 percent of any software product's features. Cloud software companies spend 30 billion US dollars each year developing these features, "dollars that could have been spent on higher-value features and unrealized customer value." This is perhaps one reason comparatively feature-lite Google Docs is so successful. Non-use of features is only half the story. A recent survey of US workers found 68 percent faced challenges with their workplace software. Common gripes included that software was hard to learn, always changing, and many technologies to learn. Interestingly, four in five high earners (earning over 100,000 US dollars) found software challenging, but lower-income earners coped better, with three in five reporting difficulties. Is software training helping? Kaspersky's research found 38 percent of the workforce want more support from their organization when working remotely. One in two saw work-from-home skills as essential. Yet, employees aren't that happy with their on-the-job training. A Degreed and Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning study found only one in five would recommend their employers' learning and development offer. Nearly one in two are dissatisfied with it. Poor development opportunities might drive your employees into competitors' arms – a survey by communications platform Hibob found 56 percent of staff considered learning and development opportunities more important than salary. Receiving training in using new software is by no means the norm. I asked peers if, when new software arrived, they were trained on it. One said, "When we get a new piece of productivity software, it's very much, "Here's something we bought. Now use it." We're never told why and never given instruction." Another said, "Everyone just assumes if you know how to use (Microsoft) Office, you can use everything else." This 'technology will solve all our problems'-thinking may, ironically, be holding companies back when it comes to digitalization. Consultancy firm Gartner lists factors that hold back digital transformation, including not leading from the top, vague goals and too much focus on technology rather than corporate culture. What do we see here? Staff receive new technology and are told to get on with it. Their only participation in the process is as recipients. The pandemic helped us adopt new tools, not just because we had to Considering this problem, the grand, forced work-from-home experiment in the first half of 2020 may have had positive effects. We all had to start using new technologies, and the reason for it was staring us in the face. Companies made support available, staff wanted to learn, and together, they made big strides. The pandemic work-from-home experience filled me with optimism. You heard moans about 'Zoom fatigue' initially, but most people adapted well, supported by their companies. In September 2020, Enterprise Technology Research surveyed about 1,200 Chief Information Officers around the world. They said they thought, compared with before the pandemic, their permanent remote workforce would double in 2021 to about 34 percent. Nearly 50 percent reported productivity had improved with remote work, with only 29 percent reporting productivity reductions. This echoes what I've heard. A major professional services firm partner told me earlier this year, technological changes that once would've taken years had been pushed through in weeks. They had to be. Knowing why you should use the tech isn't the whole answer. You still need to articulate a vision, train people and make sure it works. But having a ready-made case for change, such as a pandemic forcing remote working, was a big part of the answer. One lesson companies can take from 2020 is to show employees why they're introducing productivity tools. Make a compelling argument for them gets you halfway there.

You need a Security Operations Center – and you can afford it

  • IT Infrastructure
  • min read
    • A Security Operations Center (sometimes called an Information Security Operations Center) is exactly what its name suggests – a team of technical experts in a facility dedicated to the organization's cybersecurity. Its job is to work around the clock to minimize risks, stay up-to-date on threats and risks, and respond to attacks on computers and networks. It's essentially the IT equivalent of a normal security center, the difference being that the team is in front of computers, not CCTV. Threats from cybercriminals are constantly evolving: volumes of data are growing exponentially and legislation is changing fast. As technologies such as 5G and the internet of things (IoT) become mainstream, hackers and other digital criminals have even more options when it comes to gaining access to companies' systems and data. Not only are the risks increasing, but so are the associated financial costs. According to research by Kaspersky, in 2020, the costs of cleaning up after a breach reached an average of $1.09m for enterprise. Why do you need to invest in a SOC? So why do only one-third of businesses have a Security Operations Center? In the past, dedicated SOCs have largely been the preserve of big companies. This was because they were expensive and consumed significant resources and expertise. But it's also because small- and medium-sized businesses have not, traditionally, been as data-intensive as their sprawling multinational counterparts. However, this is changing for a variety of reasons, some positive and some negative. Firstly, even the smallest businesses are now data businesses. They can mine data from customer communications for insights, monitor social media and respond intelligently to use customer data for targeted campaigns. This can mean a lot of data. As business processes move towards total automation, the IT and technology functions in the business have to take on more responsibility for managing these increased risks. Now, more attacks are carried out by highly skilled attackers, so professional security operations teams need to work harder to block them. In tandem with this, cybercriminals, such as the writers of ransomware, no longer just go for the big fish. Rather, they target everyone – the difference between the percentage of small businesses and large businesses attacked is now negligible. Indeed, according to a 2019 cyber-readiness study by the multinational insurers Hiscox, the average cyber-breach costs a small- to medium-sized business $77,000. Although far less than the hit on enterprises, it's a sobering and unexpected cost to foot. It's time to fight back. Or, quite literally, SOC it to them. SOCs are now for all business sizes It's not all bad, though. According to Kaspersky's research, security budgets are growing. What's more, it's now easy and cost-effective to buy in much of the complex tech and expertise from specialists. For small- and medium-sized businesses, this reduces the cost and the headache and answers the "Where do I start?" question. You can set up a SOC without looking at developing costly expertise in-house. There's less hassle and costs are predictable. This removes many of the barriers to an organization launching a SOC. For mid-sized businesses, the boot (or rather the SOC) is now on the other foot. According to Kaspersky's Sergey Soldatov, now is the time to seize the opportunity to establish your SOC: Big businesses are looking to improve their SOCs too In fact, even for large businesses, using a bought-in SOC is becoming increasingly attractive. A recent survey by the SANS Institute, which specializes in IT security, found that specialists working in SOCs had limited satisfaction with their performance but did not have a clear view of how to improve it. This is likely to be because the world of cybersecurity has become so complex that big companies are struggling to keep up with the fast-changing landscape and develop sufficient expertise in-house. Here, the cloud offers an instructive comparison. It has revolutionized the way many companies approach their IT needs. It means that medium-sized businesses can afford the sort of sophisticated solutions that were once only available to multinationals. In fact, many global giants have also discovered that it's more cost-effective and efficient to use outside specialists. We are now seeing something similar with security – increasingly, high-end SOCs are now within everyone's reach, regardless of how big (or small) you are.
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About Secure Futures

Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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