Secure messaging is critically important for any enterprise with sensitive information to protect. So when people use consumer apps at work, it’s a problem. Infinite Convergence responded to the challenge with the NetSfere app, which gives enterprise employees safe messaging. MEF Minute spoke to the firm’s VP for Europe Franz Obermayer at Money 20/20 last month.
Around a decade ago, digital technology and the smartphone changed the workplace. Gradually, people stopped using their company desktops and laptops exclusively for work, and began to do business from their own mobile devices.
And why wouldn’t they? Smartphones started to support beautifully-designed messaging apps – WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage and so on. These apps were perfect for chatting to clients and suppliers easily in real time.
Indeed, according to a survey by messaging specialist Infinite Convergence, 73 per cent of employees now say they prefer to use SMS/MMS or consumer-facing messaging apps at work.
This, of course, is a major problem for many enterprises. Why? Because employees can discuss anything on these apps. And ‘anything’ includes confidential, sensitive information.
“Companies all have secrets to lose,” explains Franz Obermayer, regional VP for Europe at Infinite Convergence. “Be that by someone hacking into the system or by an employee who has created a WhatsApp group leaving for a competitor and staying in the group. Either way, a lot of data is being lost.”
To combat this, Infinite Convergence developed a secure messaging app called NetSfere. It designed the app from the ground up with enterprise security in mind.
“Consumer app messaging is a major problem for many enterprises. Why? Because employees can discuss anything on these apps. And ‘anything’ includes confidential, sensitive information.”.
Hence, NetSfere comes with: device-to-device encryption, safeguards that comply with industry regulation, and the ability to chat and call securely with external vendors, partners, and clients. It also lets IT admin control the end-user policies and privileges.
Obviously security is the key feature. But Obermayer recognises thatNetSfere also had to deliver on user experience. He says: “If IT chooses a solution that’s super safe but that’s not appealing people simply won’t accept it. They’ll just switch to a consumer product instead. So we made NetSfere intuitive and feature rich, but still secure and compliant.”
Infinite Convergence says enterprises across multiple industry verticals now deploy NetSfere. Unsurprisingly many come from the finance sector, which has particular strategic and regulatory reasons to choose secure messaging
This is why Infinite Convergence was present at Money 2020 in Copenhagen last month. MEF Minute talked to Franz Obermayer at the event.
