Redistributing the Workplace - ' Figuring in Security '
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Figuring in Security
CIO Insight: What has been the biggest aspect of your discussions with clients, and at what point does security become part of the discussion?
Grantham: The first question people ask is, how do we use these strategies to take out significant costs of operations? Let's face it, the business driver today is how to shave 20, 30, 40 percent off of the cost structure.
Having said that, security comes up as soon as a company realizes that its people need to be collaborating with other folks who are outside their company. Internally, they feel fairly confident about firewalls and network security and business continuity planning and all of those things. Their telecom people and CIOs have got that pretty much under control. But it hits them pretty hard when they realize, we've got to be moving stuff between us and our customers or our suppliers or our partners, and as soon as you start to cut across that corporate boundary, security becomes the issue.
And, frankly, folks are really struggling with it right now. I mean, we've talked to folks who will admit that instead of transmitting large files over the net, they will put it in a removable hard drive, put it in a briefcase and give it to a person, who then gets on a plane and flies it to where it needs to go. Security across collaborative business efforts is the issue right now, and I don't see anybody who's really cracked it.
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