From the desk of Francois Barrault, President, BT International
Talking with our customers in recent weeks, I’ve been reminded just how many new security challenges are created by this environment we call ‘the digital networked economy’.
Simply keeping track of the latest virus threats and hacker exploits can consume a vast amount of time and energy – time and energy that could be better spent adding value to the business. The growing trend for flexible, mobile working puts increased emphasis on access control. Collaborating with customers and suppliers expands your security remit to communities you have no direct control over. Many organisations rely on a complex mix of security products from different providers, creating administrative overheads that can drain resources still further.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a “best of breed” approach. However, whether you take an end-to-end solution from a single provider, or rely on a range of products to meet your need, I believe it is absolutely essential to maintain a holistic view of your entire security capability - from people and processes to applications, networks and physical assets. It’s no use securing your messaging systems if your employees aren’t aware of what they should and shouldn’t do – just as there’s little point having bullet-proof network security if it’s easy to break into the data centre.
Compliance plays a major role in security strategy, and of course you need to comply with legislation like Sarbannes-Oxley or Basel II. However, the real benefit comes when you ensure that compliance as part of a total strategy for data integrity, access, storage and retrieval across the entire organisation. Whether you need to make accurate financial data available for reporting purposes, or make customer data available to sales staff in the field, it’s only by knowing you can guarantee safe access to quality data that you can deliver IT services that really add value to the business.
This growing security and compliance challenge makes it more compelling than ever for a large organisation to turn to an external partner for help. That’s why analysts like Gartner are predicting enormous growth in managed security services, and why BT is focusing on the needs of enterprise customers with a new, ‘holistic’ security proposition.
In this issue we take a closer look at BT security and compliance services, and how Applications Assured Infrastructure services can help improve business performance. There’s news of a special Applications Audit promotion, our latest MPLS network developments, how BT is transforming its own operations for the digital networked economy, and much more. I hope you find it helpful.
Francois Barrault
President, BT International
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