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Welcome to The Pentad Group
Greetings!
It's hard to believe we are already
half-way through 2008; has time flown by as quickly for you as it
has for The Pentad Group? Fortunately, we have had two
very productive quarters, so we look back with no regrets!
Our biggest news to share is our recognition this month by the
Boston Business Journal as the 14th Best Small Company to work for
in the Boston area. We are proud of this accomplishment, and
we have a goal to be in the top 10 next year, so be on the
lookout. We move forward into the second-half of 2008 with great
excitement as we try to reach our goal!
One of the factors in being one of the "Best Places to Work"
is a commitment to new ideas and innovation, and we have done just that
this year with the initiation of our Information Technology (IT)
Practice, headed by Sally Guenette. Please read on to learn more
about our IT service offering.
We hope you enjoy our newsletter, and as always, your
comments and suggestions are welcome. Please send your
feedback to Kate McLellan at kmclellan@thepentadgroup.com
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Project
in the Spotlight - System Selection at Telecommunications Company
The Pentad Group was engaged to manage
a systems selection project for a rapidly growing telecommunications
start-up company. The client had several key requirements, which
included the ability to provide immediate key financial reporting in
order to make business decisions, ease of integration with the client's
sophisticated "homegrown" system, and the ability to
implement the package themselves within a very tight
time-frame.
The first phase of the project involved gaining an understanding of
client's current and future accounting and business needs, as well
as their unique "homegrown" system. The Pentad team,
lead by Pentad Engagement Manager Eric Milgroom, also identified
all accounting application needs and related interfaces that were
critical for the new system. The second phase involved
conducting research on stand-alone ERP applications which met
the requirements of the current state, but also provided future
extended business capabilities. At the end of phase two, the
Pentad team created and distributed an RFI, evaluated the response from
vendors, and identified the top two systems. Milgroom engaged the
two vendors for discussions and demonstrations of their
applications. Phase three was comparison and analysis of the
two systems, which included identifying and evaluating the "pros"
and "cons" of each application, based on the requirements
identified in phase one.
The final phase of the selection process was developing a
comprehensive cost analysis of both applications, including
software acquisition, related infrastructure, implementation, training,
and annual maintenance costs. The Pentad team presented the
client a complete and objective analysis for both
applications. The client successfully implemented the
system themselves, within their desired timeframe. They have found the
assimilation of the selected application to be seamless to their staff
and are confident in the application's ability to expand as their
business grows.
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Visions of Vanishing
Data Keeping you up at Night?
We've all heard the horror stories: more than 45 million credit
and debit card numbers were stolen from TJ Maxx; CardSystems Solutions,
a credit-card processing company, exposed 40 million debit and
credit-card accounts in a cyber break-in; 4.2 million account numbers
were stolen from Hannaford Bros, the list goes on and on. While
these examples differ in their methods, some were hacked into over a
period of time; Hannaford's data was captured by thieves while
customer's cards were swiped at checkout machines. They serve to remind
us of the need for developing policies and procedures to secure
sensitive data and to apply these policies consistently across the
entire company. Hackers, thieves and unscrupulous employees
continue to find new ways to infiltrate data systems and steal or corrupt
data. Management must continue to refine and audit its approach
to dealing with these threats.
There is no magic solution to keeping these attacks at bay, however
vigilance and consistency are necessities to stemming the tide.
Not following simple rules can cost a person his job or a company its
reputation. Consider a few of Los Alamos Lab's unfortunate
situations:
1. An employee of the lab took his laptop containing sensitive
government documents with him on vacation where it was stolen.
2. Los Alamos data was discovered on a crack dealer's USB stick.
It's not comforting to think this information is getting into the wrong
hands! Here are some of the many simple ways management can
ensure their employees help prevent data theft:
- Don't leave laptops or
any data storage device unattended (in a car, airport, etc)
- Store all sensitive
documents and data on the company's network drives, not your local
hard disk. Local disks rarely get backed-up regularly and
pose a theft risk.
- Passwords - Always
password protect your computer and files, such as spreadsheets or
documents holding private data. Passwords should be at least
8 characters with a combination of letters, numbers, and
symbols. Choose something easy to remember but hard to
guess. Change passwords regularly. Do not share
passwords. Keep them locked-up. No post-its stuck to
the monitor!
- Encryption - Encrypt
your sensitive data, especially if it resides on portable devices,
such as laptops and PDAs. At the simplest level, encrypted
data requires a key or password to decrypt into human readable
form.
The company as a whole has many areas to consider when implementing
security policies. A few that must be addressed:
- Environment - Is the
server room dedicated to housing the network servers? Is it
always locked? Is it adequately ventilated and cooled?
- Wireless Network - The
range must be tested to ensure that it can't be accessed outside
the specified area. Don't broadcast the SSID. Use a
sufficiently complex network key. Use MAC addresses along
with SSL or secure HTML for maximum security.
- Virus protection and
spam filtering - Make sure all computers using your network,
including those of consultants and vendors, have adequate virus
protection and spam filtering software. Ensure updates are
current and are being applied on a regular basis.
- Data storage - Make
regular data backups at least once a day. Store backups
offsite in a secure place (safe deposit box, data storage
company). Protect the data during transit. Do a test restore
on a periodic basis to ensure the backup procedure works
effectively.
- Security software -
Consider using server security software to lock out certain
functionality on pcs connected to the server. In the Los
Alamos example, all USB drives could have been rendered unusable
by security software.
There
is a delicate balancing act between ironclad security and accessibility
to data by authorized personnel. The Pentad Group can listen to
your concerns, analyze your company's current IT security measures and
help map out an ongoing security plan to best fit your needs.
The bottom line is that security policies and procedures must be
clearly explained to all personnel, consistently enforced, and
frequently reviewed so that we can all get a better night's sleep.
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The
Pentad Group Launches Information Technology (IT) Practice
As we approached our five-year
anniversary this year, we asked ourselves, how can we better
serve our clients? Does our service offering encompass
all of our clients' needs? Over the past five years, many clients
have inquired about our IT expertise, and while we have done a handful of
projects in this area, we did not fully embrace IT, until now. The
launch of our IT practice this past April was initiated by the
addition of Sally Guenette, an IT veteran who owned her own IT
consulting firm for the past ten years.
Guenette, who has over 25 years of IT experience, has worked in many industries
including manufacturing, oil refining, mail order, transportation, health
care, publishing, finance and service businesses. She has designed,
developed, and installed custom database applications, integrated
disparate systems, automated manual repetitive tasks to increase
productivity, as well as developed extensive management reporting
tools. In addition, Guenette has conducted training for end-users
in classroom and individual settings, and been responsible for IT project
management on large engagements.
Guenette is currently in the process of transitioning her existing
clients into Pentad, while also expanding her service offering into our
current clients, as well as new clients. In addition, Sally is
training the Pentad team on IT services, as well as recruiting, hiring
and training IT staff. The IT service offering includes:
- System
Selection
- System
Integration, Conversion & Implementation
- Customized
Reporting
- IT Audit
- Technical
Training
- IT Security
& Back-up
- Custom
Software Development
- Project
Management
- IT Staff
Placement
For more information on our IT service
offering, please contact Sally Guenette at sguenette@thepentadgroup.com
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