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VERTEKSCONNECTIONVOLUME 9 NUMBER 3Maximizing the Value of Salesforce.comBy integrating the ShoreTelIP phone system withSalesforce.com, Vertekshelps RME boost salesproductivity and tap robustcall reporting features.If anyone understands how toeffectively develop and managesales processes, it’s RME. TheTampa, Fla.-based firm specializes in comprehensive directmarketing solutions that drive consumer response. A key component ofRME’s strategy is the use of data todrive lead-generation campaigns andsocial event marketing programs.When RME began looking for anew phone system, the company naturally turned to Verteks Consulting, alongtime trusted partner. Verteks recommended the ShoreTel Unified Communications and Enterprise ContactCenter solutions — and showed RMEhow the ShoreTel platform could integrate with Salesforce.com.“We came to work with Verteks asa vendor for our previous phone system and Verteks was my first choicewhen we needed to replace that systemwith something new,” said Scott Marvin, IT Director, RME. “Verteks camecontinued on page 2VERTEKS CONNECTIONPRESORTEDFIRST CLASSUS PostagePAIDTulsa, OKPermit #2146
Maximizing the Value of Salesforce.comin and quickly installed the system for us and proceeded toimplement all of the additional features and functions thatShoreTel provides, both standard with their equipment andthe add-ons we purchased along with it.”Combining ShoreTel with Salesforce.com in a customizable user interface enables agents to handle calls more effectively. Unified communications functionality and on-screendata facilitate real-time collaboration and speed responsetimes. Call reporting features enable sales managers to finetune processes.“Ours is a sales and marketing organization, and it’sprimarily outbound sales,” Marvin said. “After learning thatShoreTel had Salesforce.com integration, we asked Verteksto add that piece. It has been a great system — it seems likethere’s nothing it can’t do.”An Extension of Salesforce.comSalesforce.com is a powerful customer relationshipmanagement (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) solution and one of the most popular Software-as-a-Service(SaaS) applications available. It enables organizations tomaintain a single, shared customer profile company-wideand manage opportunities across the sales cycle. It also provides comprehensive reports and real-time dashboards thatenable organizations to track and measure their sales activities.By integrating Salesforce.com with the ShoreTel system,Verteks helped RME enhance the features of both solutions.The ShoreTel Salesforce.com Call Center Adaptor allowsagents to dial, answer and transfer calls, put callers on hold,initiate conference calls, and more — all from within theSalesforce.com application.ShoreTel also adds call reporting data toSalesforce.com. This feature enables continuous server-toserver export of ShoreTel Call Detail Records to Salesforce.com, linking call activities to Salesforce.com reportsand dashboards.“We first purchased the ShoreTel Salesforce.com CallCenter Adapter, which connected our phone system intoSalesforce.com. That works really well,” Marvin said. “Weare also using ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center to routeinbound calls to different agent groups within our salesorganization. An agent can update the Salesforce.comrecord that goes along with the call.“The ShoreTel reporting component pushes our CallDetail Records into Salesforce.com every five minutes so wecan see reports in one interface. The sales managers like itbecause it’s almost real time. And all of our calls are record2ed so they can go back and listen to the phone calls thatwere made to specific prospects or customers.”Part of the Sales ProcessRME considered a number of phone systems and foundthat ShoreTel offered the features and reliability it needed ata competitive price point. Marvin says he likes the way theShoreTel system is engineered and that the ShoreTel switches are solid-state appliances. He also likes the design of thedesktop handsets.The opportunity to work with Verteks was anotherimportant plus.“Verteks has always provided good service, so I stuckwith them,” said Marvin. “They have really fast turnaroundtimes. Whenever I’ve had a critical problem, they have beenprompt in getting back to me as soon as I report the issue.“Of course, the ShoreTel system is so solid that nothingever really goes wrong with it. We haven’t had any downtime at all.”Salesforce.com integration is a little-known feature ofthe ShoreTel Unified Communications solution. Verteksleveraged its extensive experience with the ShoreTel platform to rapidly implement a solution that precisely metRME’s needs.“Verteks has really good engineers who handled theintegration,” Marvin said. “Their expertise made the difference and we’re very pleased with the result.”RME’s phone system has always been an integral part ofits sales activities. Thanks to Verteks and ShoreTel, RME’ssales processes are now tightly coupled with the ShoreTel IPphone system, improving agent productivity and customerservice and providing sales managers with the data theyneed to maximize results.Verteks ConnectionCopyright 2013 CMS Special Interest Publications. All rightsreserved.Editorial Correspondence:7360 East 38th Street,Tulsa, OK 74145800.726.7667 Fax 918.270.7134Change of Address: Send corrected address label to the above address.Some parts of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced in nonprofitor internal-use publications with advance written permission.Printed in the U.S.A. Product names may be trademarks of their respectivecompanies.VERTEKS CONNECTION
News BriefsStorage to Dominate Cloud Adoptionhile both Software-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Servicehavegreaterdegrees of current implementations,cloud storage represents the greatest number ofplanned implementations, according to a TwinStrata survey of cloud-friendly users. Nearly 90 percent of respondents either currently use or plan touse cloud storage.Nearly two-thirds of respondents cited scalability and the need to easily manage growing storageneeds as the top values cloud storage could provide. More than two-thirds of respondents withplans to implement cloud storage either agreed orstrongly agreed with the statement: “It seems likewe are always running out of storage.” By contrast,current cloud storage users scored a full 20 pointslower on the same question.Meanwhile, 68 percent of current cloud storageusers cited offsite data protection for disasterrecovery as a key benefit, but only 26 percent ofusers with no cloud storage plans said the same.Eighty percent of current cloud storage users claimthat they can recover their data in less than 24hours, with nearly a quarter estimating instantaneous recovery. In comparison, nearly one in sixrespondents who do not use cloud storage estimated that it would take more than a week to recovertheir data in the event of a disaster.WGartner: IT Leaders Have ‘Big Data’ Plansfter a few years of experimentation and earlyadopter successes, organizations are beginning to embrace larger-scale adoption of bigdata technologies, according to Gartner, Inc. In aworldwide Gartner survey of IT leaders, 42 percentof respondents stated they had invested in big datatechnology or were planning to do so within a year.Gartner says organizations are turning to bigdata technology for two reasons: necessity andconviction. Organizations are becoming aware thatbig data initiatives are critical because they haveidentified obvious or potential business opportunities that cannot be met with traditional datasources, technologies or practices. In addition,media hype is often backed with rousing use cases.“This makes IT and business leaders worry thatthey are behind competitors in launching their bigdata initiatives. Not to worry; ideas and opportunities at this time are boundless, and some of thebiggest big data ideas come from adopting andadapting ideas from other industries,” said FrankBuytendijk, research vice president at Gartner.Recovery atyour fingertipQuorum onQ One-Click Backup, Recovery and ContinuityAvolume 9 number 3Quorum onQ provides everything you need for immediate OneClick Recovery of all your critical systems after any storage, systemor site failure. It does this by automatically maintaining up-to-date,ready-to-run virtual machine clones of your systems that can run righton the appliance, transparently taking over for failed servers withinminutes. Contact your Verteks representative to learn more.1-877-VERTEKS352-401-0909www.verteks.com 2013 WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.WTG-163
Clouds GoROGUEMajority of IT professionals sayrogue public cloud servicesnegatively impact budgets andoperations and bring security,compliance concerns.Some call them rogue clouds, others callit “cloud sprawl.” Either way, there isgrowing concern among enterprise ITprofessionals over the unauthorizeduse of public cloud services by business units within the enterprise.A rogue cloud is defined as a public cloudapplication that has been deployed within anorganization’s business operations withoutapproval of the IT department. According to arecent survey by Symantec, 77 percent of organizations uncovered rogue cloud deploymentswithin the preceding year.The ever-increasing use of public cloud services within the corporate environment is a trendmost technology professionals see as negative.According to the 2013 PMG Cloud Sprawl Survey, 52 percent of IT pros say cloud sprawl willhave a significant or somewhat negative impacton operations and resources. Unauthorized cloudservices of most concern include the use of public cloud storage (70 percent), cloud synchroniza-4VERTEKS CONNECTION
Among respondents to the Symantec survey who reported rogue cloudissues, 40 percent experienced the exposure of confidentialinformation, and more than a quarter faced account takeover issues,defacement of web properties, or stolen goods or services.tion (68 percent) and cloud-based collaboration applications(53 percent).The unauthorized usage of public cloud services seems tobe on the rise despite attempts to limit it. Among the IT professionals surveyed by PMG, 89 percent say that employeesunderstand the need for data security, and 54 percent saytheir organizations have a policy in place regarding the use ofpublic cloud storage services. However, 43 percent admit tobeing only "somewhat effective" in educating business userson the pitfalls of the public cloud. Sixty-four percent saymuch of the increased usage of cloud solutions has been driven by the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend in today’sworkplace.Trouble AheadIt’s easy to understand the lure of rogue clouds. Employees have grown accustomed to cloud services for personal useand desire similar ease and simplicity for business requirements. IT procurement and deployment processes seem hopelessly slow and bureaucratic by contrast. The most commonly cited reasons for undertaking rogue cloud projects are tosave time and money.“This study found 38 percent of IT respondents turn tothe cloud because it offers faster deployment,” said JoeLeCompte, principal at PMG.However, unauthorized cloud sprawl poses a number ofrisks to the business, with security topping the list. The PMGsurvey found that corporate IT is most concerned about datasecurity (79 percent), compliance (57 percent), network security (55 percent), loss of control (51 percent) and unmanagedapplications (48 percent).These concerns are well-founded. Among respondents tothe Symantec survey who reported rogue cloud issues, 40 percent experienced the exposure of confidential information,and more than a quarter faced account takeover issues,defacement of web properties, or stolen goods or services.Rogue clouds also increase the risk of data loss. About 47percent of large companies and 36 percent of small to midsize businesses have suffered theft of data via rogue clouds,according to the Symantec study.volume 9 number 3Application integration is another challenge associatedwith rogue clouds. Sixty percent of those surveyed by PMGreported that big data is or will become vital in future enterprise cloud deployment. The ability to integrate data betweencloud applications or between cloud and on-premises applications is key. To date, 46 percent have had compatibilityissues when trying to integrate data between cloud and onpremises applications. Forty-six percent surveyed say this isbecause of the use of unsanctioned cloud applications.Making Cloud Procurement PositiveIT departments take a variety of approaches in responding to rogue cloud deployments. In the PMG survey, 65 percent of respondents said they evaluate the service beforeeither approving or denying usage. Only 15 percent immediately pull the plug and 11 percent say they don’t get involvedin the deployment of department-level cloud solutions.The strategies IT is using to better manage cloud sprawlare also varied. Nearly half (48 percent) assign an IT resourceto work with business units/departments seeking cloud solutions, 39 percent have developed internal cloud solutions forbusiness units/departments to use, and 33 percent have developed and enforce a corporate-wide cloud services IT policy.The silver lining in the cloud sprawl conundrum is that72 percent of IT leaders say employees are willing to use corporate-installed cloud solutions. If IT can provide privateclouds that can match or surpass the user experience publiccloud services seem to offer, the organization is more likely towin the war on rogue clouds. This is good because 82 percentof IT respondents are predicting the volume of cloud serviceprocurement by business users over the next 24 months to begreater than it is today.“At the end of the day, IT is not going to paint all publiccloud solutions as ‘bad’,” said LeCompte. “In fact, 69 percentof IT executives say a hybrid cloud strategy using both private and public cloud offerings is the wave of the futureinside the enterprise. Containing cloud sprawl to protect corporate information and ensure security can be done by providing cloud services in a structured manner with a propergovernance framework.”5
How to ProtectSensitive DataStorage encryption helps preventembarrassing and costly datasecurity breaches.Google announced recently that it willautomatically encrypt all data held in itsCloud Storage service. Data and metadata will be encrypted using a unique 128bit encryption key before it is written todisk, and the keys themselves also encrypted. The moveputs Google ahead of Amazon, which has providedencryption for its cloud storage since 2011 but doesn’tencrypt data by default.Data encryption should help assuage the concernsmany organizations have about cloud storage. Encryption effectively “scrambles” data, which cannot be readwithout access to the correct encryption key. As a result,encryption can dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, therisk of a security breach due to the loss or theft of storeddata.Google’s encryption service also serves as areminder of the importance of protecting sensitive data.6Storage, backup and archival solutions are designed onlyto preserve data; they don’t protect against unauthorizedaccess. Only data encryption can effectively safeguardso-called “data at rest.” As a result, organizations shouldconsider incorporating encryption into their storage andbackup environments.Strong encryption using 128-bit or longer keysmake it impractical to try to decipher the text throughbrute force. A 2012 report by the National Institute ofScience and Technology (NIST) estimates that AES-128encryption should be secure through to 2031.Growing RequirementOrganizations in certain regulated industries havevery real incentives to encrypt data. The HIPAA FinalOmnibus Rule requires covered entities to providenotice to affected individuals, the Department of Healthand Human Services and in some cases the media ifthere is a breach of unprotected — that is, unencrypted— data. The deadline for compliance with the rule isSept. 23, 2013.VERTEKS CONNECTION
But the healthcare sector isn’t theonly industry that promotes encryption.Under California’s Security Breachinformation Act and similar regulationsenacted by more than 20 other states,companies must disclose even suspectedsecurity breaches to the media and allcustomers potentially affected. Encrypted data is exempt, however.The Payment Card Industry (PCI)Data Security Standard mandates theencryption of stored data, includingdata on backup tapes — a rule thatpotentially impacts any merchant thataccepts credit cards. Noncompliancecan result in financial penalties rangingfrom 5,000 to 50,000 per month.Regulatory requirements aside, theneed to secure data is clear: a singledata security breach incident costs 5.4million, according to the PonemonInstitute. Still, the price tag for dataprotection can cause sticker shock formany companies.In addition, many organizationshave operated under the theory thatencryption makes finding and retrievinginformation more difficult, increasingthe complexity of storage and backupprocess. Indeed, traditional softwarebased encryption solutions requiredcompanies to make painful tradeoffs toachieve data security: performancedegradation, operating system andapplication dependency or changes inworkflow.A Better WayThe good news is that today’sencryption devices can be so tightlyintegrated with the storage environment that they avert the unacceptableperformance slowdowns of the past.Several vendors offer appliances that siton the network, encrypting and digitally signing data on the fly. Because theysit “in-line” — that is, in the networkdata path rather than within application software or storage devices — theyoperate independently. They can bedeployed with storage-area network(SAN), network-attached storage (NAS)or direct-attached storage (DAS) solutions.These solutions also provide betterkey management than traditional storage encryption solutions. Encryptionrules can be used to minimize the number of keys to be managed and masterkeys can be used to protect the encryption rules. Centralized security management provides user authentication androle-based privileges. Encryption appliances can also monitor the physicalaccess to the device itself and automatically lock down all encryption keys.According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2012 Global Encryption TrendsStudy, released in February, about 35percent of U.S. businesses have anencryption strategy applied consistentlyacross the enterprise. Encryption canhelp organizations meet regulatoryrequirements and prevent a costly andembarrassing security breach with littleimpact on IT operations.Unlike many other consulting firms, Verteks has developed unmatchedexpertise in several critical areas, which allows us to serve as a central sourcefor a broad range of high-quality solutions to complex IT issues. Contact ustoday and let us show you how we can help you simplify your business withtechnology.volume 9 number 31-877-VERTEKS352-401-0909www.verteks.com7
ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center is a powerful call center solution that puts businessintelligence right where its needed. ShoreTel enables contact center functions and key businessapplications to be integrated onto a single, web-managed and highly available platform.Additionally, enhancements in ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center 8 now make it easier to meetthe needs of today’s multi-device, multi-channel consumer by allowing agents to effectivelyhandle emails, chats and calls, both inbound and outbound. Call Verteks to learn more howShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center can help you improve your customers’ experience.1-877-VERTEKS 352-401-0909Copyright 2013 ShoreTel. All rights reserved. SHR-13www.verteks.com
By integrating Salesforce.com with the ShoreTel system, Verteks helped RME enhance the features of both solutions. The ShoreTel Salesforce.com Call Center Adaptor allows agents to dial, answer and transfer calls, put callers on hold, initiate conference calls, a
