In our recent infographic we reported that almost 1 in 6 construction companies reported a ransomware attack in the past year so, yes, ransomware is a serious problem for construction companies. The question then becomes: why are construction and engineering companies being targeted with such frequency? For two reasons; first is a distributed workforce.

For a managed service provider (MSP), answering questions about data governance—specifically data security and privacy—is a vital part of the job. Understanding the complexities of content management systems, automation, and more ensures you are at the top of the data security field. Maintaining file and data security is a fact of life—usually by force of law. However, it’s a subject not many of your clients will ever fully understand.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for cross-company collaboration. Yet, working with external partners shouldn’t mean giving away company secrets. Now, information security is more vital than ever. Proper data management and governance are good ways to control access to your files, protect secure information, and maintain compliance with all industry laws and regulations.

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses that were already beginning their digital transformation have sped up their efforts even more. Companies have been forced to increase spending on digital transformation in order to cope with a myriad of pandemic-related challenges.

Today, having a strong data governance program is critical for many reasons: understanding and minimizing risk to sensitive data, maintaining security and trust, avoiding compliance fines, and empowering knowledge workers to be more effective at their jobs. The trouble is, if you don’t manage scope properly, and instead try to eat the proverbial data governance elephant all in one bite, you are setting yourself up for trouble.

The latest survey data on electronic trial master file (eTMF) usage is from 2018 and puts adoption at 75%. It is no mystery why eTMFs are so popular, they make it easier to track progress, provide more control over a “single source of truth”, and enable better/faster data sharing options than a paper-based process. Digitization is listed as one of the top investments by biotech companies after the pandemic interrupted most in-person study activities.

By the end of 2020, Microsoft 365 was used by more than one million companies worldwide. And for good reason. With the move to remote work, applications like Word and Excel, Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint, provided businesses with a familiar, easy to access, and easy to use productivity suite – all available in the cloud.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed more employees to work from home than ever before. While this shift has many advantages—including reduced office space costs and more geographic flexibility—it also leads workers to access data from a variety of entry points.