Every industry is becoming increasingly digital, and the professional services sector is no different. Whether you are an accountant, solicitor, consultant, financial planner, or provide an entirely different service, we bet that you rely on your IT to communicate with clients, create documents and store vital customer information.
Every industry is becoming increasingly digital, and the professional services sector is no different. Whether you are an accountant, solicitor, consultant, financial planner, or provide an entirely different service, we bet that you rely on your IT to communicate with clients, create documents and store vital customer information.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen a huge increase in remote working, as whole teams began to work from home or at least spread their time between the office and home.
Whilst this way of working has undoubtedly brought about lots of flexibility, it’s also brought about many issues, especially for the professional services sector.
And, it goes beyond forgetting to unmute yourself when you’re on a Teams call…
These are some of the things we’ve seen professionals struggle with:
In 2020, it was revealed that almost ¼ UK workers were working from an unauthorised or personal device. Even more concerning, one in 10 share their devices with other members of their household.
Of course, this brings about the question of who can access sensitive information and data and whether your customer’s information is secure.
Within Microsoft 365 you can set out rules and configure the security settings for your whole organisation, ensuring that your company information, files, apps and other data is protected in a standardised way.
We have gone one step further and created CyberLari for our customers, which not only allows companies to view an inventory of devices that have access to company data, it also ensures each company device is set up in a way that meets security standards. A report can be generated to include a log of users and shows you if they are compliant.
Getting documents signed quickly and painlessly can seem impossible when working away from the office, but it doesn’t have to be.
There’s plenty of industry-standard and secure digital signing software for professional services to try.
Signable, DocuSign, PandaDoc and Adobe DC all allow you to securely send and digitally sign documents.
Not only does this cut out the need for in-person signatures, but it can also speed up processes and reduce printing costs.
Not many people can say they’ve never made a mistake and sent an email or document to the wrong person, but within the professional services sector, this can quickly turn into a breach of confidentiality or data protection nightmare.
In Microsoft 365, it’s quick and easy to set up restrictions and permissions on documents and files.
You can set up sharing permissions for each folder or even individual document. Choose whether to grant access to only people within your organisation (i.e. with an @[your business name here].com email address) or specific people via an email address.
Moreover, you can also set up how the person can access this file – do you want them to review it, edit it or only read it?
We also like that it gives you the option to block download, which not only prevents further risk of being shared with the wrong person, but also reduces the confusion over multiple versions of the same document.
All of our clients get access to all the Microsoft 365 apps we’ve mentioned in this guide. Once you’re enrolled into the ITEE way – our IT ecosystem – you have access to Microsoft 365, antivirus and backups, DocuLari and CyberLari to keep your company organised and secure.
Get in touch today to find out more.
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