In early September, it was revealed that a large credit reporting company was successfully hacked by an entity unnamed as of this writing. It’s considered now one of the largest breaches in memory because this particular company held delicate information – social security numbers, names, home addresses, and more – of at least 143 million Americans.

There has already been much written and said about this hack, and understandably so. While data breaches are a prevalent problem these days, there are still best-practices to guard against this type of attack – and, steps that organizations should promptly take in the hours and days after a breach is detected or reported. It would be wise for enterprises to both take a close look at not only the details of this hack, but also to use this as an opportunity to review internal information security protocols and those of any third-party shared service providers.

Here are three lessons from one of the largest data security breaches in history.

1. It Matters Who Handles Your Enterprise Data

As a credit reporting agency, most of the individuals affected by this hack did not even sign up for the service – their information was likely provided to the breached organization by yet another company that was performing a routine credit check on the individual. Your enterprise will have more control over who gains access to your proprietary data than the individuals affected in this hack did. Therefore, it’s important to know what to look for.

Look for providers who offer a ‘defense-in-depth’, or layered approach to data security. This military-inspired approach provides successive layers of security measures to make life much harder for unauthorized users trying to access information or internal systems. With no shortage of potential targets for hackers to choose from, implementing successive layers of defense may be enough to discourage a hack, and push them on to their next target which may not be as time consuming or difficult to penetrate.

2. Look for a Partner Who Offers the Following:

There are also a few industry-standard security certificates that any third-party provider who will be handling your data should hold. These include ISO Certificates, SSAE16, PCI, and FISMA documentation.

Different industries require different types of security. For instance, a healthcare vendor will need to make sure a potential communications partner or enrollment platform provider is HIPAA compliant. For financial services, the parameters might differ, but they are no less stringent. Nearly every financial services provider and monetary institution is subject to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – a strict code of laws on protecting private financial information. Further, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform statutes, as well as the Consumer Protection Act, both set the standard for what is “reasonable and appropriate” for protecting user information. Firms in these industries must be especially careful in vendor selection.

A worthwhile vendor should be able to demonstrate that their own security protocols go beyond holding the above-described certificates, and comply to the sets of laws mentioned in the previous paragraph – demonstrating proficiencies in these areas is a solid indicator that a potential shared services partner has a thoughtfully-designed, best-practice security protocol in place.

What a provider does after a breach is detected is almost as telling as the steps they take to prevent one in the first place. Shared service partners who can provide a data breach response offering that is standardized, tested, and ready to be put into action should be given preference. Look for one who can offer notification, contact center, and project management services, all within a separately secure environment – so your enterprise will have a viable go-forward strategy for dealing with such an issue. These services can even be offered as a standalone service, for enterprises already in contract with providers who may not offer these crucial services.

3. Do Your Own Due Diligence

Don’t simply rely on the sales pitch of a potential shared services vendor – do your own research. What exactly should you be considering to vet a potential partner who will be helping you manage or leverage your proprietary data to gain insights, create communications, or process invoices? Here are some ways to help you narrow the scope and hone in on effective information:

• Know state and federal laws: While there is a growing body of law built around the protection of private information online – there is less codification in terms of what an enterprise must do after a breach. Disclosure laws vary state-to-state, and can be surprisingly lax. Therefore, it’s important to talk to potential providers about their own, internal protocols for breach notification and damage mitigation.
• Know what a good protection plan looks like – and ensure potential partners have these policies in place: Similar to the information security certificates discussed earlier in this article, federal laws around these issues provide only the most basic protections – worthwhile vendors will go much further – using a defense-in-depth approach, multi-key encryption, or any number of other intensive security measures.,
• Work to learn the provider’s past performance record in this area: Has this provider been hacked before? If so, how did they resolve the situation after the fact? Were clients quickly notified, and all necessary steps – even the ones that come at a direct cost to the provider – taken? While past performance is not always a reliable indicator of future performance, in the case of a data breach, how a company has handled such an event in the past, or even whether they have been hacked at all – can be quite telling.

To conclude, while cybercrime has become a ubiquitous concern, critical business operations still need to be undertaken – including those that require data handling and management online. Therefore, it is essential to partner with service providers who can prove their dedication to protecting valuable and sensitive information through certificates, protocols, adherence to federal laws, and proven track record of doing the right thing. With proper due diligence and by selecting the right service providers – enterprises can begin to take the steps necessary to effectively prevent these types of breaches in the future.

When you move to a city, especially a walkable city like Stamford, Connecticut, the first thing you might notice is how much less gasoline you’re using. In my case, moving within walking distance of Exela’s Stamford office meant cutting my travel time and fuel consumption by 83%. That has to be good for the climate, right?

Well, sure. But you know what’s not good for the climate? Cities in general. Cities are actually major contributors to the current climate crisis. Cities consume as much as 80 percent of energy production worldwide and account for a roughly equal share of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to The World Bank. It’s not so much about industrial activities either so much as it is about energy required for lighting, heating and cooling offices and residences. But there’s hope, according to Exela’s President, Americas and APAC, Srini Murali, who explains in an article published recently in Smart Cities Dive, that city governments are in an excellent position to address the sustainability issues, and so many people live in cities (i.e., half of the global population) that change happens faster than in rural locales[1].

Many cities are implementing environmental initiatives. For example, Stamford’s plan to advance “climate prosperity” made possible the opening of Metro Green Terrace, its first “transit oriented” housing community.[2] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania recently introduced solar-powered, Internet of Things-enabled trash-compacting cans to dramatically reduce the frequency of trash collection. “Considering that many trash trucks require about one gallon of diesel fuel for every two or three miles they drive, that’s a notable change,” Murali points out.

In Tennesse, the Alternative Workplace Solutions (AWS) program encourages state workers to give up their desks and offices in exchange for the right to telecommute. Since its founding in 2016, the AWS program has had 6,000 individual participants. Nor does it need to stop in Tennessee. Approximately half of all jobs in the U.S. are compatible with remote work, according to Global Workplace Analytics, and if people work remotely even half the time, that could mean a 54 million-metric-ton decrease in greenhouse gas emissions annually. Ultimately, we’d really have technology to thank for that, including collaboration platforms, cloud computing, and electronic signature platforms.

However, as automation advances, according to Murali, there are increasingly more opportunities for governments to further environmental initiatives. Please check back here at the Exela Blog for the next installment in our own deep dive into how technological advancements can help cities help the planet become a more sustainable version of itself.

[1]https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/deep-dive/

[2]http://www.rosecompanies.com/projects/metro-green-apartments/

The relationship between the demand for paper, deforestation, and its adverse effects on the environment are all well documented. In fact, we’ve summarized the issues here and outlined how digital transformation can help as a general matter. In response, some of our readers asked us to provide examples of digital transformation initiatives that can reduce paper usage. We’re happy to oblige. So here are three specific business process automation solutions that are poised to help businesses shift towards a model with a healthier relationship to paper and forests.

Online Payments:

Online billing and presentment solutions such as these are already making a significant impact on reducing our planet’s reliance on paper. Invoices can be rendered and transmitted digitally. Payments can be made online through customer interfaces. Confirmation of payee solutions can smooth the process by discouraging and reducing, if not entirely eliminating, fraudulent transaction. But this is just the beginning. Eliminating paper billing and payments also eliminates the need for envelopes and postage. And all of this can apply not only to intra-national business transaction but also global transactions involving multiple currencies and even multiple payment formats.

Digital/Electronic Signature Platforms:

E-signature platforms are taking the business and consumer world by storm, with a current market size of $3.4 billion and growth expected to reach $5.5 billion by 2023. Eliminating the need to print and copy multiple execution copies of agreements, digital signature platforms are transforming the need for paper print-outs, not to mention revolutionizing where and when business can be transacted. DrySign is a state-of-the-art digital signing platform which aims to help businesses make document execution a paperless process.

Document Digitization Solutions:

Underlying all other digital transformation initiatives are the various digitization solutions that ingest business information in all forms imaginable and transform them into digitized, searchable, analyzable data. As a global Business Process Automation (BPA) leader, Exela offers a wide variety of solutions that piggyback off of document digitization. For more information on that, check out our extensive list of solutions.

The push for paperless is only going to grow as digital transformation forces businesses to move away from redundant paper-based processes in search of technologies that help them save costs or gain more competitive advantages. Want to understand how your business can leverage the cutting-edge Business Process Automation solutions Exela has to offer? Call us at 1-844-XELATEC or contact us here.

It’s easy to let negative thoughts take over during such a strange and scary time. As we navigate our way through the COVID-19 pandemic staying positive is not as easy as it used to be. Nations are quarantined. People are sick. Essential workers are tired. If you’re feeling negative don’t worry, because you are not alone. Here are a few ways our human resources professionals advise us to try to stay positive and get us through this pandemic:

1. Lean on Your Support System: whether it is friends and family, coworkers, a therapist  or an online community, reach out to those who support you. Everyone is in the same boat right now so finding people experiencing the same feelings as you is not difficult. Those that support you can help talk you through these negative emotions and help you develop healthy and positive coping mechanisms.
2. Have Gratitude: Being thankful is an easy way to pull yourself out of a downward spiral. Take a minute each day to write down what you are most grateful for. This will help you reflect on your blessings and inspire positive thoughts.
3. Help Others: Helping others is an easy way to instantly feel better. Whether you are sewing masks at home, delivering groceries for an at-risk relative or checking in via FaceTime on your friends, helping out will boost your serotonin levels and increase your positive outlook.
4. Create Something: Creative expression is known to boost not only your mood,  but also your confidence. Start cooking, painting, writing or whatever it is that makes you happy. I mean why not? We’ve all got a little extra time on our hands.

Even though this is a scary and unprecedented time, we can all try to be a bit more positive. Positivity is contagious, so rather than spreading negativity around, let’s all do our part to make positivity go viral.

Both marketing and innovation are key drivers to business success, and in customizing solutions for our customers, we often find ourselves balancing the two, with the question often being posed: should we be marketing to what our customers currently know they want and need, or should our marketing focus on getting our customers to the next level?

In truth, it’s not a choice at all. Marketing is a key component of innovation, which isn’t simply the creation of new things but the development of a market for those new things. Innovation without marketing is merely invention. Nor is the relationship one-sided. Whatever you’re marketing, if you’re not paying attention to the technological innovations happening in real time, you’re already behind the eight-ball.

Consider, for example, the case of direct mail marketing. Although its origins trace back to ancient Egypt and then the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, its heyday coincided with the Industrial Revolution and followed along with advances in printing and graphics. Although direct mail began losing favor with the advent of email and social media, it’s recently back on an upswing thanks to innovative solutions such as predictive marketing automation, which uses real time customer data and related information to hone direct mail marketing into custom- and hyper-targeted campaigns.

Wherever you are along your digital journey, there are always new solutions available for boosting your marketing game—even old solutions into which innovation has found a way to breathe new life. The question becomes how best to leverage innovation into your marketing. Stay tuned because we’ll be addressing that in our upcoming Leveraging Innovation in Marketing Strategy: 4 Fundamentals.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – The Tao Te Ching, attributed to Laozi

A package may journey a thousand miles, but customer satisfaction begins with the "Last Mile" – Terry Holash, Senior Vice President Exela, Intelligent Lockers

Package delivery is big business (if there’s any doubt, consider that UPS’s revenues totaled $72 billion in 2018). The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates e-commerce sales for the second quarter of 2019 to be at 146.2 billion.[1] NASDAQ  predicts that by 2040, 95% of purchases will be made online. As a result, the volume of packages shipped is increasing daily.

Most logistics involved in package delivery are invisible to the customer. The one aspect of package delivery that is visible to the customer is the “last mile,” as it’s known in the industry. How things go in the last mile has the power to “make” or “break” customer satisfaction.

What is the “last mile” of delivery?

The “last mile” refers to the journey of delivered goods from the carrier’s local transportation hub to the “final delivery destination.”

What is the “final delivery destination”?

The “final delivery destination” refers to where delivered goods are placed in the “physical possession of the addressee.” Ideally, that will be in the hands of the addressee. Not in a lobby. Not with a receptionist. Not on a desk. Not in a package room.

The “last 50 feet”

That last leg of a delivered package’s journey (from arrival at an address to the actual hands of the addressee) as the “last 50 feet.” As e-commerce has become increasingly ubiquitous, the sheer volume of deliveries has encroached on those “final 50.” By necessity, packages are often deemed delivered upon reaching an address, rather than an addressee. At the same time, customer experience has come to hinge increasingly on those final 50 feet.

Controlling the final 50

To regain control over the final 50, some vendors require the addressee’s signature for delivery, but that also risks alienating customers. Another way to control the final 50 is via automated, programmable lockers, or “smart lockers.” Exela’s smart lockers, Intelligent Lockers, ensure the right package gets to the right person every time. Here’s how:

- A package is placed (by carrier, or mailroom personnel) into an Intelligent Locker (in a bank of lockers located conveniently to the addressee).

- The Intelligent Locker is programmed to send a message to the addressee containing a pin code to open that locker (and only that locker).

- The addressee receives a notification via text, or email that the package is waiting for pickup at a particular location.

- The addressee keys in the pin code, and the locker pops open.

Intelligent Lockers for YOUR business

Exela’s Intelligent Lockers aren’t just for use by e-commerce vendors. Our Intelligent Locker customers include banks, hospitals, universities, and other large organizations who have used them to, among other things:

- Reduce the number of people staffing their mailrooms

- Reduce the amount of security required by mailrooms while also permitting 24/7 access

- Decrease misdeliveries

- Decrease the number of non-credentialed employees roaming the premises to make deliveries

- Promote privacy

Here’s how a large university learned the value of Intelligent Lockers. Here’s how a major insurance company provided its employees with convenient storage.

Exela’s Intelligent Lockers are part of its Smart Office suite of front office automation solutions.

[1] https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf

Inbound transactional content – any content from an inbound document that initiates a business transaction on the back end – takes many forms: invoices, application forms, insurance claims, purchase orders, change-of-address forms, even complaint letters. Each of these contains different pieces of information, ranging from names and ID numbers to addresses, dates, procedure codes and more. Many organizations receive these documents in a mail-processing center that unpacks the necessary information and routes to the appropriate department.

Much focus has been placed on cost-cutting measures in the processing of these documents, including automation, mailroom sharing, off-shoring and outsourcing. Before jumping into any one of these, businesses should consider these issues related to processing inbound transactional content.

Centralized vs. Distributed Processing

Many organizations have already approached some degree of automation in their document processing systems. However, they may not have implemented a fully centralized shared process for a geographically disperse organization. While it makes sense for an organization that has a large geographical footprint to move into a centralized shared process with a low-cost and effective resourcing model, this isn’t necessarily an easy decision. Many regional organizations may want to exercise autonomy over their content processing steps and work within the same time zones. These issues shouldn’t be disregarded, but business leaders should consider all potential challenges before transitioning to a centralized model and do everything they can to mitigate those concerns prior to initiating changes.

Re-using Existing Assets

Any organization with multiple silos tasked with document processing will have some overlap in existing assets. It’s reasonable that businesses would want to leverage these. Consider whether the business benefits from its re-use or if it would become the source of some operational issues.

Planning for E-Discovery

Each line of information on the numerous forms handled by an organization is data that could be requested in e-discovery in connection with litigation. The cost to retrieve this information can be high, and involves sifting through copious amounts of digital data. Organizations should implement solutions from the onset that will consider any potential litigation. Is the data identifiable? How is it classified and organized? Working through these questions on the front end will help reduce discovery costs related to future litigation.

It’s often said the legal profession has been slow to embrace digital transformation—and especially law firms. But this isn’t entirely accurate. Lawyers have been making use of digitized legal research tools such as Lexis/Nexis and WestLaw since as far back as the 1970s. These days, many law firms have fully done away with their law libraries—relying instead on electronic research. But the digitization of legal research is far from all digital transformation can do to enhance the practice of law. Here’s just a smattering of functions and processes ripe for digital transformation…if your firm is ready to embrace the efficiencies offered:

Correspondence files Lawyers have been maintaining correspondence files from time immemorial. These chronological archives of every communication to cross a lawyer’s desk are a wellspring of information for the lawyer on clients, cases, and subject matter. At least theoretically. In practice, paper correspondence files are bulky, unwieldly, and essentially unsearchable. But these days, the availability of innovative records management solutions can turn your correspondence files into a secure and searchable database. When cloud enabled, the data becomes available anywhere you have internet access, rather than just in “that file cabinet” outside your office.

Document production Traditionally, document production, whether in the context of discovery or due diligence, has been labor intensive, space-sucking, and prone to human error. These days, however, there are e-discovery solutions that can streamline document production. Documents are scanned and processed through automated systems utilizing optical character recognition and other forms of artificial intelligence to turn endless piles of paper into easily searchable sources of evidence and deal back-up.

Case management Law firms were once dependent on a staff of clerks to keep track of cases, motions, appeals, and the like. Nowadays, litigation intelligence support solutions can digitally organize and centralize case tracking, legal claims processing, class action coordination, collection and disbursement of settlement funds, and conveying timely notifications to claimants.

Hospitality It’s not just legal industry-specific processes that can be automated to your firm’s advantage. For example digital visitor and lobby management solutions, which include digital kiosks, virtual lobby ambassadors, and smart lockers, make use of integrated technologies to streamline, simplify, and enhance the visitor experience and present your law firm’s brand in the best light possible.

Rainmaking Marketing solutions can revolutionize the way you court clients. For example, hyper-targeted marketing solutions can aim your communications at the right audience, and data analytics tools can help you find that right audience.

Billing and other back-office functions Like any business, law firms can benefit from automating back office functions. For example, billing and presentment solutions mean you can spend more time actually doing billable work for your clients, and less time managing collections. Your mailroom can be digitized from end-to-end (which, in turn, supports your data management as a whole). And human resources and capital management solutions can streamline how you attract, acquire, onboard, and develop top talent. ***

But as we said, these are just a smattering of the possibilities. Here’s more on Exela’s Enterprise Legal Management solutions. And here’s more on Exela’s multi-industry solutions.

We looked at the history of cyber security breaches and identified the eight worst, based on the number of user accounts compromised. Here’s what we found:

In the weeks ahead, we’ll be diving into the rules that govern security and privacy and all the security matters you’ll want to consider when choosing your digital transformation partner.

If you missed the earlier posts in this series on cyber security, you can catch up here on:

• 21 Staggering Security Statistics Every Business Should Consider
• How the Bad Guys Get In: Cyber Attack Vectors
• How to Keep The Bad Guys Out: Best Practices in Cyber Security

Gotta read it all now? You can download the entire series as a flipping-book here:

A Leap Into The Breach: Leveraging
Cybersecurity to Master Your Domain

Source: https://www.csoonline.com/article/2130877/the-biggest-data-breaches-of-the-21st-century.html

In the midst of the giving season, and with the end of the year close upon us, it seems a good time to reflect on the results of our corporate philanthropy efforts in 2019. With 22,000 employees in 23 countries, Exela has the wingspan with which to support philanthropic initiatives that touch communities across the globe. That’s why we created#ExelaGivesBack, a program through which Exela matches employee charitable donations dollar for dollar with regard to charities we hand-pick because they align with our values, which include:

• Respect for the Individual
• Ethics
• Collaboration
• Passion
• Innovation
• Empowerment

For example, our corporate philanthropy efforts raised $27,000 for the Center for Early Diagnostics and Therapy of Children with Hearing Impairments (“Children’s House”) in Zvezdara, a municipality in Belgrade, Serbia. We couldn’t have been more proud of our employees’ tireless efforts an dedication when, on August 28, 2019, we presented Children’s House with a new audiometer and typanometer, among other items of medical equipment that were desperately needed so that Children’s House can continue its good works. Half of the money raised for Children’s House came through employee donations.

In yet another outstanding showing of corporate philanthropy, Exela raised 22,630 for the American Cancer Society in connection with the ACS Relay for Life event that took place at the Rockcastle County Middle School in Mount Vernon, Kentucky on June 19, 2019. This amount reflects an impressive $12,630 raised by Exela employees—plus $10,000 contributed by Exela, which had pledged to match all employee donations up to $10,000.

The generosity of our employees goes beyond the fiscal, however. Every single one of Exela’s 639 full-time employees located in Exela’s Mount Vernon, Kentucky and London, Kentucky workplaces contributed to the Relay for Life effort in some capacity, whether by directly soliciting donations, selling raffle tickets, walking the track, or cheering on and otherwise supporting those walking.

Our other philanthropic efforts this year have included:

• Bare Hands Initiative
• Relay For Life
• Pacific Palisades Turkey Trot

Stay tuned for 2020. We’ve got some exciting initiatives planned that we can’t wait to tell you about.