Australia’s Privacy Act update – How to comply to the Act and secure your firm’s data?

In conjunction with the huge volumes of electronic data in existence today, there has been a steep rise in the amount of confidential information being misused, lost or stolen. Organisations must now safeguard their sensitive data to meet the requirements of Australia’s updated Privacy Act, or face the harsher fines that have been defined.
On March 12th 2014, Australia implemented its Privacy Amendment Act 2012. This Act now comprehensively extends the regime around the collection, use, disclosure and transfer of data of a personal and sensitive nature. These amends follow the recent, similar changes to the EU Data Security Directives set out to provide a more harmonised approach to data protection across the EU Nations. Consequently, organisations are required to take “reasonable steps” to protect such information from misuse and loss. 

Top 5 ways digital ring binders are changing your work environment

As the world becomes increasingly digital and teams work collaboratively across the globe, managing large amounts of information efficiently has become paramount. Physical ring binders have always been used as a centralised tool to store, organise and transport paper documents in large bundles.

However, electronic documents and increasing workforce mobility are creating new needs which the physical ring binder can no longer satisfy. Firms are seeking digital alternatives  that can integrate their modern document workflow and realise the time and cost saving potentials. 
Yes, digital binders do exist and with more and more of our clients deploying them, we look at the top 5 practical ways in which firms are actually using them and making a difference.

Data Security EU Directive – What you need to know about the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation

One in four European companies reported at least one case of information theft in 2013, up from 18% in 2012*. With the huge volumes of digital data now transmitted or stored electronically across the globe, we have seen a proliferation in cybercrime and industrial espionage.
Although EU laws today are meant to protect businesses, they are only effective to a certain degree. This is because there has never been a “one size fits all” approach to privacy compliance. The differences between each country’s set of regulations, make it hard to answer questions such as the level and extent of protection and what needs to be done when data is stolen, especially if your activity spans overs several countries.

3 must-have technologies to reduce paper consumption

Two million pages are printed every minute across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). That’s the equivalent of chopping down 63 trees per minute* or a volume of paper to cover almost 17.5 football stadium. If the paperless office may still be a myth, the "less-paper" office is a very tangible, measureable and achievable target which is now integrated in most corporate policies.
Here are the top 3 paper usage technologies that firms, large and small, we work with, have implemented.

Is your sensitive data spiralling out of control?

With 114.3 billion business emails sent and received globally each day, email is one of most proliferant communication platforms available today. Among other things, confidential data (key financials, client information, patent filings etc.) is channelled via email daily. Email is meant to be used to collaborate with colleagues, teams, external parties etc and in this processes many attachments are sent back and forth to various recipients for review, comment and amendment. There is nothing new here BUT, have you ever thought about the rate at which these sensitive documents are actually replicated during this process? It is a cause for security concern, here’s why…

More intelligent messaging

[ This paper was originally published in LSN Briefing Magazine - March 2014 ]
Nila Hirani at Nikec Solutions on how email can help you manage the risks around leavers, from retaining contacts to reducing the risks of fraud and non-compliance.
Networking and relationships play a huge part in growing business today, making it all the more essential to understand it, manage it and leverage your contacts.

What you need to know (and do) about the Heartbleed bug

If, just like us, part of your business is comprised of solutions that are hosted in the cloud, you have important personal assets online, or you recently bought something online, your heart probably stopped for a second when you first heard about the Heartbleed bug. “Massive security bug”, “Devastating worldwide security flaw”… we all saw something similar making the headlines. Should I remove my documents stored online? Should I quickly look in my bank account and check if anything is missing? 
Yes, when such news reaches the headlines in non IT magazines, when all the net security people around the world are in panic mode, it’s probably time to have a serious look at what is actually going on.
In terms of “big bugs” hurting big names of the web such as Facebook, Amazon, Dropbox, there’s only a few that reach the level of damages that Heartbleed can cause. But is everyone actually affected? Fortunately not, starting with most financial institutions and other sites (including Nikec’s) that don’t use the OpenSSL technology. Relief!

Let’s take a moment to clarify the topic and understand what we are talking about. Here is what you need to know about Heartbleed.

Understanding relationships to unlock business potential

In 1929, the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy established that any two people can be connected to each other in a maximum of six steps - the "6 degrees of separation" also known as the "6 handshakes theory". In 1994, Kevin Bacon was the centre of a student's challenge at Pennsylvania's Albright College. The challenge was to connect every film actor to Bacon in six cast lists or fewer. Bacon thought the game would die out but it never did and instead grew beyond anyone’s expectation. Following the concept, he launched a website (sixdegrees.org) that brings together people interested in helping good causes.

Networking and relationships play a huge part in growing business today, making it all the more essential to understand it, manage it and leverage your contacts.

3 essential things you never thought your emails could reveal

A picture paints a thousand words - this also holds true in the business world. For instance many of us convert spreadsheets with what appears to look like a meaningless stream of numbers, into charts and graphs. This not only helps uncover key trends but adds value to the information. 
The above is just a simple example but with the implosion of information in today’s digital era, we need help in seeing the wood for the trees – a way to mine through what is a lot of unstructured information to unearth the true meaning or context in a clear, logical manner and understand its actual value.

Sharing Information in the Digital Age

Do you have a single repository where all matter related documents are stored or do these reside in multiple locations? If these are in various locations, how much time does your employee spend trawling through each repository to find what they are looking for? 
An IDC report suggests that the average cost for an information worker to search for documents can amount up to £12000 per person per year*. This is substantial, especially when multiplied by the number of workers that exist in any given firm.
Lawyers and their teams are inundated with matter and research related documents which come in a wide range of formats (pdfs, videos, html…) and that can be found in various places such as a user’s email inbox, document management system (DMS), intranet or mobile devices. Good document organisation and efficient sharing has now become a key factor for productivity and growth.

Is cloud based technology right for your firm? Get some advice from Lee Biggenden, an independent consultant from Nephos Technologies

Nikec solutions speaks to Lee Biggenden at Nephos Technologies who provide consultancy, management and technology services to organisations that are seeking to optimise their cloud strategy.  

As an independent Cloud Broker with no Cloud space to sell, Nephos Technologies acts as an unbiased independent adviser. We asked Lee about the current state of Cloud technology, how  it answers to in professional environments requirements but also how to differentiate Cloud vendors and how to approach the data security question when moving to the Cloud. 

5 technologies that shorten the document lifecycle and increase productivity

As the business world moves faster, lawyers are expected to respond to a client’s demand swiftly and consequently need to produce documents quicker than ever. With the different processes involved between the creation and the completion of a document (initial scanning, editing, reviewing, approval and sharing) – i.e. the document lifecycle – teams must stay sharp and consistent to meet those shorter response times. 

Digitalisation has revolutionised the speed at which we work with documents but the use of latest technologies can further enhance this. Here are some of the instrumental technologies that will help optimise your document life cycle, without requiring an army of IT experts to manage. 

7 reasons why law firms digitise their client matter

The creation of matters is central to a law firm’s operation - the focal point between a lawyer, his/her team and the client.  While many firms still produce paper based matter folders, this is slowly changing with the realisation that the costs associated with this method (the time spent creating and amending documents, searching for lost files, printing, transportation and storage) are high.  
As the use of electronic documents becomes much more widespread, technologies to create digital matters are becoming prevalent.  Some of these intuitive tools closely reflect how lawyers work and interact with documents.  They also integrate with other systems to give a complete overview of the client and matter.  These are just a few of the benefits.  

We have spoken to several client law firms who started the process of digitising their matters. Here is a first-hand insight into their rationale behind going digital.

Don’t let your printing costs get out of hand!

As an organisation, you wish you could give your employees the licence to print freely, print whatever they want, how they want (in colour or black & white, single or double side…). However, this ‘free’ printing strategy can have a staggering impact on print related costs including paper, toner, cost of maintenance and support. In today’s organisations, employees print on average 60 pages a day or 12,000 sheets a year. Multiply this by the total number of employees in a single firm and you can get an idea of the impact. Add the indirect expenses mentioned above and you will find these costs mounting up to 3% of your total profit*.

5 Major Information Related Challenges Faced by Law Firms

The work environment is changing with technology being a catalyst. With the sheer volumes of documents and devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) from which information can be consumed, documents and workflow processes can quickly turn into a state of disarray if not managed efficiently. Eventually, aside from the direct cost of information processing, it is the competitive position of the firm, through its quality of service, which is at stake.

Here are some major information related challenges that law firms face today 

3 Ways to Secure Your Law Firm’s Information and Reputation

As competition within the legal environment intensifies, law firms are constantly looking for ways to differentiate their services. While many consider their reputation as their greatest asset that took years to build, there are a few key elements that underpin this, one of which is security. It is this robust security that can prevent issues such as data breaches which in turn will destroy your reputation at the snap of a finger.  

It is not only the law firms who understand the need for data protection and security, clients and consumers are becoming much more savvy and are realising that they too, need to protect their own.  With newspapers filled with stories of hackers attacking large multinational companies and mobile devices with sensitive data being lost or stolen, security is fast becoming a top priority for most businesses today.

Here are 3 ways to secure your firm’s information and reputation...

4 new technologies which help speed up the approval process

Matter management is a complex affair.  As a team member working with your colleagues and manager to compile matter folders, you may have experienced the frustration of making last minute amendments to documents or spent unnecessary time searching for a document that has simply disappeared or been saved elsewhere.
…And that’s only the beginning! Next comes the challenge of getting that long awaited stamp of approval from the person in charge of the case. This may take some time. Gone are the days where you could find your managers at the end of the corridor and receive an immediate answer. At best, they are out of the office, too busy dealing with an influx of emails from your peers or other urgent priorities.  Even when you get an answer, it is likely that there will be some toing and froing between you and your manager before you receive that final approval. 
Technology is there to help you. Although it will not support your case in any way and will not work out the psychological path to selling an idea to your boss, you still can use some of it to optimise this approval process and bridge some of the gaps between you and your manager.

Here are 4 new technologies which help speed up the approval process.

Monitoring Social Media Networks? 8 benefits you are missing out on if you don’t

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it". (Warren Buffet)

This has never been so true thanks to the social media network – a complex and rapidly evolving communications ecosystem where millions of us turn up to share, discuss, comment, post, pin, tweet… an open arena where organisations promote their company, brand and products and where millions of people are free to generate content and exchange ideas.  
Just like wildfire, positive or negative information about your company, brands and products can spread over the vast social media networks at impressive speeds. 

What implications does this have? How can you make the most of it?

BYOD and consumerisation of IT in the Legal Industry

With an increasing amount of consumer IT software products infiltrating through the business environment, law firms and IT suppliers are facing a shift in their strategies and working practices.  
Competition is fierce and law firms are looking for new ways to provide clients with value added services at competitive rates. Both lawyers and clients urgently need efficient ways to communicate and collaborate using secure and reliable technologies.  The workforce has turned mobile and more people use their own devices at work due to the advent of smartphone devices. 
Faced with these challenges, what can law firms do to stay ahead of the game?

Fun factor at work! (gamification in business applications)

Gamification: [noun] : the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to non-game environment: "gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun".

In the working environment, gamification is increasingly used to stimulate employees motivation, reinforce retention, engagement, and satisfaction. Ultimately, it results in better sales, higher system uptake, reduced staff turnover etc… Quite often, it is a more powerful way to engage employees than standard monetary incentives alone.
The rationale behind it is really simple: work that feels like play is advantageous to an organisation and because of this simplicity, it can be applied to any function of the organisation. More specifically, gamification can make a significant difference in the rate of adoption of an application  be it a CRM, an ERP, a DMS or simpler tool such as a file sharing system. So how would gamification be translated in a professional application?  

6 essential questions you should ask when selecting a file sharing solution

Collaborative working is making the business world turn faster. File sharing supports collaborative work, reduces business development cycles, reduces your carbon footprint, and there has probably never been a greater choice of sharing solutions available than there are today. 

But not all solutions are made equal and before you rush into choosing your own solution, there are six key questions to consider.

Cloud or on premise? The choice is yours!

When you plan to acquire a business application, chances are you will more and more often have to choose between hosting it in the Cloud or on your on servers. The fact is that from the user point of view, there is not much difference and therefore the choice is entirely yours.

Here are some down to earth and critical questions you need to answer before making any decision.

Nikec Docstore: an advanced secure file sharing solution for professionals

[ News from Nikec Solutions ]
Are your lawyers using file sharing systems that your firm does not approve of? Are they using these because their clients want them to? Nikec Solutions introduces Nikec Docstore as a medium to securely share documents and files with clients and colleagues.

Nikec Docstore is an advanced file storing and sharing application designed for professionals. It sets standards in terms of security and file integrity and can be hosted either as a secured Cloud or On Premise solution.

Read on Nikec Solutions web site