How to overcome security worries

Placing security at the heart of any channel partner’s portfolio is essential, so says Phil Jones, MD of Brother UK. He reveals his reasons why.

A Significant challenge in encouraging uptake of new technology is overcoming security fears. Channel businesses should meet this head-on by ensuring that information protection is a part of the products and services they offer.

Security is a well-discussed issue and high on the priority list of CIOs and IT directors. It’s not just enterprise level information hosted in cloud servers that companies want to protect – more and more are realising that the range of products used in the day-to-day working lives of employees can represent open gateways if left unsecure.

To the uninitiated, other technology used in the office could appear to have the same risk, and having security front and centre of the channel’s proposition is necessary to quell the concerns of c-suite executives of the businesses they sell to.

However, new versions of products that have been commonplace in any office – like printers and scanners – also need to be considered, especially where the role of security features are maybe not so apparent.

Security has to match modern working methods, and these should be front of mind for the channel. Features like pull printing, which enables users to secure documents they print with a PIN number – controlling who can access certain printers, as well as data encryption for mobile printing and scanning are becoming a draw for end users. These systems allow hardware to be used in line with the ways many businesses today want their offices to operate – with greater mobility – without compromising security.

We’ve seen overcoming security worries play a significant role in the evolution and take up of web conferencing systems. Some on- premise systems require significant investment and day-to-day upkeep to ensure security. Cloud-based systems are also able to also protect the transfer of data cost effectively.

This is part of the reason why we’ve seen different organisations use our OmniJoin service which has military-grade security through encryption and a secure sockets layer connection. Being able to start a web conference between a desktop PC, tablet or smartphone securely without fear of data breach is also opening it up to new sectors where security is of the utmost importance – such as healthcare.

The landscape of office equipment has come a long way. End users have invested heavily in the central security of their IT infrastructure, and are turning their efforts to ensuring satellite devices and systems sharing critical business information have data protection. Putting security at the heart of how firms sell products and services is key to creating credibility and relevancy in today’s IT environment.

Phil Jones is the MD of printer vendor Brother UK. www.brother.co.uk