Executive Summary
Riordan Publishing started as a small publishing company made up of two brothers, George and Edward Riordan. They wanted to provide a way for creative minds to be heard. Their objective was and will always be to help writers reach their full potential. Riordan eventually expanded to four locations around the globe to assist authors of all varieties achieve their dreams. Riordan works with editors, artists, and authors; which is why they understand the importance of unifying and synchronizing all of their locations. Improvements in the system were needed in order to effectively accomplish this objective. Riordan’s issues involved:
1. Communication problems
2. Data sharing concerns
3. Collaborating in real time
4. Project management
Riordan researched several options for improving their system, and decided to convert to Cloud Computing. The benefits for cloud computing outweighed the risks involved; influencing Riordan to choose Egnyte Cloud Computing as its Cloud service provider. The benefits of Cloud computing are vast and can enable Riordan to reduce spending on in house technology infrastructure, streamline processes for employees worldwide all while increasing flexibility of the cloud and scaling it to the needs of Riordan.
After researching the many different cloud computing sources, Riordan chose Egnyte as the perfect fit for the company. Egnyte won Best Data Center & Storage Solution award in Europe. Egnyte was also awarded “Most promising startup cloud provider” at the Up 2011 Cloud Computing Conference. They offer features that will help integrate Riordan’s Publishing like:
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1. Supports a variety of systems
2. Security and Privacy
3. Synchronization
4. Premium support
5. Storage
6. Audit reports
Riordan feels confident that Egnyte will innovate the way they perform in every aspect of the business, creating a more unified work environment for employees anywhere they are. Egnyte allows Riordan to gain access to technologies (infrastructure, platforms, and software) that they might otherwise need sophisticated IT support to obtain and setup. For example, few small businesses have the knowledge and expertise to perform the installation and planning of an IT system or even perform the ongoing maintenance required to have it run optimally. Egnyte offers solutions, by simply contracting with the Cloud provider Riordan will have the ability to immediately use these services and offerings. Egnyte enhances Riordan by improving many of its core business practices:
1. Communications
a. Employees to employees
b. Office to office
c. Employees to editors, artists, and authors
2. Collaborations
a. Employees to employees
b. Office to office
c. Employees to editors, artists, and authors
3. Innovative ways to enlist new writers
4. Ability to share data with fewer risks for:
a. Plagiarism
b. Intellectual theft
c. Creative theft
Riordan only has one main concern with converting to Egnyte’s Cloud Computing service and that is the security of the Cloud platform. They realize that there is a small percentage for security risks given that there is a lack of control of security operations from Riordan, internally. Riordan wanted to ensure there were ways to reduce this risk before committing to Egnyte’s services. Riordan decided to implement a third party key management system. This system will give Riordan the peace of mind knowing that data that the company has of authors, editors, artists, and employees has a little more protection via secure encryption; making it less likely for theft or tampering. Riordan has chosen Vermetric Data Security as their extra line of defense. Vermetric Data Security ensures there is a consistent and repeatable method for encrypting Riordan’s data, enforcing access policies and gaining real time security information on its systems.
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Cloud Computing is going to give Riordan the competitive edge they need to continue to makes dreams come true as George Riordan stated, “We will open the eyes of the world, one book at a time.” The key to the Riordan’s success is to stay up-to-date with training for employees, making sure the business plan is in constant alignment with the IT system, and analyzing for future issues that may arise. By using the Cloud technology Riordan not only ensures that it’s company data is secure and accessible worldwide, it is also flexible enough to provide future upgrades and expansion and forever scale with the companies needs and desires.
Riordan Publishing- EGNYTE A New Enterprise System Proposal
History of Riordan Publishing
Brothers Edward and George Riordan were both struggling authors in 19th century New York City. Reputable publishing companies were few are far between. The Riordan brothers were in need of a local publishing company that was interested in investing and supporting struggling authors seeking to achieve their dreams; by having their work materialize in print. Finding a publishing company that suited these needs was harder than they anticipated. The Riordan Brothers did the next best thing they could. Riordan Publishing started with humble beginning in New York City in 1814. Edward and George Riordan were the only employees for the first three months, but that quickly changed. From the beginning their company mission statement, a quote often said by George Riordan “We will open the eyes of the world, one book at a time” drew the attention of other likeminded authors.
Within 5 years of being in business Riordan Publishing had expanded from one office in New York City. George moved to London; opened an office, and the company grew from two employees to over 100 employees and over 400 authors. Today Riordan Publishing employs over 4,000 people worldwide with offices in New York, London, Seattle, Rome, and has over 15,000 authors and artist. Each location within Riordan Publishing has created individual processes for author/editor collaboration. Riordan Publishing has been searching for an Enterprise solution to unify their international locations and Authors that are spread around the globe.
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Sharing data between author/office and office/office has been a redundant and convoluted process. Riordan Publishing is now exploring their options for unifying and synchronizing all their offices. This transition will introduce global employees to a singular fast secure and modern platform. The new enterprise system that Riordan decided to implement is cloud computing.
Cloud Computing
Egnyte is Riordan Publishing’s answer for a cloud computing solution. Egnyte is proven cloud storage platform. Egnyte just won Europe’s Best Data Center & Storage Solution award at The Seventh Annual Cloud World forum in London. Egnyte offers enterprise solutions; which includes a scalable, “file sharing infrastructure with a complete centralized administration, auditing, and storage integrations for use of unlimited employees. Egnyte provides its’ users with a variety of computing services that include low cost storage space, content access, mobile access, and a top notch support, supports a variety of operating systems.” (Egnyte, 2014)
Included in the price for the Enterprise Package you get: unlimited storage, 10GB man per file size, Enterprise-class security, Desktop Sync, FTP Integration, Premium support, Outlook Integration, Custom Branding, Role-based Administration, Storage Sync, Audit Reports, Salesforce.Com Integration, and AD and LDAP Support, and most importantly enterprise file sync and share (EFSS).
These features are what persuaded Riordan to select Egnyte as their cloud computing source.
Business Requirements
Riordan Publishing’s business requirements are simple: global access, reliability, speed, minimizes unneeded costs by combining its software and hardware infrastructure, security, an ease of collaboration solution, and affordability. Having servers in four different countries has been costly to monitor and maintain. By virtualizing the servers on the Cloud platform, it eliminates the need for four different server locations, the electric bill and internet bills associated with running them and also the IT staff that maintains them.
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The shift from the four servers into the Cloud can save Riordan an immense amount of capital and enable funds to be used in other ways such as corporate expansion. Riordan’s IT team has been growing nearly as fast as their list of new writers trying to keep up with the demands of supporting its legacy software and dated servers. Riordan needs a solution that will upgrade its ancient system along with cutting its cost in its infrastructure management, and a way to unite all their servers into one centralized setting that everyone can easily access, the solution being the “Cloud”.
The Cloud computing solution will provide a reliable, fast, and an effective method for Riordan’s editors, writers, marketing, financial teams to collaborate; enabling them to upload, access projects from the office, or the comfort of a writer’s home. Riordan is in need of a system that helps with editorial workflow, a way to unite their writers with their editors, and management for a collective collaboration resolution so goals and deadlines are easily met. There is also a need for an ease of access download for outside vendors such as a printing house or e-book company like Amazon Kindle.
Information
Riordan Publishing handles various amounts of information daily. Due to the nature of Riordan’s work as a publisher, it is very important that information is protected. The type of information on the cloud would consist of original literature, photos, research, and products scheduled to be released. Security is of an utmost importance because of the inherent threat of plagiarism, intellectual, and creative theft. Since the company has 4,000 employees and over 15,000 contracted authors and artist, the cloud would have to be very powerful to meet the demands of the employees. The employees of Riordan use the Office Suite, Microsoft Outlook, and a plethora of other productive software applications.
Each international office and individual author and artist can use a different type of mobile devise including, Blackberry, iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone. The new system would have to take all the employees’ needs, and incorporate that into the custom create cloud operating system. The cloud would eventually have all employees’ emails, conversations, files, pictures, and documents. The information most definitely would be safeguarded from vulnerabilities, threats, and risks from cyber-crimes.
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Security and Ethical Concerns
One of the main concerns a company has is the security; which can involve ethical issues. Riordan Publishing had a couple concerns regarding the safe keeping of their data in the cloud. Some of the concerns were: If employees are allowed to use cellular phones for business use, then how will the company know when employees are abusing company time for personal use? What happens if data is hacked, and client information is stolen and sold? Is the company held accountable when laws are broken by employees? Riordan Publishing Company decided to take steps that would educate all employees of the laws, and the consequences of breaking them.
The company will be implementing mandatory meetings to keep employees informed of cyber-crimes, rules of the use of business smart phones, appropriate use of persona time at work, and ways to improve employees’ work habits. Riordan’s main focus is data security: which needs to meet industry standards that consist of keeping the system up to date and monitored.
Once implemented, Riordan will benefit from the cloud system enabling employees to connect to the corporate network over VPN for a seamless experience anywhere. The contributions to the company are vast, but the main appeal is that employees can access a network that is custom tailored to them from any online connection. Riordan also would not have to pay for hefty data center bills, expensive servers, a tech team to maintain equipment, and power bills.
Conversion Process
Riordan Publishing Company decided that the best course of action regarding issues with their previous system was to convert to Cloud Computing. In order for Riordan Publishing to combine their international offices and individual contracted authors into one centralized data system, a Cloud Storage and management system will be implemented. Egnyte will standardize procedures for sharing, collaboration, storing, and accessing a centralized network. This will make it possible for Riordan’s entire pool of employees to follow the same processes, continue procedures of working with authors to publish new books, and produce publications in a more streamline timeline.
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Cloud computing allows Riordan Publishing to achieve one of their goals of going green. Riordan employees, contracted authors, and artists also do not have to worry about the costs, hassles of mailing manuscripts, or shuffling through emails to find work they are using for collaboration with one another. Egnyte’s easily accessed cloud storage allows all users to organize, view, and update data simultaneously.
Proposed Process Changes
New and existing contracted authors and artists will be given access to Riordan’s Egnyte account. They will upload copies of their work throughout the entire writing process. Egnyte’s editors and publishers will be able to access their work, and collaborate effectively on each project. Each user will be able to access Egnyte from their home computer or mobile device to give status updates, check emails, and upload documents for easy collaboration. Once the editor and author have finished their project they will send the project to Riordan’s Senior Editors for approval; who will then notify the Distribution and Marketing Team that the project is ready for printing.
The Distribution and Marketing Team will then notify Bickford Printing and Amazon’s
Kindle team to log on to Riordan’s Egnyte account, this is where they can access the publications that are ready for printing and distribution to E-books. The diagram below shows how simple, and streamline the new process will be.
Diagram 1.1
All of Riordan’s International offices, contracted Authors, and Artists can now access the same centralized data network to create, collaborate, and distribute new books using Egnyte’s cloud storage. (Egnyte.com, 2014)
Cloud Technology
Cloud technology uses a method called, “offloading”. Cloud technology manages the majority of programs processing. This means that most processing can be done on the cloud; as opposed to the actual mobile devices, increasing overall efficiency. Being able to access the cloud from a laptop or smartphone provides great flexibility. Employees are to travel while working, or work from a remote location. The mobility also has negative implications mainly being security and privacy. Users depend on the IT management for security and privacy settings because the data is stored and managed on the cloud.
A bug or security loophole exploited may result in a breach of privacy. There is truly no way to know how a cloud vendor safeguards data. Potential vulnerabilities could, for instance, grant a group access to passwords, or other private information used in Riordan’s Publishing Company. Cloud computing also brings up the question of reliability. Riordan has to understand that from a technical standpoint it would not be possible to provide users with the cloud in a place with no internet connectivity such as a park, a basement, a tunnel, and a subway.
Even with the limitations the cloud can be quite useful and powerful; if employees are properly trained to adhere to strict computer and network policies that discourage them from leaving their devices unmonitored. The benefits of cloud computing far outweigh the negative aspects like giving a company the ability to start up a network with low overhead costs, and little setup time. The maintenance aspect of owning your own servers, and having to up keep up and administer them is also new the third party cloud company’s responsibility. This would give Riordan’s employees more time to work on their tasks at hand rather than fiddle with a network.
The mobile platform has many obstacles to overcome, but once a user does acquire a reliable internet connection the user will see the benefits of not having to be restricted to their office. Together the cloud and mobile devices will provide flexibility and mobility that will push Riordan into a productive and successful future. The diagram below represents how Riordan Publishing’s information will process through the cloud.
Diagram Riordan’s information system flowing through the cloud.
Business Requirements
Riordan has had problems in the past with authors and editors not making deadlines because of the way they shared information in the past. Mailing hard copies of manuscripts, getting lost in the mail, misplaced, or shipped to the wrong Riordan office. Those manuscripts that were sent in digitally were not being saved to a network drive where others could access them. Instead, they were stored locally to specific machines where they could be lost due to computer failure, someone leaving the company, or someone due to calling in sick. This meant no one else could access the information; which meant deadlines were not met. Riordan was losing money hand over fist because they were doing extra unnecessary double work. Authors, artists, and editors could not collaborate in a timely manner because of the slow sharing process. This is what initiated the conversion.
Riordan’s ultimate demand for cloud technology comes from needing a Global unified network experience for all persons associated with Riordan regardless of their physical locations in the world. Cloud Computing enables Riordan to globalize the workforce at a lower cost. This allows the user access to the cloud as long as they have an internet connection. The reduction in spending on technology infrastructure makes for minimal up front spending, and the cloud can be scaled to pay as you go; while services can be implemented based on Riordan’s demands. The overall savings Riordan will have over a course of several years can be used to fund new operations, expand the organization, hire new employees, give bonuses, and upgrade personal desktop computers and laptops.
The impact will be more purchasing power and more capital. The cloud computing infrastructure gives more freedom to Riordan. This allows them to work without diving into heavy software, licensing fees, or spending big money on hardware. Additionally, the direction no matter if it is the OS, email client, or software can all be customized. It would not be a problem for the organization to just suddenly change their mind about their cloud. What Riordan really gets out of this business venture is the two most valuable things in the business world; time and money. The cloud makes the acquisition of these two valuable elements to be made fairly quickly.
Riordan will profit from Cloud Computing because they are willing to take the necessary steps to evolve with the chances of technology. Egnyte is going to integrate all the aspects of Riordan Publishing Company into one location; making it easy for all employees, authors, editors, and artists to collaborate with one another in a single place; the cloud. Acquiring and Maintaining Egnyte
Riordan determined changes were needed to improve performance, communication, and time management throughout all locations of the company. This was decided after making a business process management plan. Riordan researched the benefits and risks of converting to cloud computing. After determining cloud computing would enable the company to improve communication, data storage, and enhanced project management; Riordan needed to decide on the best way to convert to the new system. Riordan chose to use the direct cutover conversion process.
Riordan established a project management strategy that helped the company better understand their budgets, time constraints, tools, skills, and techniques; this gave the company insight on how to improve these areas with Egnyte’s Cloud Computing application. Next, Riordan began training employees on this new system; showing the employees the different enhancements that Egnyte offered, and ways to deal with issues that may arise from the conversion. Riordan also designed an IT strategy to ensure that all areas of the company understood the company’s end goal.
The one risk in cloud computing that Riordan needed to address was securing their data. They adapted a Third Party Key Management System to deliver an added step in securing their data. The key management system that Riordan decided to choose was Vormetric Data Security. Riordan believes that when all areas of the company work closely with the IT division, then the company will run efficiently. This will allow employees to focus on other areas in the company that require employees’ attention.
Strategic Role
Cloud Computing will innovate and produce business growth for Riordan Publishing Company. This will be a hybrid cloud that contains software-as-a-service allowing Riordan to efficiently communicate, share data, and reduce costs. Once the system is in place, the employees are trained, and all departments are fine tuned to the needed adjustments regarding the cloud; allowing the company to focus on the accelerating projects, collaborating with colleagues, strengthening relationships with distributors, and most importantly discovering new talent.
One area that is overlooked because of time restrictions is unknown writers that submit unrequested manuscripts that are placed in a pile called “slush” pile. The benefits of Engyte’s Cloud service include: “the ability to access new technology, faster application development, available expertise in special skills, faster responses to business demands, and flexibility in IT peaks and valleys.” Employees, authors, aspiring writers, editors, and artists can easily communicate with video conferences; while viewing information about an active project no matter the office location. (Andriole, S.J., 2012)
This conversion will essentially allow for cost reduction that could be used to scout for new clients; which opens up more doors of opportunities with the cloud through chat groups and communities, implement new design tools, improve promoting tactics, update to the newest material for the production of the books, and implementing the policy of bringing your own device to work. This policy is possible because employees and all other persons involved in the company can connect through devices such as smart phones, laptops, thin clients, and tablets. This can reduce the cost of purchasing devices for the company, and allows the company the ability to give incentives for participation.
References
Andriole, S. (2012).
Seven Indisputable Technology Trends that will define 2015. In Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Vol.30, pp. P 61-72).
Laudon, Kenneth. C., & Laudon, Jane. P. (2013).
Essentials of Management Information Systems (10th ED.).
: Prentice Hall. http://www.egnyte.com/corp/plan_pricing.html
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