1. Continuing Education Conference
for Accounting /Finance and
Human Resource Professionals
Technology 2011 Update
Presenter: Tommy Riggins

2. Topics
• The Cloud – What is it really??
• Security issues – Trends and industry best practices to follow that
can save you from serious security and financial issues.
• Disaster recovery – Best practices for today’s business to safe
guard their mission critical data and how to get back up in running
“when” a critical issue happens
• Social Media – How to tame the beast and make it a useful tool for
business and collaboration

3. The Cloud…
What is it really??

4. Cloud: The techy definition
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient,
on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,
servers, storage, applications, and services) that can
be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal
management effort or service provider interaction.” -
(National Institute of Standards and Technology)

5. Simple Definition
Cloud computing is a general term for anything that
involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.

6. Visual Translation

7. Real examples….

8. Components of Cloud

9. What this can mean for you?
Moving to a collaborative, web-based
accounting system where the firm and the
client both have access to the client's
information in real time and where the firm
is deeply involved with the client as a
trusted business adviser.

10. Human Capital Trends 2011
HR in the cloud:
It’s inevitable

11. Next Steps…Do your homework
• Understand the Service
• Understand the Provider
• What are ALL the costs
• Review Security concerns
• Customer Service

12. Security issues …
Trends and industry best
practices to follow that can
save you from serious
security and financial
issues.

13. The threats are real…
85 percent of data breaches occur at the small business level,
according to research released in September 2009 by Visa Inc.
Symantec researchers found that, of SMBs that suffered at least one
breach, 44 % blamed a lost device, nearly 40 % blamed human error,
and nearly 20 % attributed the loss to outdated security procedures or
inadequate employee training
33 percent of small businesses lack even simple antivirus
protection, according to Symantec Corporation.
According to an April, 2009 Verizon study, 33 percent of all data
breaches in 2008 were directed at businesses with 100 employees or
fewer

14. In a G Data 2011 Security Survey, it was noted that
despite the very wide-spread use of the Internet, the
majority of users know little of the threats and thus
have hardly any awareness of the strategies used to
prevent computers from becoming infected with
malware.

15. Safe Computing does not mean unplugging…

16. But you need to be aware of the bad guys…

17. What is your current state?
• Review the basics in house or get outside assistance
• Physical security
• Office Entry – Ever hear of Social Engineering?
• Server Room – Who has access?
• Wireless Access
• Mobile Devices
• Policy and standards
• Internet use – Social Media/shopping
• Company Assets– Laptops/thumb drives
• Audit Often

18. #1 Place to review Security Risks….Employees!!

19. Human Errors Fuel Hacking
The U.S. Department of Homeland
Security ran a test this year
Staff secretly dropped computer discs
and USB thumb drives in the parking
lots of government buildings and
private contractors. Of those who
picked them up, 60 percent plugged the
devices into office computers, curious
to see what they contained. If the drive
or CD case had an official logo, 90
percent were installed

20. Worth Saying Again….
Educated and trained employees
are one of the best lines of
defense against information
security threats.

21. Disaster Recovery…
Best practices for today’s
business to safe guard their
mission critical data and how to
get back up in running “when”
a critical issue happens

22. Data, why worry???
 60% of companies that lose their data will
shut down within 6 months of the disaster.
 34% of companies fail to test their tape
backups, and of those that do, 77% have
found tape back-up failures.
 20% of small to medium businesses will
suffer a major disaster causing loss of
critical data every 5 years. (Source: Richmond
House Group)
 Leading causes of Data Loss:
 44% -- Hardware or System Malfunctions
 32% -- Human Error
 14% -- Software Corruption
 07% -- Computer Virus
 03% -- Natural Disasters

23. Types of Disaster Situations
Understand the types of potential disasters and the level of tolerance your
business can handle for each type of situation.
 User deletes a single file (33%)
 User deletes an entire folder (33%)
 Single Server software or hardware fails (44% or
14% or 7%)
 Multiple Servers software or hardware failure
(3% ?)
 Entire Facility Destroyed (3%)

24. But Which Back up Plan??

25. Here’s a Tip…
Carefully consider the merits of each
technology to come up with a solution that
achieves your RTO (Recovery Time Objective)
and data backup needs, as opposed to being
stuck with a specific appliance or category of
hardware/software solutions.

26. Social Media…
How to tame the beast and
make it a useful tool for
business and collaboration

27. Keeping Up
with Social Media
Why do I need it?
• Increase your visibility
• Get connected & build business
relationships
• Enhance your search engine results
• Ask for advice
• Scope out the competition,
customers, partners, etc.

28. If Facebook was a country,
it would now be the third
largest country in the world.

29. 90% of all web traffic
will be video by 2013.

30. The potential to set you apart and
grow your business is too great to
pass up

31. Taming the
Social Media
Beast
Get a Policy in place!

32. Positive Presentation.
Most employers immediately
leap to what they don’t want
their employees doing online.
Don’t forget how much good
can come from smart, authentic
employee use of social media.

33. Flexibility.
Social media is evolving all the
time. As a result, your policy
should, too. Stay on top of what’s
new with social media and how it
is being used. If your policy
needs to be changed, change it –
but be sure that all of your
employees are made aware.

34. Clear Expectations.
Regardless of how your
company uses social media,
your policy should be made
crystal clear.

35. Where are we headed next?

36. Q&A

37.  Largest privately held IT Services Company in the Triad
 Minority Owned
 In Business for 11 Years
 100 % Self Funded
 Double Digit Growth over the past eight years
 99.5 % Client Retention
 538 Active Client Contracts
 Over 86% of Revenue comes from long term reoccurring contracts
 No single client drives more than 12% of business revenue
 Low operational overhead allows for aggressive pricing
 All employees are full time and local to Greensboro, NC