Vaultium

2016: Five Predictions for Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Vaultium — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 11:18:21 +0000

Here is my list of key predictions for the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) market as I see it.

I have been actively working in this market for nearly 20 years now. Over this period have seen a lot of changes with changes in IT and the way we work having big impacts. I’ve worked for an ECM Vendor, [in the Document Management division of] a large global IT consultancy, ran my own ECM consultancy, delivered ECM training internationally and set up (founder) and sold an online (cloud-based) ECM Software as a A Service (SaaS) solution. This experience from all angles gives me personal insights and good view of this market.

Here are my 5 main predictions:

1. Hybrid Clouds: ECM systems include low level security access controls, often down to a document and folder level, with additional metadata support to allow for sophisticated roles and attribute based security controls. However, all organisations hold a combination of confidential, client-identifying, personal and IP related documents and information. The need for this classification and work is painful and so the move towards cloud continues, however, most organisations will adopt an hybrid approach – keeping certain information and content on premise.

2. Cyber Security: There’s alot going on in the cyber security, cyber threat and information security space – so many companies are failing to protect or put in place necessary controls at both physical and software levels. Most of the leakages and data loss tend to come from inside the organisation and so ECM can play a big part in establishing a high level of permission and role based access combined with a high degree of audit logging and reporting that will continue to reduce risk and equip oeganisations better in this area.

3. Compliance: Regulations, legal drivers and the need to store content of different types including email, sms, social content is increasing – this area will continue to increase and focus on verticals i.e. Finance, Government, Oil/Gas, Heathcare market. ECM policies, systems and features are typically very strong to help support most compliance requirements when it comes to managing unstructured content types – email (given its relative complexity) will need tighter overall integration with ECM to ensure searches, eDiscovery etc. can be more efficiently supported.

4. Mobility: Mobile devices including phones and tablet PCs integration is essential. Everything is going mobile these days and working remotely and on the move is going to increase. The world of ECM is no different. Business users want to securely access, update/edit and search for corporate documents using their mobile devices.

5. Big Data/Analytics: Big Data solutions are promising alot – and organisations hold vast amounts of data and unstructured content. The analysis, reporting and intelligence from mainly the unstructured content is critical – most industry folk will tell you 80% of an organisations information is held in an unstructured format e.g. documents, images, spreadsheets, email etc. Mining this and extracting key metadata that can be interpreted and presented to support management reporting systems – manual or online is going to be a natural driver in ECM for some years to come.

If you want to understand more, please don’t hesitate to contact me as anyone will tell – I love talking ‘ECM’ . Contact me on LinkedIn ‘May Ladd’, +44 7734 694 771+44 7734 694 771 (mobile) or drop me an email, may.ladd@rookmay.com.

About May Ladd

May has 20+ years’ experience as a subject matter expert, senior consultant and international trainer in Document Management, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Records Management, Information Architecture, Information Security, Information Governance, Workflow, Enterprise Search, Archiving, Data Compliance, Big Data, Software as a Service (SAAS) and Cloud Computing.

Establish in 2002 a document management consulting firm, RookMay, then developed an online document management software as a service cloud business, Vaultium (over 4 years between 2010 and 2014) and successfully sold the online business in 2014.

May has delivered 100s of training seminars across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia in the field of Document Management and Records Management/Information Compliance/Security.

ISO standards protecting your identity in the Cloud

Vaultium — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 18:58:48 +0000

ISO/IEC 27018:2014 — Information technology — Security techniques — Code of practice for protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in public clouds acting as PII processors

The standard was published on August 1^st 2014.

This standard provides guidance aimed at ensuring that cloud service providers (such as Amazon and Google) offer suitable information security controls to protect the privacy of their customers’ clients by securing PII (Personally Identifiable Information) entrusted to them.

The standard will be followed by ISO/IEC 27017 covering the wider information security angles of cloud computing, other than privacy.

The project had widespread support from national standards bodies plus the Cloud Security Alliance.

The standard intends to be “a reference for selecting PII protection controls within the process of implementing a cloud computing information security management system based on ISO/IEC 27001.

Vaultium is a private cloud solution, fully compliant with UK Data Protection. Vaultium works in partnership with ‘The Bunker’ (UK) – an ex-military underground data centre. The protection of client data and personal identifiable information is critical component of the service.

May Ladd, Panel Speaker – Supports City University London Maths Undergraduates

Vaultium — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 11:41:17 +0000

12 February 2015 – May Ladd, Founder of Vaultium, who studied his first degree in Mathematics with Computer Science at The City University, London, graduated in 1992 is on a panel of industry speakers giving advice and support to Mathematics undergraduate students.

May has also been mentoring individual students on an annual basis as well as getting involved with City University initiatives on supporting students and budding entrepreneurs establishing start up companies who are incubated within the University.

City University is well located within the up and coming silicon roundabout and IT hub of London.

Bit Late – 10 Document Management Trends for 2015

Vaultium — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 11:31:58 +0000

No.	Trend	Description
1	Information Governance (Compliance, eDiscovery, Legal, Auditing and Regulatory Support)	Global and national compliance drivers, legislation, regulations and legal requirements e.g., retention of documents is increasing year on year. Largely driven by US based accounting scandals e.g. Enron, Worldcom (see http://www.accounting-degree.org/scandals/) the spot light on information compliance has dramatically increased across the whole of the corporate world. Traceability, reporting standards, accountability, transparent auditing and the appointment of responsible ownership e.g. CIOs will be crucial.
2	Information Security and Privacy	Managing the security and privacy of confidential and sensitive data and documents is becoming more complex to manage in tomorrow’s world as we share more information with external parties, access more documents remotely and have a plethora of mobile devices including Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). The large number of high profile information leaks i.e. https://wikileaks.org/ and information leakage are top priority for corporate organisations as it can lead to reputational damage alongside the usual risks associated with information loss.
3	Cloud Computing	The growing use of Cloud technology in business is nothing short of phenomenal. The reason for this is that it saves on time, cost and enables flexible working.
4	Big Data	The challenge for large enterprises is determining who should own big data initiatives that straddle the entire organisation, how this information can be captured efficiently, stored, searched for, shared, transferred, analysed and visualised in reporting terms.
5	Mobility	Mobile devices including phones and tablet PCs integration is essential. Everything is going mobile these days and working remotely and on the move is going to increase. The world of DMS is no different. Business users want to securely access, update/edit and search for corporate documents using their mobile devices.
6	External Collaboration	Corporations are increasingly sharing and working collaboratively with both internal and external parties. Teams these days need to work efficiently and quickly often-sharing documents and folders with a number of users at the same time that geographically dispersed.
7	ECM & Information Lifecycle Management	The new term for Document Management is Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). Documents need to be managed effectively through multiple systems from their point of capture, to storage and disposal or long term archival.
8	Integrating Paper and Electronic Content	Although the 1980’s dream of a paperless world has not been realised, it is evident that we are certainly moving towards to a ‘less paperless’ world. Paper is not going away. Having integrated processes and systems that allow and manage key important documents that are valuable (i.e. have legal signatures, stamps, scrolls, large-scale drawings) is going to be essential so that searching and retrieval of electronic and paper records becomes a seamless activity.
9	Archiving and Preservation	With the growing volumes of electronic documents and the need to carry out search and retrieval e.g. for eDiscovery purposes there is a growing requirement to put in place more efficient records management processes and systems to store, retain, preserve, destroy, archive and transfer vast volumes of information. Legislation and compliance drivers are forcing organisations to retain their business records for much longer periods. Many studies show that the services cost to manage the growing content is 8-10 times the cost of the physical storage media and thus adding cheap storage devices is not the answer to managing archives.
10	Social Content	Over the years the type of content that a business needs to capture, manage and store has changed from traditional static documents and images to much more complex videos, multi layered graphics files and more recently, social content such as conversations, twitter feeds, facebook and LinkedIn. Organisations need to archive and store this kind of content alongside traditional documents so they it is searchable and can become part of a legal discovery operation should the content hold evidential business records.

The UK Government jumps in and defines ‘Big Data’ and lists 6 Key Trends

Vaultium — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 11:09:05 +0000

There are so many interpretations and definitions of ‘Big Data’, the UK government has published a new report , ‘Horizon Scanning Emerging Technologies Big Data report’ December 2014, defining what it considers Big Data to be, and how it can be utilised by government agencies. The report also identifies 6 key trends:

TREND 1: The emergence of cloud computing. This allows users to access highly scalable computing and storage resources through the Internet.

TREND 2: The development of new software tools and database systemsfor large, unstructured datasets. Independent analysis by EMC Corporation indicates that the vast majority of new data being generated is unstructured.

TREND 3: Development and refining of analytical tools so that they can process vast quantities of data in near-real time.

TREND 4: Monetisation of Big Data sources-realising the value of the data collected by selling iton the market.

TREND 5: The increasing concerns around privacy of data and intellectual property. Situations are occurring where big data analytics collide with difficult issues around privacy and ethics.

TREND 6: The rise of global smart cities.

According to the report, Big Data can help inform government decision making by taking advantage of ‘automated algorithms to analyse large datasets’. It also said that government agencies could use the algorithms to identify ‘anomalies’, such as unpaid tax liabilities or benefits fraud. Earlier this month, UK Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that a new UK centre for Big Data is to be located in London.

SciLabware renew annual business subscription for 3rd year running

Vaultium — Sat, 08 Nov 2014 14:28:49 +0000

SciLabware is a leading European full range supplier of quality reusable laboratory ware, under the Pyrex*, Quickfit and MBL brands for glassware and the Azlon brand for plasticware. In 2011 the business became part of the DURAN Group one of the world’s leading manufacturers of borosilicate glass.

SciLabware first took up their subscription to the Vaultium Business Package in 2012 and have just renewed their subscription for a 3rd consecutive year.

We look forward to continuing to help and support SciLabware with their document management and secure file sharing requirements and thank them for their continued support of our online service.

Exciting News – Vaultium is now part of CCube Solutions!

Vaultium — Sat, 23 Aug 2014 14:06:33 +0000

01 August 2014. Vaultium is pleased to announce that the online service has now been acquired by leading document management company, CCube Solutions.

This is very positive news for our clients and suppliers as Vaultium will continue to develop its services and marketing of the online service, expanding into new markets and offering increasing services and support with the backing of a larger company, CCube Solutions.

About the acquisition, the CEO of Vaultium, May Ladd commented “This is a strategic move, Vaultium went live in 2010 and after 4 successful years is ready to move up with the right backing and support. I believe CCube Solutions is the right organisation and understand this market to help Vaultium. As founder, my commitment will not stop and I shall continue to have an active role to help drive the services forward.”

About CCube Solutions (OIT UK Limited)

Founded in 1995, we have a proven track record working with the National Health Service, police, local government, and in the private sector providing cost effective and scalable solutions, tailored to meet the individual requirements of customers. Today, NHS Trusts, local councils, and numerous well-known organisations use our systems day-to-day to capture, store, protect and share information over its useful lifecycle. Visit the website www.ccubesolutions.com for more information.

May Ladd Discusses New EU Data Protection Directive – Minimal Changes Except 3 Major Changes

Vaultium — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 17:19:33 +0000

The new European Union (EU) Data Protection changes can be summarised below. They are not as complex to understand but have a large effect on individuals and organisations.

The original EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) mandates a few simple things:

Data transparency (the data subject must know that their data is being collected)
Data must only be collected for specified legitimate purposes
Data may only be processed for those specific processes, and if data is transferred to a third country, they must adhere to these guidelines

The EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) has been in place since 1995 and there have been many advancements in computing such as increasing use of computing, Big Data, mobile working etc. This means data protection has a hugh impact to many individuals.

Under the proposed 2014 EU Data Protection Directive individuals of the European Union will receive new rights and businesses will need to alter their business processes to support the new regime.

The key highlights are:

The right to be forgotten, is covered in Article 17 of the proposal. This right allows someone to request that a company delete their private information–and the company must comply. Article 18 allows a person to get a digital copy of this information and to transfer that information to another company.
Article 20 of the new EU Data Protection Directive changes a company’s ability to profile someone. Profiling is automatically processing people’s personal data in order to predict things about their life.
Also in the new proposal, however, are the data protection officer and mandated fines. The data protection officer is a person inside of a company who would make sure that the company is compliant with the EU Data Protection Directive, interact with the supervisory authority, and interact with EU citizens who want access to their data, to delete their data, to port their data, or similar requests.

May Ladd delivers consulting services for a global bank helping them with a international regulatory and retention archiving programme

Vaultium — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 16:39:14 +0000

06 May 2014 – Press Release

May Ladd, founder and CEO of Vaultium Consulting Services begins to deliver consulting services to help a major global investment bank in London UK on their international regulatory retention and archiving programme.

Butterworth Labs continues to take advantage of Data Protection Audit

Vaultium — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 16:37:44 +0000

23 May 2014 – Press Release

Vaultium Consulting Services undertakes a Data Protection Audit for their client Butterworth Labs. This is the second year that Vaultium has supported this client with there regulatory and compliance requirements involving UK Data Protection.