Sila Services, a mid-sized HVAC, plumbing, and electrical company, has a strong record of attracting high-value capital investments to elevate their business. After the private equity firm Dubin Clark acquired the company in 2019, Sila boosted its valuation through the acquisition of several additional companies.

Engaging in mergers and acquisitions at this level requires a tremendous amount of due diligence involving extensive review of documentation, from legal, to environmental, to HR. Guided by their managed services provider, Network Coverage, Sila leveraged Egnyte to develop an easy, cost-effective, and secure workflow for the exchange of acquisition data.

Challenge: Inefficient Data Exchange Imperils Acquisition

Steve Zimmerman worked as Chief Information Officer for several platform companies owned by Dubin Clark until the acquisition of Sila Services, at which point he was put in charge of IT at Sila as CIO. With experience both in IT and private equity, he knows how critical – and challenging – the due diligence process is ahead of an acquisition.

“We’ve purchased 21 companies. In each case, we had to review their IT platform, payroll info, financial statements, and myriad other documents spread across Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint decks, you name it,” Zimmerman explains. “When we first began making these acquisitions, we had to pay to access this information through a secure data room provided by a third party. Doing this for each acquisition would have been cost-prohibitive.

To bypass the third-party data rooms, the team tried using VPNs to connect each acquired company’s file server and directory to Sila’s Citrix instance. But this created headaches of its own: “To adjust access permissions to a document, we’d have to go through cumbersome, time-consuming manual processes like writing a Group Policy Object,” says Dustin Krauss, Director of Service Operations at Network Coverage.

This permissions issue was critical. “There’s a lot of scrutiny around security during acquisitions,” Zimmerman explains. “We’re dealing, potentially, with people’s personal health and financial information. Plus, companies typically want to be discreet about their ongoing acquisition activity.”

Solution: Build a Secure Portal for Exchanging Data in Egnyte

The Sila Services and Network Coverage teams evaluated Egnyte’s content management system, conducted a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, and concluded that Egnyte was ideal for facilitating communication in M&A situations. “Several of our clients already used Egnyte,” Krauss says. “So I’d seen how effective it is for file sharing and collaboration.”

Zimmerman struck a similar note regarding Network Coverage: “Dubin Clark had had successful experiences with Network Coverage at several of our subsidiaries. I knew I could trust their IT recommendations at Sila.”

Sila set up Egnyte as a secure, centralized, cloud-based data portal where the variety of stakeholders in an acquisition can quickly upload and review all the information. “The portal served as the go-to place for parent companies and subsidiaries, as well as attorneys and auditors, to load and review documents,” says Zimmerman.

The team programmed the Egnyte system to send real-time email notifications to internal and external stakeholders each time someone uploaded a relevant document for review. This allowed everyone to stay apprised of developments during the acquisition. As Zimmerman explains: “Our partners want to see progress. An acquisition can take months to complete, and these alerts help move the review process along. If, say, a document indicates a company carries high insurance costs and thus calls the acquisition into question, we want that document to be seen sooner than later.”

After uploading the data, Sila leveraged Egnyte’s granular access permissions functionality to keep that data secure and ensure that only the proper stakeholders can access it. As Zimmerman explains: “I can give someone access to a particular document, but limit that access to a specific folder or set of folders within a data room, rather than an all-or-nothing situation.” This allowed Sila to further engage in M&A activity while maintaining the proper guardrails around sensitive personal and proprietary information.

All the while, the Egnyte platform has offered an intuitive user experience – a major benefit for less tech-savvy users. “Once we built the portal, all we had to do was send out invitations to people we wanted to give access to,” says Zimmerman. “And Egnyte makes it easy for individuals of all IT skill levels to upload all sorts of data.”

Benefits: The IT Workflow Necessary for Successful Acquisitions

Egnyte has empowered Sila to ensure that all of their information is well-organized and secure, which is critical for successful M&A. “Parent companies want to know where all of the information is stored, whether it’s secure, and how it’s broken down,” says Zimmerman. “With Egnyte, we were able to store all our data safely within a single set of repositories in the Egnyte environment, instead of some information existing on one server, some on another, and some in the cloud.”

“When companies get acquired and then acquire others, they need to integrate as fast as humanly possible,” adds Eric Tomah, Chief Information Officer at Network Coverage. “Leveraging Egnyte’s SaaS-based platform has made the integration effectively seamless for Sila.”

Zimmerman places Network Coverage at the heart of Sila’s IT success story: “Our IT environment across a number of acquired companies, as well as our IT corporate platform, is managed by Network Coverage, and we would not have partnered with them if we weren’t certain they could get the job done. As we expand across multiple geographies, Network Coverage supports that expansion seamlessly.”

Since implementing Egnyte, Sila’s use of the Egnyte platform has grown to cover virtually their entire portfolio. “Thousands of individuals have received invitations to load documentation into the Egnyte portal and have never faced difficulties in doing so,” says Zimmerman. “The data is encrypted, secure, and has never been compromised.”

Tomah looks back on how far the team has come: “The secure portal we helped Sila build with Egnyte is now the primary engine running their acquisition services. It’s a huge win for everyone involved.”

As the owner of signature commercial properties on both the East and West Coasts, Paramount, a leading real estate investment trust, is responsible for storing, managing, and reporting on terabytes of real estate records at any given time.

Partnering with Egnyte, Paramount seamlessly migrated their files from an on-premises file server to a cloud-hosted solution fit to handle these large volumes of complex data. As a result, they realized benefits in security, collaboration, and regulatory reporting — all while maintaining a top-notch user experience.

Challenge: Large Content Volumes Require Cloud-based Efficiencies

Managing Paramount’s real estate portfolio involves a lot of complex record-keeping. “When you own a two-million-square-foot building, there’s a lot going on,” comments Todd Januzzi, SVP, Chief Information and Technology Officer at Paramount Group. “There are multiple cell providers and internet providers in the building, and we keep all of those license agreements. We also keep every closing document, lease, invoice, insurance document, and SEC document, to name a few.”

To store these documents, Paramount relied on an on-premises file server. But storage was just one part of the equation—the team also needed to share and collaborate on files with internal and external stakeholders, control access to the information the files contained, and give regulators visibility into the content lifecycle.

Januzzi started looking for a cloud-hosted replacement for the on-premises server, with a particular focus on:

• Security and access controls
• Collaboration
• User experience

The team tried several cloud-hosted solutions, including Box, ShareFile, and Microsoft OneDrive — all of which fell short. “These systems were often tough to administer, and the performance was poor,” explains Januzzi. “Syncing was slow and confusing; people would inadvertently be looking at outdated versions of files because the current version hadn’t yet synced from their desktops to the cloud.” The team also struggled with the cloud-hosted systems their partners were using, particularly in the AEC space. “Our AEC partners tend to live and die by Dropbox,” Januzzi says. “The only problem is that most of the phishing campaigns we’ve seen are from Dropbox. So we didn’t feel comfortable with that either.”

Solution: Full Control and a Smooth User Experience with Egnyte

During a front-to-back test of Egnyte’s functionality, Paramount discovered that the system outperformed other cloud solutions across the board, especially in their highest-priority areas:

• Security and access controls
  Given the sensitivity of Paramount’s content, it’s essential that their system provide control over who can access content and how. Egnyte empowered Paramount to set access permissions at a highly granular level, controlling who could view, modify, and delete files — all while virtually eliminating reliance on IT. As Januzzi explains: “We love that Egnyte enables the owner of a folder to grant rights to that folder versus putting in a support ticket to have an IT administrator do it. We have a small IT staff, so this is a really powerful time- and effort-saver.”
• Collaboration
  Facilitating seamless remote collaboration was essential for Paramount. “We work with a lot of AEC vendors on plan work and architectural submissions, which require input from attorneys, IT consultants, property managers, and others,” explains Januzzi. “With Egnyte, we don’t have to send Word documents to a dozen people over email and make new versions each time something is changed. We can all work off one version, which updates in real time, and which we can share via secure links.”
• User experience
  Egnyte appeared on Paramount’s servers as a mapped drive letter, just like their previous on-premises system, easing the learning curve and allowing the team to preserve the workflows they were accustomed to. “While it’s much more secure and efficient, the experience in navigating the system is actually similar to on-prem,” explains Januzzi. “The user experience as a whole with Egnyte is second to none. Whether you’re using a file explorer environment or web or mobile, it’s totally seamless.”

Once the team decided to move forward with Egnyte, it was easy to migrate their files from the previous system. “Egnyte’s migration tool is the best I’ve seen,” says Januzzi. “And onboarding is super quick and easy. When a new user comes in, the system automatically pushes them into the content drives they need to access, via an integration with Okta.”

Benefits: Happy Users, Easy Data Management, and Audit Readiness

When Paramount Group launched with Egnyte, they had 5 terabytes of data on their local drive. Since then, the team has migrated 90% of those files into Egnyte and are full-speed-ahead on completing the migration. All the while, Egnyte has delivered a user experience that has resulted in swift, 100% platform adoption among the Paramount team.

Januzzi explains how the user experience has made it easier to manage Paramount’s large and growing portfolio: “With Egnyte, we can create a standard, templatized folder structure and apply that to every building we buy. Every building is different, but this allows us to manage the related documents the same way. So if a property manager switches from one building to another, they don’t have to get acquainted with a whole new file structure. This is huge for owners of multiple properties like us.”

All-In on Egnyte

As for whether Paramount would consider other leading content management systems, Januzzi doesn’t mince words: “We do not allow Dropbox at Paramount, only Egnyte,” he says. “Egnyte is superior for sensitive content detection, detecting ransomware, collaborating on files, user experience, and the rest — full stop. A lot of AEC vendors will send us a Dropbox link, and we’ll have to tell them, sorry, but to work with us, you’ll have to use Egnyte.”

As one of the largest independent registered investment advisors in the United States, The Colony Group manages enormous amounts and types of financial and other non-public personal information. “Our services encompass wealth management, investment management, tax compliance, business management, financial dispute resolution, and beyond,” explains Evan Cohen, Director, Information Technology.

Using Egnyte, Cohen’s team migrated a wealth of sensitive financial and personal information from 21 separate offices into one consolidated environment, streamlining collaboration and file access workflows and strengthening trust across its user base. All the while, Egnyte’s content management platform offered unparalleled ease of use, making user adoption a breeze for the whole team.

Challenge: Siloed Data Slows Collaboration—and Client Services

The Colony Group consists of numerous teams dispersed across the country, previously using various systems to house and manage files. This system disparity often came from mergers, who join with the firm with legacy systems in tow. “The result was content management workflows that spanned Office 365, Laserfiche, other document management systems, Word documents, file cabinets, and more,” explains Cohen. “Teams kept their data siloed on their own systems and their own work areas because it was necessary to avoid disruption to client service, but that causes problems when you have multiple teams trying to work together as one company.”

This disconnected environment produced challenges for Cohen and his IT team on multiple fronts:

• Locating and collaborating on files
  Finding and sharing content required rifling through an expansive roster of content management systems. If you were not familiar with the technology at issue, it was a needle-in-a-haystack process that caused unnecessary delays. If teams needed to collaborate on a topic or client need, the lack of common access to common resources was a deterrent that the firm needed to eliminate
• Content governance
  To satisfy clients — as well as regulators — firms like The Colony Group need to know where sensitive content is located, and who has access to it, at all times. “High-profile individuals like celebrities and athletes hire us to transact on their behalf, from paying bills to making discretionary investment decisions,” says Cohen. “These and all of our clients need to trust that we have everything under control.”

It soon became clear that more efficient collaboration and data governance would require unifying their content into one centralized environment. “Whether it’s client data or research we’ve conducted on investment funds,” Cohen says. “We wanted to get it from one place—not 40.”

Solution: One Source of Truth for All Sensitive Data

The team brought in Egnyte to serve as a centralized environment for storing, accessing, and sharing data. Ashley Ayala, IT Project Manager at The Colony Group, helped with the discovery, planning, and implementation.

“Training folks on Egnyte was incredibly easy because the system appears on team members’ devices as the same kind of folder structure they’re already accustomed to using,” Ayala explains. “It was disruption-free, which made user adoption so much smoother. I even had someone tell me ‘I don’t use Egnyte,’ not realizing she was using it every day.”

“The migration process was great as well,” adds Cohen. “It was really easy to import data from our legacy systems into our preferred folder structure in Egnyte.”

Once the team had completed the migration, Egnyte made it easier to find, collaborate on, and control access to content through features including:

• Sensitive content discovery and classification
  The team was able to classify information based on its level of sensitivity and search for files of various classifications—all within Egnyte. This helped with locating files, conducting reports, and maintaining visibility into where content is stored. Cohen offers an example: “When we make trades, securities are assigned unique identifiers called SEDOLs, which regulators require us to report on. Previously, paperwork containing SEDOLs could be stored in a dozen different systems. Now they’re all in Egnyte. We can do a quick sensitive content search for a particular SEDOL and export the results to our Compliance team in a nice package, which gives them a huge head start on recording, testing, and reporting on those numbers.”
• Viewing and controlling file access
  As geographically dispersed teams viewed and exchanged different files with different levels of sensitivity, the Compliance team needed assurance that file access is only available to the proper stakeholders. “With Egnyte, all it took was one quick audit to see what files have been shared, when, and by whom. And it was easy to grant and revoke file access as needed,” explains Cohen.
• Salesforce integration
  Egnyte’s smooth integration with Salesforce facilitated easy access to client-related files from both platforms. This yielded major dividends in client engagement. “Egnyte’s Salesforce integration is years ahead of the competition,” Cohen says. “When our Wealth Management team is servicing a client, they can pull up any and all material related to that client relationship, in real time, without leaving the Salesforce interface where they’re most comfortable. That leads to faster, more confident client services.”

Benefits: Easier Collaboration and a More Agile Business

Like many financial services firms, The Colony Group consists largely of industry veterans whose expertise lies less in technology than in areas specific to wealth management. As such, to ensure a smooth transition from the company’s legacy systems to Egnyte’s unified solution, it was essential that Egnyte offer an easy and intuitive workflow.

Here, Egnyte has exceeded expectations. “We’ve completed one merger since implementing Egnyte,” says Ayala. “The system was so easy to use that within just a few hours, the team from the merger firm was operating just as fluently as they previously were.”

Team members in any geography now have access to the same centralized content management system, where they can access files through a quick search and share them via secure links in just a few clicks. And Egnyte’s granular access permissions functionality provides confidence that files won’t fall into the wrong hands.

The impact on The Colony Group has been tremendous. “Egnyte has made it easy to consolidate, organize, protect, and collaborate on data so that we can make our company more agile, better trained, and able to level-up our services to our clients,” Cohen says. “We can now focus on new acquisitions and strengthening our tech stack with next-generation technology, including some new Egnyte features.”
 

The Colony Group’s implementation of Egnyte is still recent, and their momentum is strong. “The number of team members managing and collaborating on content through Egnyte, instead of email or legacy software, continues to grow,” says Cohen. “We’re full speed ahead.”

Optimal Risk Group provides security risk management consulting for some of the world’s most complex and high-profile customer engagements. For example, the London-based provider of tailored risk management services oversees the physical and digital security of clients ranging from banking datacenters, critical national infrastructure, and high-net-worth individuals.

Partnering with Egnyte has empowered Optimal Risk to fulfill their top obligation: providing clients with complete confidence that their sensitive data is protected by smart policies and cybersecurity measures.

Challenge: High-Stakes Security Demands Powerful Technology

When it comes to physical and digital security for Optimal Risk’s clients, the stakes couldn’t be higher. “The organisations we advise include critical national infrastructure that provide vital public services, like processing clean water and transporting natural gas,” explains Mike O’Neill, Group Managing Director at Optimal Risk Group. “What keeps the operators of these assets up at night is the idea of their information being insecurely passed between stakeholders, which could make that information vulnerable to attacks by adversaries ranging from lone threat actors to hostile foreign governments.”

“Some of the other assets we protect are private residences ranging up to $250 million in value,” adds Rick Mounfield, Director at Optimal Risk. “Working with these homeowners involves handling a great deal of personal information, including multiple addresses, businesses, and personal travel details. They rely on us to provide total assurance that this highly sensitive information is secure.”

But the tool the team was using for data security, Microsoft SharePoint, wasn’t providing these critical assurances – neither to Optimal Risk nor to their clients. “We have a dispersed global workforce, which involves a lot of data changing hands,” comments Mounfield. “Our growth has increased the complexity of our projects and with that comes risks through data sprawl. We needed a tool that could keep that data isolated and well-governed, and SharePoint wasn’t fulfilling that need.”

Solution: Strong, Demonstrable Data Protection Through Egnyte

During Optimal Risk’s trial period with Egnyte, Mounfield realized the platform was the powerful cybersecurity solution Optimal Risk was looking for. “It was an easy sell to get Egnyte implemented across the organisation, from our consultancy to our environmental crime enforcement business to our training business,” he says.

The team found it easy to migrate files into Egnyte from SharePoint and to build a unique folder structure that fit their data management workflows. From there, they leveraged a suite of features to keep data well-protected and governed and provide stronger confidence to Optimal Risk’s clients.

• Content Lifecycle policies
  The team used Egnyte to set policies for the automatic archival or deletion of sensitive files after specified intervals. As Stephen Haslett, Director of Cyber Investigation and Digital Forensics at Optimal Risk, puts it: “We’re able to confidently tell clients, for example, that certain files will be deleted after 30 days, after which only the client will possess that file. This conveys that the risk of anyone accessing the file through Optimal Risk is essentially nonexistent.”Egnyte also facilitated strong, detailed oversight throughout the content lifecycle. “Every time a folder or file is viewed, clicked, downloaded, or shared, we can see when it happened and who was involved,” Haslett says. With this level of visibility, Optimal Risk’s clients can confirm, easily and at any time, that data has never fallen into the wrong hands.
• Secure access to content
  Egnyte’s secure link sharing and granular access permissions management gave the team full control over who could access highly sensitive data. “We can invite specific individuals to specific folders where they can view, download, or upload files, and set policies to prevent others from accessing that folder,” explains O’Neill. Haslett adds: “We can also share individual files with clients through secure, controlled links that only they can access, and that expire after a certain interval.”
• ISO 27001 compliance
  With cyberattacks on the rise, firms like Optimal Risk are in jeopardy of losing clients if they don’t comply with ISO 27001, the global standard for information security management. The visibility Egnyte provided into how content was managed, accessed, modified, and exchanged enabled the Optimal Risk team to demonstrate their adherence to ISO 27001. Stuart Crighton, Senior Consultant at Optimal Risk, also recognized the ways Egnyte could be used internally to further strengthen the company’s compliance. “Within Egnyte, I can see exactly who has read a given document that’s necessary for ISO compliance,” Crighton says. “I can also see who hasn’t read it yet, so I can give them a nudge.”

Benefits: Stronger Security Drives New Business Growth

Partnering with Egnyte has empowered Optimal Risk to solidify their reputation as a leading security risk management consultancy protecting some of the world’s most high-value assets. “We’re all about authenticity,” says Mounfield. “Other companies make promises that their clients’ data is secure but can’t demonstrate it like we can with Egnyte. When a client asks us to confirm that their data has been removed from all external IT, I can use Egnyte’s governance features to show them exactly who worked on that data and when it was erased.”

The peace of mind Optimal Risk’s clients enjoy has yielded concrete business benefits. O’Neill offers a powerful example: “We recently met with some operators of category-5 critical national infrastructure sites – the highest security level – who were extremely nervous about their security being compromised and data ending up in the wrong hands. We showed them exactly how, with Egnyte, they could control access to folders, view and download data, and confirm that content was properly deleted at the end of a project. When they saw this, we could actually see them become more relaxed. Egnyte made them confident that we were the right company to work with. We won the contract soon after.”

That confidence doesn’t just extend to Optimal Risk’s clients – the internal team feels it as well. Charlie Swanson, Learning and Development Lead, explains the impact Egnyte has had in his department: “We store all our resources in Egnyte. This sounds risky from a security perspective, but Egnyte is such a strong system that we’re confident in storing all our content there. This allows learners to easily access their portfolios from a single, centralized location, with full confidence that it’s protected throughout its lifecycle.”

For the team at Optimal Risk, working with Egnyte is a simple matter of practicing what they preach. As a company whose mission is to strengthen security and manage their clients’ vulnerabilities across sectors, Optimal saw no other choice but to partner with a solution that could deliver what Egnyte offered. As Mounfield puts it: “I always tell our clients, as well as other security professionals, that if you’re worried about any kind of cyberattack, or vulnerability, or file backups, or migrating to the cloud, or ISO 27001 compliance, you need to speak to Egnyte right away.”

Engineering/Remediation Resources Group (ERRG), a minority- and woman-owned small business providing turnkey environmental remediation and munitions response services, was at a crossroads. The deadline for CMMC 2.0 compliance – a new federal regulation requiring companies working with the Department of Defense (DoD) to demonstrate cybersecurity controls supporting NIST 800-171 regulations – was rapidly approaching. “With about 80% of our revenue coming from federal government contracts, we had a choice,” says Brad Hall, Vice President at ERRG. “We either get compliant with CMMC or we cease to exist.”

Based on what they’d observed in other companies, achieving CMMC compliance was no walk in the park. “Software is a major compliance resource, and we saw companies make software vendor selection choices that really hamstrung them in the end,” says Hall. “After seeing the challenges and dysfunction they ran into, we didn’t want to suffer the same fate.”

Since partnering with Egnyte, ERRG has met roughly 90% of the requirements under CMMC 2.0 and is well on their way to achieving full compliance before the proposed deadline. They are being assisted by Network Coverage, a national Managed Services Provider and CMMC Registered Provider Organization helping ERRG achieve their compliance goals.

Challenge: Find a CMMC-Ready System Without Disrupting Workflows

ERRG had been using Microsoft SharePoint for its storage, monitoring, and file access controls. But the system was clunky and inefficient, and the team was starting to lose patience. “It was an old system that required a lot of overhead and IT support,” explains Hall. More importantly, the team worried that on-premises SharePoint environment, as a legacy system, wasn’t up to the task of facilitating compliance with the new regulations.

Their suspicions were confirmed when, in 2021, ERRG suffered a ransomware attack. “This was an eye-opening event for us,” says Hall. “It was exactly the kind of attack that the CMMC requirements aim to prevent. We knew we needed a new partner to prevent it from happening again.”

But a successful compliance journey would involve more than finding software that had the necessary security capabilities. It also meant minimizing disruption to a team who had never had to think much about cybersecurity before CMMC. “Our staff consists largely of engineers, geologists, and construction managers. In roles like these, cybersecurity is the last thing on your mind,” explains Hall. “They were accustomed to being able to access any file at any time, and CMMC would change that. So we needed to educate them a bit, and we needed a tool that would allow us to get fully compliant without being too disruptive to the team.”

Solution: Egnyte’s Unified Solution Accelerates the CMMC Journey

Within a month of the ransomware attack, ERRG made the decision to move file storage off its legacy SharePoint environment and into the cloud with Egnyte. They began migrating files into the new system and quickly discovered that the Egnyte platform could also become a key resource for addressing CUI security.

Two key aspects of Egnyte’s functionality were particularly impactful in empowering ERRG to reach the level of CUI security and controls necessary for CMMC compliance:

• Sensitive data discovery and classification
  Egnyte made it easy to zero in on particular files containing sensitive content that the team needed to address. Considering the volume of content ERRG works with, this would otherwise have been a needle-in-a-haystack project. “The security and governance tools in Egnyte were great. We’d never seen anything like it,” comments Hall. “The reports that we get from the system show us exactly which folders contain sensitive information like PII, so we know which ones are still out of compliance and need to be cleaned up.”
• Access and sharing controls
  The team was able to set granular file access permissions based on parameters such as username and role, ensuring that only the right people are able to view, modify, or delete any given file – all while still making it easy for people to locate and access the files they need to see. “This made it much easier to make our data more secure and controlled while still allowing people to get their jobs done,” says Hall. “Making these major changes in access controls that CMMC requires could have been really disruptive, but with Egnyte, we were able to make it as smooth as possible.”

Benefits: Racing Toward Compliance with the Wind at their Back

The switch to Egnyte has empowered ERRG to align their CUI security with the federal government’s requirements and race toward full CMMC Level 2 compliance. “Coming on board with Egnyte was a huge improvement,” says Hall. “The security level is far better than it ever was before. We never dreamed of being in the position we’re in now.”

Today, the firm has implemented 90% of the changes required for full Level 2 CMMC compliance and is on pace to complete physical security controls before the proposed deadline with time to spare. Along the way, they’ve had access not only to the functionality of Egnyte’s product, but to its team’s deep technical CMMC expertise, which has given them peace of mind that they’re handling the transition properly and nothing is falling through the cracks. This is further driven by the Network Coverage team’s expertise, not only as a premier Egnyte partner but in aiding in remediation and assessment efforts as ERRG prepares to complete the certification process.

ERRG has also benefited from aspects that extend beyond compliance. “We brought Egnyte on for CMMC, but the platform has also made things much easier and more efficient in areas like collaboration,” Hall explains.

During ERRG’s compliance journey, Hall reflected on the ways he expected CMMC 2.0 to impact the AEC space as a whole – and why, ultimately, he sees the regulation as a net positive. “A lot of companies are going to be a lot more secure in the new CMMC environment,” he says. “It will also put us in a position to assist some of our federal clients. CMMC affects all of us, and some agencies in the DoD itself are behind schedule on compliance. So while we’re getting compliant, we can serve as a consulting partner to help them do the same.”

For Wyanoke Group, a publisher of healthcare information based in New Jersey, adopting a fully cloud-based infrastructure was a long-held dream. After years spent using on-premises technology to house, share, and collaborate on internal and external content, they realized they needed a better system to provide the level of security that their clients demanded.

“We tried setting up a hybrid solution through Microsoft that combined on-premises file management with backups in the cloud,” explains Chuck Hosier, Vice President of Cybersecurity and IT Services at Wyanoke, who has been with the company for 25 years. “But Microsoft sunsetted that system, so we were back at square one.”

After partnering with Egnyte, Wyanoke finally made their cloud dream a reality – and achieved greater data security as a result.

Challenge: Local File Servers Cause Security and Cost Headaches

The Wyanoke team dealt with numerous headaches and inefficiencies related to their local file system. As just one example, Hosier explains: “We had to back up our content on tape, which took time and forced us to maintain huge tape libraries.”

Their biggest challenge, however, was the insufficiency of their on-premises system to deliver the level of security Wyanoke required. Specifically, the system gave the team very little control over who had access to the many files they shared internally and externally every day. “When we needed to share files, we had to use email attachments,” explains Hosier. “These files could include sensitive customer information that’s now sitting in the inboxes of email recipients. We had no way of stopping them from forwarding it to other people, and no insight into whether the content was sufficiently encrypted.”

These data security shortcomings made local file storage untenable for Wyanoke’s clients. “Many of our clients are in Pharma, where security and integrity of data are absolutely paramount. These clients demand that vendors have a secure way to store and transfer their data. To meet that demand, we needed a better cloud solution.”

Solution: Migrate to the Cloud and Gain More Control

Hosier had recently learned that some of Wyanoke’s clients were Egnyte users and decided to evaluate Egnyte’s cloud-hosted file server. He was immediately impressed. “Egnyte was what we had been seeking for years,” says Hosier. “It’s a full cloud-first solution with great uptime and security.”

John Leibrand, Senior Director, Privacy and Compliance at Wyanoke, was particularly impressed with how Egnyte met the standards associated with ISO 27001. “As an ISO-certified company, we’re obligated to ensure data is encrypted both at rest and in transit, that access controls are solid, and that we have strong reporting. Egnyte provides all of this. The security is top-notch, and it’s easy to report on anomalies. For example, if someone who usually accesses 50 files suddenly accesses 1,000, we’re immediately alerted.”

Egnyte particularly impressed the team with:

• Access controls for company files
  Egnyte empowered the team to share content using password-protected links, which would expire after a specified date, instead of file attachments. Users could also set granular roles and permission parameters to limit who could view, modify, or delete files – and could do so on their own, without having to impose upon IT. “Egnyte really helped us meet our clients’ security demands,” explains Brandon Veiga, Director, IT Support Services at Wyanoke. “It also gives power back to the user, enabling them to share files more easily and securely than they could with a local file server.”
• Native integration with Salesforce CRM
  Integrating Egnyte with Salesforce allowed Wyanoke’s sales team to share files securely without having to pivot away from their preferred workflows. “Our sales reps practically live in Salesforce,” says Veiga. “With this integration, our 50-odd Salesforce users can go through the whole end-to-end process of creating, uploading, and sharing files from the Egnyte source, without leaving the Salesforce interface they’re comfortable with. And it was so easy to set up the integration and user licenses.”
• Rapid deployment and data migration
  Egnyte’s ease of use and attentive support team made it easy to migrate Wyanoke’s large volumes of content from their on-premises system into Egnyte. “We were able to handle the technical aspect of this large-scale migration, as well as get 300-plus people on board, as smoothly as possible, thanks to the Egnyte team, the available training and documentation resources, and the ease of using the system,” says Hosier. “And the support was great. They really made us feel like we’re part of the Egnyte family.”

Benefits: Secure Sharing, Efficient Workflows, and Happy Clients

Armed with Egnyte’s cloud-first data governance and collaboration solution, the Wyanoke team has gained the cybersecurity and file access controls that they need to succeed. “Our clients, particularly in Pharma, often send us long questionnaires to evaluate the level of security we have in place,” explains Hosier. “We can now check all the boxes they’re looking for and confidently meet any security standard a client may bring.”

The switch to the cloud has empowered Wyanoke to streamline workflows and operate much more efficiently. The team is able to access files from anywhere without relying on a VPN – a major benefit for a geographically dispersed staff that often works from the road. And their IT team has become much more productive. “Being responsible for IT infrastructure at Wyanoke, up to 25% of my time was spent maintaining local file store infrastructure,” comments Hosier. “My team and I now get that valuable time back.”

“Employees are getting set up in the system about 30% faster,” adds Leibrand. “And we’ve probably seen a 60% drop in support tickets related to file backups and recoveries because Egnyte saves changes and backs up files automatically.”

Hosier sums up Egnyte as more than just a content repository: “From secure file sharing and getting ahead of ransomware attacks, to easy setup and efficient workflows, we get it all with Egnyte.”

The team at SouthStar Bank, a mid-sized financial services firm, keeps pretty busy, collaborating on countless files and sharing them externally and internally. But their technology – an on-premises file server with VPN access – was creating collaboration bottlenecks and data security risks.

“We were dealing with what I call a legacy shared drive,” says Bryan Buck, Chief Technology Officer at SouthStar. “As we grew and our operations became more complex, that started showing some real challenges.”

Buck knew his team would need to upgrade to a system that could facilitate their level of activity while keeping their processes smooth and their files secure. After a robust vendor selection process, he implemented Egnyte, gaining valuable benefits in content security, user experience, and overall performance.

Challenges: On-Premises Technology Created Security Risks and Slowed Workflows

The files SouthStar deals with every day are highly sensitive. Many of them contain customers’ financial data or the bank’s proprietary information. “We run a tight ship with our files,” explains Buck. “We need to know where they’re stored and who has access, and we need to be able to collaborate on them efficiently.”

Prior to Egnyte, the on-premises system the team was using fell short of this goal in several areas:

• Efficiency. Only one person at a time could edit a file, which slowed collaboration to a crawl. The team also had to rely on third-party solutions to exchange files with customers and scan for sensitive data, which made those processes more costly and time-consuming.
• Visibility. It was difficult to see where sensitive information was stored and to view and manage access permissions. That created serious security and privacy risks.
• Capacity. After years of using their on-premises system, the team was running out of backup space. "The shared drive grew and grew until I couldn’t keep as many backups as I needed," Buck says.

As Buck set out to find a new system, end-user experience was top-of-mind. “I wanted something that was new, different, better, and would offer a seamless transition for users,” Buck says. “I wanted users to be able to do things the way they always have, with the benefits of improved security, efficiency, and control.” To address the capacity issue, it was also important that whatever system they implemented be cloud-hosted. As Buck explains, “We really wanted to solve the local storage piece and not have to worry about backups.”

Solution: Full Control in an Easy-to-Use Platform

Buck kicked off a search for a solution that would meet his team’s criteria. When he started evaluating Egnyte, he was immediately impressed. “Initially, I attended a webinar that Egnyte hosted,” Buck says. “By the end, it was clear that Egnyte could solve many of our challenges.”

Buck made the decision to implement Egnyte, and to utilize its integrations with Microsoft Office and Azure Active Directory. Three features that most impressed Buck were:

• Unified view of risk. Egnyte provided a dashboard that gave Buck a clear picture of the risk level that SouthStar faced at any given time, and quickly flagged potential security issues. “I like the way Egnyte alerts me to unusual behavior,” Buck says. “Say somebody deletes an unusually large number of files. I get alerted to that instantly. I can then log in, get full visibility into what happened, and follow up with that person.” The platform also made it easy to change access permissions in just a few clicks, and for multiple stakeholders to edit a file simultaneously.
• Ease of use. Buck was able to implement the Egnyte system with virtually no disruption to his team. “The lightbulb moment was learning that, with Egnyte, the user doesn’t even know that something has changed,” Buck explains. Egnyte enabled users to store files in a centralized repository that appeared as a mapped file drive, making it easy to locate, access, and share files. They could also quickly and easily access files from any device through the cloud. Buck offers a personal example: “One week, I had COVID and was stuck working from home. I hadn’t installed Egnyte on my personal laptop, but I was still able to log in via the cloud and access whatever files I needed.”
• Native integrations with Microsoft. Buck and his team were impressed with the ways Egnyte’s integration with Microsoft Office has streamlined collaboration. “Our ability to co-edit documents using the Office integration is huge for us,” explains Buck. “Previously, a user would have to wait up to an hour for someone to be out of a document before they could edit it. Now, they can collaborate in real time.”

Along the way, Buck had a great experience working with the Egnyte team. As he puts it: “From sales to implementation to post-implementation, the Egnyte team was willing to listen and respond quickly. They’re always available for regular check-ins to help us get the most value out of the solution.” 

Benefits: Better Security, Reduced Costs, and Happy Users

Since implementing Egnyte, SouthStar has gained a holistic view of their data and better control over it, leading to significant improvements in content security and the user experience. “Detecting sensitive data is a key feature for us, and we’ve made tremendous progress there,” explains Buck. “I can see where my content is, ensure we have the right permissions set up for every file, and get alerts to any unusual behavior that could pose a security risk. All of that is so quick and easy now.”

This has empowered him to manage risk at a more granular level and on a continuous basis, resulting in concrete benefits for SouthStar: “When we implemented Egnyte, there were 20,000 sensitive files stored in unpermitted locations,” Buck says. “The visibility and control I’ve gotten from Egnyte has allowed me to bring that number down to zero.”

Egnyte has gotten an enthusiastically positive response from the company’s users. As Buck puts it: “Our basic users are happy that implementing Egnyte didn’t disrupt their workflows. And more advanced users love that they can access files from any location using either the web-based or mobile version of the platform.” Users also enjoy the ability to share files as links rather than attachments. “Rather than email files back and forth, our users can simply share a direct link,” Buck says. “That has made us a lot more efficient.” 

The cloud-based solution has also alleviated limitations on backup space – and even created cost savings for SouthStar. “We’re able to reduce annual spend by $10,000 by eliminating redundant software, because Egnyte allows us to roll file-sharing, content scanning, and so many other things into one simple solution.” 

Buck adds, “That’s really the essence of what Egnyte has done for us. With our previous solution, there were all these steps and tools we had to use to do what we needed to do. But with Egnyte, it’s all-in-one.” 

Introduction

Like many mid-sized engineering companies, S&ME faces ongoing technology challenges as it tries to keep pace with larger competitors, manage and secure its data, and address changes in the way their employees work.

Core to their struggles was the inability to track project data across the numerous technologies that were being used for collaboration. Employees were running into file sharing limitations that wasted time and slowed productivity, especially with large jobsite files. And clients were increasingly demanding security and compliance controls that their legacy tools simply couldn’t address.

All of these issues were compounded by the fact that S&ME was growing as an organization and looking to win more federal government projects.

“We have a very long history at our company working on small, local, and regional projects. But we’re really trying to evolve so we can handle a much larger, multi-disciplinary, broader scope of projects,” said Chris Headley, director of Corporate Services at S&ME.

As the firm moves to address those goals for the next phase of its evolution, Egnyte has become an increasingly valuable partner in the process

Challenge: Poor User Collaboration and IT Visibility

S&ME struggled with fast, convenient, and secure collaboration across its employee footprint.

The company had close to 90 TB of data stored on file servers across more than 35 office locations, and a mishmash of best-of-breed collaboration and storage technologies, which meant different tools for internal and external file sharing.

This created major problems for users. Teams struggled to work on large data sets like drone video, and they lost time getting field data to the office so others could work on it.

At the same time, S&ME was facing increased pressure to provide better visibility, control, and protection over its clients’ data. Director of IT Michael Farrar started seeing contract language that referenced cybersecurity and federal guidelines like ISO 27001 and NIST SP-800, which started a conversation about the company’s ability to win government contracts in the years ahead.

“How do we answer these questions if we’re nowhere close to meeting these requirements?” Farrar said.

Solution: One Platform for Secure Collaboration

One of the groups within S&ME feeling the pain of downloading and sharing large video files suggested Egnyte as a possible solution. The firm did its due diligence on the Egnyte solution, which included reaching out to IT research and consulting firm Gartner, which counts S&ME as a client.

“We got very good information and a glowing recommendation from Gartner, which gave us the confidence to try Egnyte’s technology stack,” Headley said.

And so they did, starting with the group that brought Egnyte to the table in the first place. Headley described the launch and the customer support as “fantastic.” The platform provided immediate value, so S&ME began working with Egnyte to support other collaboration use cases across the entire employee footprint.

“We saw the value in Egnyte,” Headley said. “It allows us to replace our disparate, outdated technologies and modernize our tech stack. Our Egnyte platform allows us to achieve some new capabilities we were really struggling to achieve.”

From there, S&ME moved its massive trove of unstructured data to Egnyte. This included content like documents, images, and videos. S&ME retained an on-premises footprint but used the Egnyte integration with Truyo to discover and classify content, making Egnyte the single source of project content governance for all departments. IT can now keep tabs on all its data, including proactively discovering and identifying sensitive information like Confidential Unclassified Information (CUI)—meeting the needs of its larger clients.

“Just from the sheer discovery standpoint—Egnyte makes it much, much easier to find information than ever before,” Headley said.

Users can now access all their data quickly as well, knowing the files are all housed within the appropriate project folders. Photos taken on mobile devices can be uploaded to the relevant project folder based on geolocation, keeping them organized and easily accessible. This saves considerable bandwidth and frees employees to get back to business-critical tasks.

Benefits: A Modernized Stack To Tackle the Next Stage of Growth

The engineering market is fairly small, so directors at other firms talk to each other regularly, according to Headley. His peers have referenced other technologies they use to achieve the same goals, but he knows they made the right choice. Specifically, Egnyte made S&ME feel valued, based on a foundation of trust and partnership.

“I would put Egnyte’s customer service at the top of the list when it comes to treating S&ME as a partner, helping us identify and achieve our business goals,” he said.

S&ME’s next big focus is on cybersecurity and data protection, especially as it works with larger, more sophisticated clients. It’s working with Egnyte toward compliance with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) framework, which has strict guidelines for businesses that work with the U.S. Department of Defense. This will help S&ME earn more business not only with government entities, but also with other AEC firms, energy companies and other potential clients that do business with the federal government.

And while S&ME builds toward CMMC compliance, it’s already reaping benefits from Egnyte’s security and governance capabilities. It uses Content Classification to identify, locate, and secure CUI. S&ME also takes action on unusual activity flagged by Egnyte—such as files with personally identifiable information (PII) stored in the wrong folder or individuals downloading large numbers of files—and creates policies to prevent unauthorized sharing.

“It was shocking how good Egnyte was at picking up where we had data that needed controlled access, such as PII,” said Mark Petersen, Senior Information Systems Security Analyst. “We were completely unaware some of this was in multiple shared drives or where it shouldn’t be, and it helps us corral that and it has a very easy mechanism to fix those issues.”

Moreover, the IT team sees its use of Egnyte as an investment that will pay dividends in the form of new contracts with clients that are increasingly concerned about cybersecurity.

Headley and his team are also looking at Egnyte’s lifecycle management capabilities, which help automate archiving, deletion, and retention of documents. This will reduce the manual effort of project close-out, enabling IT to automate the archival of project data. An additional benefit is the confidence that comes with archiving project data in its entirety in a secure and accessible way, reducing both data storage costs and risk. The team is also considering Egnyte’s capabilities for ransomware detection and file recovery, disaster recovery, and integrations with other business applications.

For a company with a nearly 50-year legacy, it’s a series of baby steps, according to Headley. But with Egnyte as a partner, S&ME is well positioned to take those steps and position itself for another 50 years of success.

“With Egnyte, we feel like we’re in a fantastic spot to continue the evolution of our company to meet new emerging challenges and the needs of our customers,” he said.

Introduction

Founded in 2015, Decibel is a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to discovering and developing transformative treatments to restore and improve hearing and balance. For this growth-stage biotech, Egnyte has been a valuable partner in supporting clinical and regulatory operations, medical writing, biostatistics and data management teams with a single repository for all documentation gathered from CROs and submitted to the FDA and other regulatory agencies.

Challenge

As Decibel grew, eventually going public in 2021, they became even more reliant on a global network of contract research organizations (CROs) to conduct comprehensive clinical trials.

These organizations collect a variety of data to support Decibel’s clinical trials, such as visit times and dates, testing results, adverse event information, patient status, and more. The sheer volume of data collected forced Decibel to find a solution that could not only ensure the accurate intake of data from CROs, but apply rigorous governance over the data, consistent with Good Clinical Practices (GCP). In parallel, the solution needed to support the secure sharing of clinical trial data across external third parties.

Solution

Decibel deployed Egnyte as their single source of truth for all regulated documentation. For large data sets coming in from CROs, Decibel uses Egnyte’s secure upload links, which are partitioned off from the rest of the internal file sharing system. Folder permissions and link expiration dates are used for additional controls. When Decibel takes part in smaller academic collaborations, it leverages Egnyte with a file structure for housing documents in lieu of a full-blown TMF.

“We are putting all documentation submitted to FDA and other regulatory agencies in Egnyte, so that now and in the future, people know where to find the actual documentation that was given to the agencies for review,” Wolff said.

The Decibel team also benefits from Egnyte’s integrations with business apps, like Microsoft Teams. Any files shared within Teams are ultimately governed by Egnyte and as such, remain compliant. The integration between the two platforms has been a big time-saver for the group, as employees no longer must chase down team members looking for the latest document in Teams.

Egnyte’s data security and ease-of-use are some of the biggest benefits the company has gained. As Decibel continues to work with globally dispersed CROs, moving data out of third-party folders and into the main trial folder within Decibel is easy. Teams can now quickly locate documentation, and co-edit and share files, without the worry of working from old versions or mis-handling sensitive trial data.

Benefits

Decibel invested in the Egnyte platform early on to support secure, external file sharing. As the company has experienced rapid growth, so has their reliance on Egnyte for more advanced workflows, like managing clinical trial documentation—without needing a full-blown clinical system.

Decibel is also excited about what’s still to come, and how Egnyte is open to evolving with the life sciences industry. Wolff said she’s seen many improvements to the platform over the past year, and she appreciates the team’s willingness to respond to customer requests for improvements.

“In terms of the clinical trial and pharma space, I think Egnyte is doing a great job of fulfilling our needs,” Wolff said. “I'm excited to leverage more of the security features and more of the integrations with other applications as we move along.”