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Home is Where the Heart is … and the Office 

return Report says companies are not taking full advantage of 3PLs capabilities to help them send more shipments of export cargo and import cargo in international trade.
Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

Home is Where the Heart is … and the Office 

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Office occupancy rates are struggling. San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, and others are inching along with occupancy rates in the mid-40s (%). Less than half of workers are returning to their respective business districts and the trickle-down effects have been devastating. 

An estimated 26,300 New York City small businesses closed between April 2020 and March 2021. The available office space in the financial capital is now up to 125 million square feet. This has been increasing at an uncomfortable rate since 2020 (90 million square feet in the first quarter). Expectedly, Manhattan rents have been declining for 18 consecutive quarters, a phenomenon that actually began even before the pandemic. 

While Covid certainly altered how many folks engage in work, there are other factors contributing to worker aversion to a return. In most major cities, crime is up. A Goldman Sachs employee was shot and killed on a Manhattan subway line in May prompting CEO David Solomon to begin lobbying the mayor’s office concerning the declining quality of life in the city. Employees expressed concern for their safety, indicating they had been engaged in the same work at home over the previous two years thus negating any argument that their presence at the office was necessary. Earlier this year employers were pushing back on this argument, but remote work has become so commonplace now that firms are worried they’ll lose valued employees if they push too hard. 

According to a study conducted in March by the accounting and consulting firm PwC, approximately two out of every three employees who can carry out their work remotely would prefer a hybrid (in-person and remote) arrangement. A November 2021 survey by the payroll provider ADP revealed that 68% of workers would consider leaving their current place of employment if their managers insisted they work in-person, full-time.   

Another compounding factor to a return to the office has been gas prices. Deloitte was providing in some instances up to $1,000 in reimbursements for commuting costs. Gartner surveyed employers in March and found over 25% were providing some sort of subsidy (free food, etc) to offset higher fuel costs and provide an incentive to return. While this has worked in some cases, it has not been overly effective. People have gotten a taste of what it’s like to work more casually, avoid annoying traffic, eat with loved ones, and lead a less stressful life working from home. Many of these surveys point to a desire for employees to see their co-workers and share in person, but that is the hybrid argument. A very small percentage wants to return to the pre-pandemic status quo. 

While Covid was a public health crisis, it has clearly upended our notion of work. Recruiters and human resource offices have caught on for the most part. It’s leadership that either rows in the opposite direction, risking good personnel, or finds an acceptable middle ground. Firm behavior will ultimately reveal who has done the best job negotiating the new normal.    

personal wipes
Archives, Global Trade Daily, News

Increasing Consumer Awareness Across North America to Influence the Usage of Personal Care Wipes

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Personal care wipes have garnered immense popularity amongst the average population owing to the ease of use and convenience. An increase in daily commute and hectic schedules has taken a toll on the personal hygiene of people which is why they are highly inclined towards using personal care wipes for keeping their skins healthy and fresh.

The antimicrobial nature of wet wipes has added more impetus to its adoption amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, where personal hygiene has garnered importance more than ever. These wipes are used for sanitizing restaurant tables, shopping trolleys, or playgrounds to prevent young children from exposing themselves to harmful germs and bacteria. Also, some wipes have high alcohol content which can prove effective against the SARS COV-2 virus. With the reopening of schools and other public places across the world, the consumption of personal care wipes will witness a significant escalation in usage over the foreseeable future.

Here is a lookout on how the global market for personal care wipes is transforming from 2021 to 2027:

Increasing usage of baby wipes

Baby wipes have been an essential part of families having babies. Enhanced absorbent fabrics of baby wipes help in cleaning the baby skin and reducing bacteria whilst avoiding rashes and skin irritation issues. It has been commonly observed that millennial parents are more aware of the skin conditioning of their babies than their previous generations. Such a rise in consumer awareness has prompted the consumption of baby wipes, leading to a prolific expansion of the business landscape.

The growing debate around flushable wipes

Flushable wipes, although convenient for usage, have not only created huge issues in sewage management but also disturbed the ecology of the planet. The issue is so grave that many governments have imposed bans on the usage of these wipes.  For instance, the UK government banned the sales of flushable wipes in 2018 in a mission to eliminate all plastic waste by 2042. These issues will pose serious challenges for the growth of the business.

However, this growing consensus regarding the environment has encouraged many industry players to come up with a variety of environment-friendly alternatives to flushable wipes. For instance, bamboo dry wipes are biodegradable and are considerably bigger in size than traditional wipes, which makes them easy to adopt for daily use without the concern of choking the sewage system. Such eco-friendly options will open up lucrative growth opportunities for the business.

One of the advantages of using personal care wipes is its ease of availability. Wet wipes are easily available in conventional retail stores. But the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the average population to avoid visiting physical stores which has paved way for the e-commerce sector’s development and expansion. In addition, increased internet penetration across emerging economies along with the availability of a wide range of products on online portals will bolster the industry growth to a greater extent.

Regionally, the market for personal care wipes has witnessed a significant rise in North America. This growth can be attributed to the rising infant population, which has prompted an ostensible need for baby wipes in the region. Not only that, the average North American population is now becoming increasingly aware about hygiene maintenance and the convenience offered by wet wipes encourages them to adopt it comprehensively.

In short, growing consumer awareness regarding personal hygiene and ease of availability of wet wipes have complemented the growth of the personal care wipes industry.

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Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

Cities Most Prepared to Work From Home

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Since March of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused record numbers of Americans to transition to remote work. As COVID cases have surged across the country, recent CDC guidelines suggest that workers should be allowed to work remotely if they can. While many jobs are suitable for a remote work environment, most are not. Using data from the Census Bureau as well as a recent study by University of Chicago researchers, about 31 percent of U.S. workers are employed in remote-friendly jobs, but this varies substantially on a geographic level. Additionally, not everyone who works in an occupation that can be performed remotely is well-positioned to do so. Differences in computer and high-speed internet access, as well as available space in the household, all impact an individual’s preparedness for remote work.

Working from home typically requires both a computer and a high-speed internet connection. According to data from the Census Bureau, nearly a quarter of U.S. households don’t own a computer and close to 30 percent lack broadband internet, such as cable, fiber optic, or DSL. Not surprisingly, owning a computer and having high-speed internet tend to go hand in hand. At the state level, states, where more households own computers, are also home to more households with high-speed internet. On a regional level, the South is less prepared to work from home—Southern states tend to have lower rates of home computer ownership and fewer households with broadband internet.

In addition to having the necessary hardware and internet access, being able to create a clear boundary between your home life and work-life can make all the difference when working from home. Having a suitable home workspace is associated with increased telework satisfaction and self-reported productivity. Workers with a spare bedroom at home will find it easier to create a dedicated workspace than those whose only option is a shared living area, such as the kitchen or dining room table. For example, while the San Francisco metropolitan area is home to a disproportionate number of laptop workers with high-speed internet access, a majority of these workers don’t have extra space for a home office, making full-time remote work more challenging in the Bay Area than in areas with more affordable housing.

To find the most prepared places in the U.S. to work from home, researchers at Filterbuy analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the University of Chicago. They created a composite telework preparedness score based on the following factors:

-Percentage of workers in remote-friendly jobs

-Percentage of households with a laptop or desktop computer

-Percentage of households with broadband internet, such as cable, fiber optic or DSL

-Percentage of households with at least one spare bedroom that could be used as a home office

-Median number of rooms per person in each household

At the state level, many of the most-prepared states to work from home are on the East Coast. The two states flanking Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, rank the highest in the country according to the composite score. Over one-third of jobs in each of these states can be performed from home, and a large proportion of households in both states have computers and high-speed internet access. The South tends to be less prepared to work from home. Arkansas ranks the lowest in the country according to its composite score. Just 26 percent of jobs in Arkansas can be performed from home, while less than two-thirds of Arkansas households own computers. Only 56 percent of Arkansas households have high-speed internet.

To find the metropolitan areas in the U.S. most prepared to work from home, researchers at Filterbuy ranked metro areas according to their composite score. To improve relevance, only metropolitan areas with at least 100,000 people were included in the analysis. Additionally, metro areas were grouped into the following cohorts based on population size:

-Small metros: 100,000–349,999

-Midsize metros: 350,000–999,999

-Large metros: 1,000,000 or more

Here are the large metros most prepared to work from home.

 

Metro Rank   Composite score  Percentage of workers in remote-friendly jobs  Percentage of households with a laptop or desktop computer  Percentage of households with broadband internet  Percentage of households with at least one spare bedroom  Median household rooms per person 

 
Raleigh-Cary, NC     1 87.69 35.9% 84.6% 78.6% 66.0% 2.7
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA     2 86.99 35.0% 82.8% 76.8% 65.6% 3.0
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV     3 85.72 38.1% 87.6% 82.7% 58.8% 2.7
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI     4 85.67 35.1% 83.8% 77.1% 63.3% 3.0
Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO     5 85.40 35.8% 86.1% 80.6% 61.5% 2.7
Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD     6 84.48 35.9% 81.4% 75.6% 63.3% 3.0
Richmond, VA     7 83.74 33.4% 78.1% 70.4% 70.9% 3.0
Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC     8 83.36 32.9% 79.0% 76.1% 66.7% 2.7
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD     9 83.32 33.9% 80.0% 77.6% 61.8% 3.0
Columbus, OH     10 82.01 32.9% 80.4% 77.3% 62.2% 2.7
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL    11 81.97 31.8% 81.3% 75.9% 64.4% 2.6
Salt Lake City, UT    12 81.70 34.7% 86.6% 76.6% 61.8% 2.5
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA    13 81.58 36.6% 87.1% 82.3% 57.0% 2.3
Pittsburgh, PA    14 81.55 32.6% 75.8% 73.5% 67.2% 3.0
Kansas City, MO-KS     5 81.35 32.2% 79.7% 73.5% 64.0% 3.0
United States    – N/A 30.7% 77.3% 70.8% 60.8% 2.5

 

For more information, a detailed methodology, and complete results, you can find the original report on Filterbuy’s website: https://filterbuy.com/resources/cities-most-prepared-to-work-from-home/

Upskilling
Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily

Why Upskilling in Manufacturing Is Key to Bridging the Skills Gap

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Before COVID-19, manufacturers understood the importance of continuously training their workforce.

They planned to spend a collective $26.2 billion in 2020 to help employees improve their existing skills, and around three-quarters said they were either launching or expanding workforce training efforts. The pandemic put many of those investments on hold — but it also rearranged their priorities. As we emerge into the fated “new normal,” training must reevaluate any slated reskilling and upskilling efforts.

So what’s the difference between reskilling and upskilling? Reskilling moves someone laterally between different jobs so they’re competent at multiple skills. On the other hand, upskilling moves someone vertically through a process of gaining skill and specialization around the job they have currently or the career path they’re following. It’s the difference between training an employee broadly versus deeply.

Both approaches are imperative coming out of the pandemic. But with many changes happening at once in manufacturing, upskilling, in particular, can help employees adapt so they can continue on their pathways successfully, ensure efficiency, and achieve operational excellence.

The Post-Pandemic Manufacturing Workforce

The pandemic proved that it’s time to commit to digital transformation and ensure internet-connected and data-driven technologies steer all aspects of production and links within a supply chain.

Technology will play a drastically larger role in manufacturing in 2021 and beyond as companies strive to make themselves more dynamic, efficient, and resilient. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has clearly arrived in the form of artificial intelligence, robotics, and analytics, and it’s up to the post-pandemic workforce to use these transformative technologies effectively.

At the same time, it will be up to manufacturers to prepare them. As production becomes more technical, it creates a skills gap in manufacturing — one that’s far too wide to fix with recruiting alone. For workers to make the most of technologies such as IoT or augmented reality, they will need to build on their existing skills and acquire new ones.

Manufacturers that apply upskilling and reskilling efforts intelligently— and succeed at both — can expect their workers to make a bigger impact in less time. Alternately, factories that update technology without updating their workforce are only courting failure. And for those few manufacturers not widely embracing new technologies, a skilled workforce will be crucial for surviving in the post-pandemic economy.

The tools garner all the attention, but it’s the users who really matter. Manufacturers that subscribe to this maxim will start planning their upskilling initiatives now and make them a top priority throughout 2021 and beyond.

3 Ways to Build the Workforce of the Future

The sooner workers adapt to the new normal, the better. Unfortunately, the human mind isn’t great at retaining tons of new information at once: We forget up to half of what we learn 20 minutes after learning it, and another half by a day later (a phenomenon known as the forgetting curve). But if only one-fourth of reskilling and upskilling efforts stick, the workforce will lag behind.

Repetition has been shown to help with information retention and memory recall, but it’s not always clear how to circle back through key concepts without the exercise becoming redundant or inefficient. Use these strategies in your upskilling initiatives instead:

1. Create video content. In-person training requires careful scheduling and could distract participants for hours. (And of course, questions remain about when it will be feasible again.) Delivering those same training modules via video helps workers access them whenever it’s convenient and consume information in smaller chunks. Plus, it’s especially helpful for those who prefer to learn using a video medium or find it easier to follow.

2. Leverage virtual reality. If video provides education, virtual reality provides experience. It gives users a way to walk through new processes and practice new skills in a hands-on environment as opposed to, say, watching or reading about processes. When used alongside the video, VR allows manufacturers to deliver training whenever, wherever, and to whoever needs it. It secures results, too: Users retain 75% of information using VR training compared to just 5% for lecture-style learning.

3. Install a training platform. Manufacturers often think of training as something they perform occasionally. For it to make an impact, however, they should start thinking of it as a resource to provide constantly.

With this in mind, create a digital channel where training content (videos, VR programs, guides, etc.) is housed and managed so workers can access this content on-demand and managers can check their progress. But don’t stop there — supplement the channel with quizzes, activities, and contests to keep workers immersed in the material.

With the right commitment to upskilling and reskilling, manufacturers can turn a workforce built for the past into one that’s fine-tuned for the future. The key will be to get started as soon as possible to ensure the information sticks. Are your workers well-braced for technology’s upcoming tidal wave?

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Daniel Sztutwojner is chief customer officer and co-founder of Beekeeper, the single point of contact for your frontline workforce. Beekeeper’s mobile platform brings communications and tools into one place to improve agility, productivity, and safety. Daniel is passionate about helping businesses operate more efficiently.

data security
Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

Why the Keys to Maintaining Data Security in a Remote Environment are Control and Visibility

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Remote workforces are nothing new to most organizations. According to Buffer’s 2019 State of Remote Work report, 44% of respondents noted that at least part of their team was “full-time remote,” and 31% said that everyone on the team works remotely. Further, at the time of the report, 30% of respondents said that their entire company worked remotely. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the work-from-home model. By March 31, 2020, the percent of users working remotely had increased 15 percentage points since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. With that in mind, organizations are assessing how they can maintain granular levels of control and visibility when business data is being accessed remotely.

Adopting Contextual Controls to Protect Data

Most organizations already leverage role-based access controls. These controls, which align data access privileges and job function resources, provide a baseline for data governance. However, they often lead to excessive levels of data access and, in turn, produce additional risks. Contextual controls enable an organization to dynamically control access to data during varying contexts of access, often aligning to least privilege best practices. Migrations to cloud applications are largely due to contextual controls being a business requirement, simply because the interconnected applications required a more dynamic approach.

With the move to a remote workforce, organizations need to create more detailed and more dynamic access controls. With attribute-based access controls (ABAC), a company can incorporate additional context such as geolocation, time of day, and IP address to both ensure the appropriate user is accessing the resources and prevent users from having more access than they need. For example, if the organization knows that an employee should be working from Connecticut, ABAC can prevent access to resources if the user’s location is suddenly California – or a foreign country.

Contextual controls provide both the prevention of access policy violations, along with alignment between business requirements and security protocols. Because the organization can limit access according to the principle of least privilege, it reduces the risk of data leakage and financial fraud. Meanwhile, by creating more granular, data-centric access privileges, an organization can ensure that users do not get too much or not enough access – limiting the potential negative effects of restricting access excessively.

User Activity Monitoring for Security and Managing Productivity

Monitoring user access to resources and tracking how users interact with data provides an additional benefit for many organizations as their workforces move towards a remote model. Most organizations recognize the benefit of monitoring user access – but not just instances of logging in and logging out of applications. Understanding data access and usage is now a key requirement when maintaining visibility over business data. Organizations are turning to analytics platforms that both include granular access details, along with a visualization element (for example, SIEM). Data is only as useful as the insights it provides, and rapid aggregation and visualization of user access data is a crucial requirement for data security.

Using “Virtual” Work Hours

Looking at a common security use case, many organizations leverage “virtual” work hours to detect anomalies. For example, an employee usually works between the hours of 8 AM and 6 PM but monitoring and alerting to activity around sensitive data at 3 AM, for instance, can be indicative of unauthorized behavior. This uncharacteristic behavior may be an anomaly, but the organization needs to monitor the user activity more closely. If the user denies accessing the information at 3 AM, then the organization needs to focus its monitoring and have the employee change their password. If the organization detects additional unusual activity, then it may need to review the employee’s activities or investigate a potential data breach.

Monitoring User Productivity

From a workforce management perspective, organizations can leverage these insights to review employee productivity. Two use cases present themselves. First, many organizations have contracts that stipulate late payments incur a late fee. If the organization knows that employees should be processing payments ten days prior to the payment date, then they can leverage these reports to ensure that employees meet their timelines, even from a remote location. Additionally, by tracking resource usage data, organizations can monitor whether workforce members are appropriately prioritizing their workdays. If the employees are only accessing a business application at the end of the month, then they are likely waiting until the last minute to input payment information. Preventing these potential revenue losses or rush projects in other areas by speaking with the employee enables the organization to stay on top of its financials.

Enabling Visibility for Business Applications Has Never Been More Critical

Creating trust within and across distributed workforces ensures productivity. However, continued status update meetings across multiple time zones decrease workforce member efficiency. Organizations already monitor user access to their systems, networks, and applications. As part of a robust security posture, organizations should apply protections at the new perimeter – user identity. Rather than micromanaging employees via emails or chats, managers can gain valuable insight into how users are accessing resources and prioritizing work schedules by reviewing data and resource usage.

In an unprecedented time, companies need to find ways to enable their levels of control and visibility over business data. Whether a business application is on-premise or in the cloud, enhancing these solutions should be a mission-critical objective.

Risks against an organization are prevalent in a remote environment, whether those risks are security-related or employee-related by fraud, theft, and error. The keys to maintaining data security ultimately lie in your ability to provide oversight for your data, and the time to act is now.

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Piyush Pandey, CEO at Appsian (www.appsian.com ) is a technology executive with 18 years of global experience in strategy, sales, mergers & acquisitions, and operations within software companies. Over the last 10 years, he has worked with enterprise software companies including Oracle, Epicor, Concur, Citrix and Microsoft on various transactions. He has held various leadership positions at Procera, Deutsche Bank, Stifel, Wipro Technologies and a wireless startup.

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Customs Changes Course: No Longer Accepting Requests to Defer Duty Payments

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On Friday, March 20, 2020, Customs announced that it was accepting requests for short-term relief from payment of estimated duties, taxes and fees due to the COVID-19 emergency, as discussed here.

Nevertheless, on March 26, 2020, Customs issued “Additional Guidance for Entry Summary Payments Impacted by COVID-19” that revised the information and policy in the earlier announcement. In its “Additional Guidance” Customs stated that it was no longer accepting requests for additional days for payment of estimated duties, taxes, and fees, but commented that CBP retains the right to allow additional days for payment in narrow circumstances, such as physical inability to file entry or payments, based on technology outages or port closures.

Single payments, daily and periodic monthly statement payments of estimated duties, taxes and fees that should have been tendered from 3/20/2020 through 3/26/2020, payment must be initiated by 3/27/2020. Trade members who did not pay Customs for estimated duties, taxes and fees from 3/20/2020 through 3/26/2020 must initiate payment by 3/27/2020.

Separate from reversing its policy on a limited number of “additional days” for duty relief, we also reported that CBP was considering a more extended 90-day tariff relief plan. Recent reporting, though, indicates that this 90-day tariff relief plan has been shelved. We understand that a number of senior administration officials (including Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and economic adviser Larry Kudlow) were in favor of granting the relief, but were outweighed by others within the Administration (Peter Navarro) as well as influential individuals in the private sector aligned with more protectionist policies.

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Robert Stang is a Washington, D.C.-based partner with the law firm Husch Blackwell LLP. He leads the firm’s Customs group.

 Julia Banegas is an attorney in Husch Blackwell LLP’s Washington, D.C. office.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, Software

Maintaining Business-as-Usual When Nothing is Usual

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As we watch the evolving global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is abundantly clear that organizations are facing a business continuity challenge for which most had not precisely prepared. With little to no strategic planning for it, organizations are being forced to shift from an on-premises employee base to a remote distributed workforce. The choice is clear, shift or shut down, and those trying to shift have significant hurdles to overcome. Enterprises need to protect their employees and ensure business operation continuity by making this immediate pivot to a remote workforce.

The aforementioned hurdles are numerous, indeed. A few key ones fall around maintaining compliance, ensuring security with developmental practices and keys, and maintaining visibility into risk when monitoring tools are overwhelmed with signals.

Uncompromised Compliance

Meeting compliance rules in a diverse IT ecosystem is arduous on the best of days but can be overwhelming for organizations dealing with the unanticipated tide of remote workers, non-controlled devices, and unmanaged locations. Yet without access to the business-critical and sensitive information required to perform job responsibilities, productivity would grind to a halt.  Organizations meet the competing priorities of employee access and regulatory compliance in spite of an ongoing pandemic. Compliance frameworks such as SOX, HIPAA, HITECH, and PCI, require implementing and monitoring a large number of controls to ensure compliance, even with remote workers. This is a herculean task, especially across multiple clouds, sites, and external work locations.

In order to establish compliance, many compliance frameworks require organizations to begin with a risk-based assessment of the ecosystem. The information gathered from this assessment determines what controls are necessary and how they can best be configured to integrate with the environment. For organizations needing to move swiftly, it is absolutely essential to utilize automated tools to manage this process and ensure that no controls are left out or partially implemented. Even after implementation, the ecosystem should be reviewed and monitored in order to maintain continual compliance.

Remote Development

Developers working from home come with the challenge of ensuring the codebase that they are working on is secure and that it can safely be moved through the development lifecycle. Fortunately, developers have already been moving down this path with the development lifecycle in the cloud using a CI/CD pipeline to streamline and automate the process from development to production. However, this requires the issuance of high-privileged keys to developers to move code between environments and execute the code. Protecting these privileged keys is challenging and can leave individuals with excessive rights that violate the principle of least privilege. In the worst scenario, a bad actor could insert malicious code, self-promote the code all the way into production, and have the code execute with a permanently issued privileged key, all without any checks along the way.

The best way to ensure that the CI/CD pipeline remains secure is to ensure there are zero standing privileges when they are not directly needed to perform functions in the environment. To aid in this effort, storing privileged keys and using a system to programmatically check them out at the time of code execution allows them to be available when needed but otherwise keeps them inaccessible. This can further be improved upon by using scoped keys that have an expiration built into them so that even if a high-privilege key was compromised, its ability to be utilized by bad actors is limited.

In order to maintain compliance, it’s also important for a solution to see and control when a developer may have a risky or toxic combination of access, such as the capability of both writing code and performing QA on that code. Keeping these duties separate is key to preventing poor code hygiene, and it also reduces the risk of a backdoor being written in and pushed into production.

Pinpointing Anomalous Behavior

When dealing with multiple external workers and the sudden change in traffic, the vast amount of real-time activity and behavior data coming in from different areas can complicate visibility into anomalous behavior. An IT ecosystem that ranges from on-premises assets to multiple clouds generates a huge volume of log data, and SIEM tools and vulnerability scans only add to the total. Each of these is generally contained in its own environment and has separate interfaces for reviewing and monitoring, and there is limited correlation to find anomalies that might not be readily apparent from any given individual interface.

While managing a strong remote work environment, an organization is going to need to double down on monitoring. In order to understand holistic risk and keep from missing trends only visible when broader data is analyzed, organizations should seek ways to integrate the data from these disparate systems to attain visibility not possible from looking at each as a silo. A quick response can make the difference between a bad actor being stopped cold and walking off with the keys to the kingdom.

When Business IS Usual

Whether adapting to a pandemic or evolving to follow the trend of offering remote work to attract top talent, ensuring your organization’s data is secure is top priority. Even when the IT landscape of your organization changes, you need to maintain business continuity with solutions that include automated response to risk while documenting continual compliance. Whether securing file access or enabling software development, ensuring only the right people have the right access to the right digital resources at the right time should be more than a clever catchphrase. It should be business as usual.

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Diana Volere is a strategist, architect, and communicator on digital identity, governance and security, with a passion for organizational digital transformation. She has designed solutions for and driven sales at Fortune 500 companies around the world and has an emphasis on healthcare and financial verticals.  In her role as Saviynt’s Chief Evangelist, she delivers Saviynt’s vision to the community, partners, and customers, addressing how to solve present and future business challenges around identity.  Her past twenty years have been spent in product and services organizations in the IAM space. Outside of work, she enjoys travel, gastronomy, sci-fi, and most other activities associated with being a geek.