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.”

As a leading consulting engineering firm, MG Engineering knows the importance of risk management. “We operate within a risk-averse industry,” explains Demetrios Gianniris, Associate Principal, Head of Ops and Technology at MG Engineering. “There are codes and best practices, and we strive to be nimble and innovative while keeping those in mind.”

With Egnyte, they proved that large engineering firms with large data volumes can build productive file management workflows in the cloud – while still adhering to the codes and practices their highly regulated industry demands.

Challenge: A Mixed Workflow Leads to Inefficient File Management

MG Engineering often works on over 300 simultaneous projects encompassing over 20 terabytes worth of related files, with individual files ranging up to 5.5 gigabytes in size. Initially, they were using Egnyte’s Storage Sync technology to sync this data from the cloud to their own on-premises servers.

However, they soon discovered that once all the data had been sent to their servers, managing such a large volume of files locally was highly time- and resource-intensive. “Storage Sync is perfect for teams that manage small or mid-sized volumes of data,” explains Gianniris. “But with volumes as enormous as ours, we realized we would work faster if we kept those workflows in the cloud instead of syncing to on-premises servers.”

Particularly challenging areas included:

• File backups: “Our original plan was to have a complete copy of all our data in each office, and only use the cloud to access files remotely,” says Gianniris. Given the size and volume of the files involved, creating these backups would require a tremendous expenditure of time, staffing power, storage space, and budget.
• Collaboration: The team was using a virtual private network (VPN) for much of their remote file sharing. But VPN proved ineffective at facilitating collaboration on large files – and with most workers dispersed across three offices and many others working from home, sharing files this way proved to be a slog.
• File management: For each project, the team built a digital folder structure for managing files related to that project. But storing, sharing, co-editing, and archiving files with their part-cloud, part-on-premises hybrid workflow was highly inefficient. “We had a team of people who had to scour the whole network to find specific files and move them to the right location,” says Gianniris.

Facing delays and budget shortfalls, Gianniris started exploring ways to rely more heavily on the cloud. But his primary technology partner, Autodesk, didn’t work well with the numerous cloud platforms Gianniris tried out. “Autodesk doesn’t play nice in the cloud unless you’re using their cloud offering, which, at the time, hadn’t been developed,” Gianniris explains. “So we were stuck.”

Solution: A Cloud-First File Management System in Egnyte

Gianniris knew he needed to reduce his reliance on on-premises servers. He decided to take his use of Egnyte to the next level and use the platform to build a more cloud-centric file management workflow. Though the team was reluctant at first, their reservations disappeared when they saw the results. “Once we transitioned to enterprise cloud for our document storage, we were able to work much faster and more productively, largely because Egnyte handles uploads and transfers of large files really well,” explains Gianniris. “It’s also the rare cloud platform that works well with Autodesk. All of a sudden, these massive Autodesk CAD files worked a lot better.”

The team was also impressed with Egnyte’s integration capabilities. In particular, by integrating with mxHERO, they were able to replicate their shared Microsoft Outlook inboxes in Egnyte, allowing them to remove large, storage-consuming file attachments from their local server and store those files in the cloud instead. “We rely on our Outlook inboxes every day, but we were almost completely out of storage space because of these huge attachments,” explains Anjelica Orsini, Office Manager at MG Engineering, who plays an instrumental role in managing the firm’s IT. “Storing files in Egnyte instead of Outlook, and sharing them via links rather than attachments, frees up critical space and keeps things more secure.”

Working with Egnyte’s professional services, the team also accelerated the creation of complex folder structures to house files for internal and external collaboration. “It used to take us fifteen minutes to create a folder structure, but in Egnyte, we can do it in thirty seconds or less,” says Gianniris. “All it takes is the click of a button. Considering we often do this twenty or thirty times a day, those time savings really add up.” Once the folders were built, the team was able to quickly upload and migrate files of any size into Egnyte. From there, the cloud-based system allowed them to locate files from anywhere with a quick search, rapidly share files among dispersed stakeholders, and automate file archiving. “Egnyte serves as a great hub where all of our data lives, and where all our stakeholders can communicate.”

Benefits: Faster Workflows, Reduced Spend, and Happier Clients

Since implementing Egnyte, MG Engineering has made their workflows significantly faster and more cost-effective, yielding savings from project initiation to closeout. “Being all-in on the cloud has eliminated the need to create copies of all of our files or hire a full team to take on the laborious process of locating, moving, and archiving large files on a local server,” says Gianniris. “This has allowed us to save over $50,000 every year, as well as thousands of hours that we can reinvest in more high-value activities.”

These efficiencies have also enabled MG Engineering to ensure top-notch client services. “When our clients ask us for a file, they expect to get it immediately,” Orsini explains. “With local servers and manual processes, this would take ages. But Egnyte makes it easy for us to find, access, and send documents to clients in seconds. That’s a huge benefit.”

Egnyte hasn’t only enabled MG Engineering to save digital storage space – they’re freeing up physical space as well. “Now that we’ve seen how well Egnyte handles large volumes of large files, we plan to scan all of our files, dating back years, and store them in Egnyte,” says Orsini. “We’re currently working through what were originally about 900 boxes of files, which, historically, our team would spend hours or days wading through when we needed to find something. Once it’s all in Egnyte, all those documents will be at our fingertips.”

Summing up the ways Egnyte has benefited the team, Gianniris offers an anecdote: “Since we leaned more into the cloud, I’ve had people come up to my desk and ask me, ‘Did we do something with the network? Things are suddenly running much faster.’”

At Revolution Medicines, a clinical-stage precision oncology company, collaboration is key. As a medium-sized biotech organization whose internal workflows are augmented by a large virtual support system, they rely on a host of external partners to keep highly time-sensitive workflows running smoothly. If Revolution Medicines and their partners in both research and development are unable to communicate and share data effectively, operations can grind to a halt in a flash.

“With nearly 250 employees at the end of 2022, we are considered a medium-sized business” notes Wally Reiher, Chief Information Officer at Revolution Medicines. “Like many businesses our size in our space, our business model relies heavily on outsourcing. Collaboration is central to being able to do that effectively.”

Armed with Egnyte’s powerful content management system, Reiher and his team have accelerated and streamlined their collaboration both internally and externally, paving the way for smoother and faster workflows.

Challenge: Facilitate Collaboration Among a Complex Network

Revolution Medicines’ roster of external partners is broad in both number and variety. The company works closely with organizations specializing in critical functions across all aspects of research and development, including synthesis and screening, pre-clinical studies, and manufacturing.

“Orchestration of these many partnerships depends on efficient collaboration tools so our scientists can focus on their projects without distraction,” explains Reiher.

To facilitate this level of collaboration, Revolution Medicines needed a system that could:

• Store and organize copious amounts of data produced from a large-scale multifaceted collaborative platform
• Empower internal and external stakeholders to easily access data and collaborate in real time
• Ensure security by controlling access to the data at a highly granular level

“In a previous company, I implemented another solution for file storage and access,” says Reiher. “But my team ran into limitations with permissions management. To achieve the level of collaboration that we practice at Revolution Medicines, we would need something much more flexible.”

Solution: A Cloud File System That Breaks Down Collaboration Barriers

At the time Reiher joined Revolution Medicines, the company had just completed a meticulous vendor evaluation process leading to their selection of Egnyte for file management and sharing. Reiher oversaw the implementation process and was immediately impressed with how quickly the team was able to build an environment within Egnyte for their collaboration materials supporting a variety of research workflows, both internal and external, such as research plans, protocols, and reports. As the company matured, Egnyte was also used for a variety of other external collaboration workflows, including business development; supporting advisory boards; and academic collaborations.

“We entered partnerships with large companies where the alliance required a place to store all the files we’d be working on together, and it was agreed that we would do the hosting because we could implement the collaboration space more rapidly,” says Reiher. “Using Egnyte, we were able to build the necessary file infrastructure within a day. Dozens of individuals collaborating on an enormous volume of materials with controlled access rights – all set up in a matter of hours.”

Once setup was complete, these teams were able to manage their operations within Egnyte easily, efficiently, and securely. Highlights included:

• Permissions controls: Egnyte has provided the team with the ability to provision access to files based on user role and to control whether a user can modify a file, delete a file, or be limited to read-only access. “Access control is crucial when working with multiple external partners,” Reiher notes. “We can make sure a CRO can manage their own files and have access to the files they need to perform their tasks—and nothing more.”
• Simple and fast data migration: It was easy to import data from other systems into Egnyte and ensure data quality in transit. “Egnyte makes it really easy to import files from another repository such as an eTMF with fidelity,” says Reiher.
• File co-editing: Various stakeholders were able to collaborate on the same file simultaneously, with their edits registering in real time. “There was a lot of demand from our user base for concurrent editing,” says Reiher. “They absolutely had to have it.”

Benefits: Faster and Easier Workflows That Streamline Operations

Since their initial implementation, Revolution Medicines has significantly expanded their use of Egnyte, making the platform a fundamental vehicle for collaboration internally and with myriad partners. “We have over 200 controlled folders in Egnyte permissioned specifically for external collaborators and can govern access rights with the click of a button,” explains Reiher. “This has allowed us to provide needed access while maintaining the required control over our content. The end result is that everyone, both internally and externally, can collaborate effectively and securely.”

The team has also enjoyed downstream benefits from their rapid setup, easy data migration, and real-time collaboration. These time savers have put them in a strong position to maintain aggressive timelines while keeping collaboration secure and data quality high.

Throughout their experience, the team has been impressed with Egnyte’s customer support. “With a lot of companies, you’ll open a support ticket or send in a feature request, and never hear back about it, but we’ve always been able to count on Egnyte to quickly resolve any support needs we may have,” says Reiher. “I also appreciate that Egnyte continues to enhance their products.”

“It was a natural fit for us to go with Egnyte,” he adds “Folks have been really happy with this platform. We look forward to continuing this partnership.”

BW: Workplace Experts was founded in 2000 by a couple of innovation-minded individuals determined to shake up the fit out sector. Over two decades later, the company's unwavering commitment to challenging the status quo remains its guiding principle. They pride themselves on their ability to deliver flawlessly executed fit out and refurbishment projects, ensuring Defect Free practical completion (DF@PC) for all their clients. Their laser focus on customer feedback, automation, and employee training has led to referrals, repeat business, and a stellar reputation.

The Challenge: Sourcing Information in a Timely Manner

As BW’s business flourished and employee numbers grew, their workplace experts spent an immense amount of time chasing after relevant information. "This growth led us into unfamiliar territory where domain knowledge was severely dispersed," described Tomas Hollingsworth, Head of Technology. For Hollingsworth and the team, that meant building a technology foundation that could apply automation to their existing content in order to more efficiently process contracts, locate project information, and upload photos.

The Solution: Egnyte Plays Critical Role in BW’s Technology Foundation

BW: Workplace Experts has been using Egnyte as its cloud file server since 2020. But it wasn't until recently that the BW team realised how instrumental Egnyte could be in providing a content backbone. Egnyte’s embedded search engine, along with a rich integration with Microsoft Power Automate and Procore, has ensured users can always find critical project files.

"A project manager might be looking for information on how to build a custom helix staircase or get information about a particular type of glass we installed ten years ago. With Egnyte's advanced search capability, those users are presented with photos from past projects, suppliers, and unit rates," said Tomas. "It unlocks the domain knowledge from a single project manager to the rest of the company."

That same search capability propagated across the rest of the organisation. For contract managers, contract terms and past contracts become accessible through a simple search. "It enables us to use the commercial manager on more projects, which is great for us as a business but also for the employee's development and the client, as they pay less in preliminary fees. It is a win all around."

Estimators can search for keywords within a thousand-page tender pack in seconds instead of hours. This has ultimately resulted in more informed and accurate estimates along with happier teams. "Our estimators have a better work-life balance, and they are more productive. The clients reap the benefits of that too."

"We have an oracle — Egnyte makes all of our information available in one place," Hollingsworth said.

Benefits: Supercharged Productivity While Bolstering Work-Life Balance

With Egnyte as the single repository for vendor documents, commercial managers can be more effective in their role by quickly and securely signing contracts. Traditionally bulky documents can be uploaded into Egnyte, automatically routed for signature via DocuSign, then filed back into Egnyte’s repository – reducing order time from an afternoon to just a few minutes. Administrative time spent for each contract has gone from 2½ hours to ½ an hour. With 50 contracts per project and 50 projects per year, BW is now saving upwards of 5,000 hours per year.

Recently, the estimating team was evaluating different software solutions to enable them to quickly search tender packs for specific keywords without realising they already had that capability with Egnyte. “I ran a keyword search on a bid package in Egnyte and it brought back the exact same data as the estimating software,” said Hollingsworth. “The estimating team now uses Egnyte, and the company saved over £10,000.”

What’s Next? Automating-Away Manual Processes

The BW team continues to find new value from their investment in Egnyte instead of purchasing costly point solutions. Features like Egnytes’ BIM Search tool allow users to search for data within historical project models, unlocking a treasure trove of information. “We view innovation as a currency, and Egnyte buys us increments of time which we then pass back to our clients and staff,” said Hollingsworth. “They are more productive, and they have a better work-life balance. That helps us attract and retain top talent, resulting in building faster and better. It is not just about attracting clients through innovation, and it is the whole way that we will move forward as a business.”

In the view of global regulatory bodies, digital transformation in clinical trials has placed increasing significance on the link between audit trails and data integrity. The Food And Drug Administration highlighted audit trails in their 1999 guidance on the use of computerized systems in clinical trials. Seventeen years later, amid increased regulatory scrutiny regarding data integrity and computerized systems in clinical trials, the International Council for Harmonization released an addendum to ICH E6 (R2) to help the industry implement “improved and more efficient approaches to clinical trial design, conduct, oversight, recording, and reporting while continuing to ensure… reliability of trial results.”

The addendum focused prominently on the need to verify data integrity through audit trail review in trials that use computerized systems – and as digital transformation has brought these systems to every corner of the clinical trial process, researchers are increasingly cognizant of the role of technology vendors in the secure submission of audit data. Against this backdrop, Endpoint Clinical, an Interactive Response Technology (IRT) provider, joined forces with Egnyte to streamline the provisioning of audit trail data to investigators and regulators in an increasingly computerized clinical trial landscape, leading to more effective and accurate compliance for all stakeholders.

Challenge: Reduce Risks to Data Integrity at Trial Closeout

Audit trail review is no longer solely the domain of electronic data capture platforms. Today’s clinical trials are supported by a network of eClinical technologies including eSource, Patient Reported Outcomes, Clinical Trial Management Systems, and IRTs – all of which are now recognized to host the authoritative source of a variety of clinical trial data points that may be digitally copied into an EDC system and thus subject to audit trail review. As this shift has played out, regulators have emphasized that investigators should own the clinical data and have access to, and be able to review, audit trails.

This presented a challenge for Endpoint Clinical. At trial closeout, IRT vendors typically provide audit data to investigators through the trial sponsor, who acts as an intermediary. However, the involvement of sponsors in the transmission of audit data has raised regulatory concerns around data integrity. Sponsors’ vested interest in gaining market approval of the products being studied conflicts with regulators’ demands that audit log data be presented without bias. Given the importance of audit logs for maintaining data integrity, regulatory bodies would prefer to restrict audit log data to more neutral parties and avoid any possibility, however remote, of data being modified to better support approval.

But cutting sponsors out of the process was not a viable solution. “While data integrity concerns all but preclude sponsors from acting as intermediaries in the delivery of audit log data to regulators, they still need to have oversight of the overall process,” explains Cat Hall, Vice President of Data and Quality at Endpoint Clinical. “Our job was to find a way to strike that balance, to give them the oversight they need without having to be so involved in the process that regulators feel uncomfortable.”

Solution: Streamlined Audit Data Submission Eases Regulators’ Concerns

To strike this balance and maintain compliance, Endpoint Clinical partnered with Egnyte to build a platform that would enable them to provide audit trail data directly to investigators – without hands-on involvement from the sponsor. “Our goal is for the platform to enable sponsors to fulfill their obligation to provide oversight of the audit data delivery process without having to act as a hands-on intermediary,” explains Hall.

Endpoint’s Audit Data Management platform, powered by Egnyte’s cloud file solution, delivers three key benefits:

1. GxP compliance: Data captured is traceable, accountable, and complete, and the platform provides full visibility into how the data has been altered and who has accessed it. As Hall puts it: “We’re able to deliver an audit log that provides everything investigators and regulators need to be able to see, with no blind spots.”
2. Controlled access: Investigators have access to site-specific data, with granular permissions controls ensuring that the data is only accessible to the proper stakeholders and in the proper manner. “Partnering with Egnyte allows us to give one stakeholder edit access to a file while making sure another only has view access,” Hall explains.
3. Peace of mind: Sponsors have documented proof that the audit log was distributed to the investigator. “This documentation provides sponsors visibility into the process, and confirmation that everything was handled properly, without having to be directly involved,” says Hall.

Benefits: A Powerful, Compliant Offering for Endpoint Clinical’s Clients

The Audit Data Management solution, powered by Egnyte, enables Endpoint Clinical to streamline operations for their clients at a critical juncture in the clinical trial process, with benefits extending to a wide variety of stakeholders including sponsors, investigators, and regulators. “Sponsors can now fulfill their obligation to provide oversight without being an intermediary,” says Hall. “They can receive assurances of ALCOA-plus principles while keeping a safe enough distance from the delivery of audit data to ameliorate any concerns about data integrity.”

This has made Endpoint Clinical uniquely capable of overcoming a particularly vexing compliance challenge in the current digital era of clinical research. The impact to their business is hard to overstate: “We’ve had contact with sponsors and investigators alike who are now eager to work with us,” Hall says. “By combining our IRT with Egnyte’s powerful cloud file system functionality, we’re able to help these organizations solve a puzzle they’ve struggled with for a long time.”

A typical construction project involves myriad stakeholders sharing and modifying large volumes of documents and files. That’s why Torcon, a construction management services company with offices in New Jersey and Philadelphia, places a premium on tools that facilitate reliable and secure digital collaboration.

“Document control is the foundation of any construction project,” says Lisa Brennan, Document Control Coordinator at Torcon. “Because of the large number of collaborative documents we work with, we needed to optimize our time.”

Challenge: Citrix ShareFile Keeps a Time-Sensitive Team Waiting

Torcon’s incumbent solution, Citrix ShareFile, was initially implemented to manage internal project documentation. However, it didn’t take long for the team to realize that ShareFile wasn’t well-equipped to handle the sheer volume of files and exponential growth in collaboration with project team members outside Torcon. “We have lots and lots of project files, many of which exceed 20 MB in size,” commented Shawn Winters, Torcon’s Director of Information Technology. “When we tried to manage the high volumes of large files with the old system, it was slow and clunky. It was also unreliable, with a lot of unnecessary complexity and downtime.”

These issues led to significant delays in file access. “It often took an hour just to upload a single document to the system,” says Lindsay Martorana, Document Control Manager at Torcon. “That was a huge issue.”

“Sometimes we could sit overnight before our documents finally finished uploading,” Brennan adds. “And even then, a few would be missing, forcing us to start all over again.”

Often, when file uploads were finally complete, the team encountered even more issues. Martorana says: “When I would try to move a large volume of files from one folder to another, the system would tell me it had completed the transfer. But when I checked to confirm, I found as many as a quarter of the files didn’t go through.” In these all-too-often instances, Martorana’s team was forced to go back and transfer the missing files manually – a tedious and highly time-consuming process.

Solution: Reliable Document Management with Egnyte

Torcon set out to find a new file sharing technology partner, assembling a well-rounded vendor selection team consisting of document control personnel, engineering groups, and team members in the field. “All had input into the trial process and the requirements,” says Winters.

The team evaluated Egnyte and several other cloud file-sharing solutions, including Box, Dropbox, and SharePoint. To ensure their findings were precise and reliable, they assessed each vendor in a virtually identical environment, using the same hardware and network.

The advantages of Egnyte were immediately apparent. “Egnyte was easily the best-equipped to meet our specific needs,” says Winters. “We could work three to five times faster than the other solutions. It was also the most conducive to common construction management workflows, like sharing different file types and sizes with distributed teams in the field, so I knew the change would be easy for our employees.”

After making the decision to move to Egnyte, the team found the implementation process quick and painless. Leveraging Egnyte’s professional services team and their simple to use migration tool, they began transferring files from ShareFile into the new system. “It was one of the easiest migrations I’ve ever done in my IT career,” says Winters.

Benefits: Flexibility, Reliability, and Major Time Savings

Since implementing Egnyte, Torcon has greatly improved their ability to manage large volumes of documents with unprecedented efficiency. “We’ve been able to save five to ten hours per employee every month,” says Winters.

Time savings came from multiple sources. For one, their project teams are no longer left hanging while a missing file is found, or a system outage is resolved. Uploading and migrating documents was significantly faster in Egnyte compared to Citrix ShareFile. There’s also virtually no time spent waiting on uploads or document migration tasks.

The team was also impressed with Egnyte’s integration capabilities. So far, they have integrated Egnyte with Microsoft Office 365 and Autodesk BIM 360, with plans to implement more industry-specific integrations in the future.

Egnyte also provides a level of control over project documents never seen before at Torcon. Managing several million files and thousands of sharing permissions used to take a toll on project teams. Now, the system alerts project teams to anomalies, such as a file placed in the wrong folder location, empowering team members to quickly fix issues before they cause downstream complexities and delays. “If an employee says their document is missing, we can use Egnyte’s reporting feature to retrace the employee’s steps and find the document quickly,” says Martorana.

For Torcon, flexibility is critical. “We’ve had a lot of hybrid and remote teams since the pandemic,” says Winters. “As a construction company, most of our staff work from project sites, often in temporary trailers. Fortunately, Egnyte allows for secure file access away from the office and offers the flexibility to work on desktop or mobile devices. These combined capabilities make collaboration and document co-editing faster and easier for the teams.” As Winters says, “Teams don’t generally like change, but in this case, our team embraced it.”