Hakkasan Optimizes Global Operations with Egnyte

Challenge

With Hakkasan in mergers and acquisitions mode, getting to grips with files and data across its diverse and growing portfolio of brands was an operational and strategic priority.

The Group was looking to consolidate files from all of its global properties onto a single platform, making them available to office-based staff and a growing remote workforce as part of the company’s digital transformation. It also needed to address the security issues around shadow IT. Mike Novak of Hakkasan Group added, “The limitations of Active Directory and Windows file server meant remote users would either download files to their laptops or upload them to a variety of personal cloud-based file sharing services.” Aside from the productivity and version control issues, the security and compliance implications of these behaviors were considerable, particularly for a global business needing to comply with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR.

Novak knew they also needed a disaster recovery plan. “Systems can go down for a multitude of reasons and we had to make sure all our data was safe,” Novak explained. “Whether we’re transitioning data from a newly acquired property or creating a Group-wide archive and back-up, a DR [disaster recovery] solution was pertinent to ensuring the security of our data.”

Solution

With approximately half the company’s employees working remotely, Hakkasan opted for a hybrid deployment of Egnyte.

This ‘best of both worlds’ approach optimizes content for each use case. Egnyte’s Hybrid deployment with selective caching provides lightning quick file access via on-premises storage in high volume office environments. Additionally, remote teams can access their files exclusively via the cloud from any device, without having to struggle with the VPN. This feature led to rapid user adoption, but has also transformed workstyles for a positive impact on the Group’s bottom line.

“Not only can we turn an office-based employee into a remote worker in minutes, implementing cloud-based access has allowed us to rationalize our estate – close down data centers and satellite offices without impacting production or inconveniencing users.”

On top of these operational cost savings, Egnyte automates and consolidates Hakkasan’s back up, archiving and file synchronization tasks, giving the Group a comprehensive ‘set and forget’ disaster recovery strategy.

Today, Egnyte is Hakkasan’s chosen file access and sharing service – having replaced or repurposed all legacy file servers across the global organization. It’s in daily use with over 1,200 employees and is being leveraged to provide powerful data archiving and DR.

Results

Alongside enabling enterprise-wide content collaboration, Hakkasan has been able to increase security and minimize the risks on non-compliance in the face of a fast-evolving regulatory landscape. Novak explained, “Egnyte’s architecture gives us complete control over where data resides. For example, our European data resides in Egnyte’s EU data center to comply with GDPR data privacy and protection requirements. And we use Egnyte’s North American instance to comply with the emerging US regulations.”

It’s now easy for Hakkasan to enforce security best practices, such as not using email to share sensitive files, controlling access permissions, and monitoring exactly what users are downloading.

“We now have standout information governance in place and can proactively monitor data and intervene should a violation arise. We take data privacy very seriously and now mandate our people to use Egnyte’s link share facility when sending documents to partners or customers outside the organization.