I recently had lunch with one of our important Wall Street/Banking customers discussing the challenging times going on in the financial services industry. Due to a lot of new mergers, acquisitions, and having their name prominently mentioned in the news, there have been a lot of new demands placed on the IT infrastructure. While this is no surprise to anyone, what I found most interesting was the comment that due to their decisions last year to invest in modernizing the email backbone they feel they have a strategic competitive advantage in a highly volatile and dynamic market. The question I asked is, how could email, something everyone takes for granted today as a necessary business communication tool, provide a strategic competitive advantage for any enterprise? I know a telephone is a necessary business communication tool, but since everyone has one, like email, I’ve never heard someone say that a telephone system provides a competitive advantage! The difference is due to the very nature of email being a written form of communication that has a trail of exposure. Email can be viewed and read by many, forwarded on to others, intercepted, copied, archived, spoofed, modified, etc. Because of this, any information in written form can be highly sensitive and needs to be protected. Since a financial services business often relies upon getting the right information to the right person in a timely manner with financial impact on the line, email is critical to the business. Guaranteed message delivery is mission critical. The ability to safely protect against sensitive or harmful information in an email or in an attachment must also be reviewed and protected.
There is more turbulence in the financial industry which means phishing attacks are on the rise, more spamming is occurring, and more fraudulent representations being made which can tarnish a bank’s brand name or even cause their customers to not trust the messages they receive from the bank. This can be catastrophic for a business trying to cut costs and rely upon more electronic commerce. So a modern email infrastructure not only ensures the right mail gets through to the right person, but is able to stop harmful mail from coming in or going out. It protects “brand” through modern Sender Authentication techniques and is ready for the challenge in spikes of new spoofing, phishing, and spamming techniques. Any business which relies upon email to communicate with customers, partners, and other constituents can be at a clear competitive disadvantage if it has not made the investment to ensure messages and communications can be trusted!