Document creation and management have a big impact on the day-to-day life of a knowledge worker and subsequently on a company. Generating documents is a time-staking process with the average employee spending approximately 50% of their time creating and preparing documents [1]. Despite this time investment, approximately 83% of employees recreate documents that they cannot find on the company network [2]. All of this time spent creating and recreating brand documents is estimated to cost a company $20 000 or over R300 000 per annum. 

Yet, many companies do not have content governance systems in place to manage brand templates, documents, presentations or content which results in duplication of work, employee inefficiencies, inconsistent branding and increased workloads particularly for the IT and branding departments. The value of having the correct brand assets easily available when they are needed, extends beyond improving employee inefficiencies, it also improves customer and employee experiences, driving customer and employee retention and positively impacts the company’s bottom line.

Whether employees are developing documents, presentations or emails, content should be easily accessible and companies need to gain control of this process to overcome employee inefficiency, drive down costs, improve brand consistency and enhance customer experiences.

Saved time means money saved

According to Tech Crunchies, document issues account for over 21% of daily productivity loss[3]. The average salary in South Africa is R22 500 per month which means that companies spend on average, R4 725 per employee per month on document issues. That amounts to R56 700 per employee, per annum in lost productivity. The average salary in South Africa is R22 500 per month which means that companies spend on average, R4 725 per employee per month on document issues. That amounts to R56 700 per employee, per annum in lost productivity.

Having correctly branded and up-to-date templates, document, presentations and email content easily accessible to employees as and when they need them, helps to improve employee efficiencies as it saves time spent searching for documents that have been misfiled or accidentally deleted. This also prevents the need for employees to spend time reproducing branded content that already exists and gives them peace of mind that they are sending the correct and most recent and brand compliant documents and templates to customers.

On-brand document compliance across the business

Brand consistency is a key driver of business success. When you take your brand seriously, customers believe you pay attention to every detail and this reinforces your values and builds brand trust. As part of this, templates are an important component of business communication and need to carry the correct content, logo and brand elements including the font used.

Within organisations, many employees can access, edit and save company templates and documents, resulting in brand inconsistencies across documents. In some instances, outdated templates are used carrying incorrect company details from the director’s details to contact numbers which raises questions about the legitimacy of the document. Further, brand inconsistencies across documents dilute the brand, influence brand perceptions and impact customer trust in the organisation.

To overcome this, companies should be able to share the latest documents and templates across the organisation with immediate, permission-based access. However, employees should be restricted from being able to override content on these legal and binding documents which can result in incorrect information being sent to customers. This is supported by findings from Kroll Ontrack, which attribute 26% of data loss incidents to human error[4].

Improved security

By implementing user permission access to branded assets such as letterheads, templates and documents based on specific departments or individuals, adds a layer of security to this content. It also allows for companies to monitor who accesses the documents and the changes they make to them.

While managing document accessibility within the organisation is important, it is equally important to safeguard access to company assets and templates by third-parties. In some instances, companies save all their brand assets and templates on an extranet for employees and partners to easily access, but it is just as easy for third parties to access. Companies should save these documents within secure, access-controlled environments, such as a cloud-based platform, to allow for content to be updated, shared and managed while protecting against third-party access which could have dire consequences for the brand including potential fraudulent activities and reputational damage.

Better customer experience

Empowering employees to access the information they need at the right time, enables them to work effectively and improves employee satisfaction levels. This has a direct impact on customer experiences as inspired employees put in more effort. With the brand compliant content easily available when it is needed, employees can focus on meeting customer expectations with improved response times and on-brand content every time.

The real value of brand-compliant templates and brand governance lies in the ability to remove the content clutter from the workplace, empowering employees to meet customer expectations and deliver customer experiences that drive satisfaction levels and retention. It also reduces the need for IT and branding departments to fix mistakes after the incorrect content has been sent out and aids companies to meet governance and compliance requirements. In addition, with a secure, cloud-based solution, the company can minimise potential reputational damage to its brand by preventing third-party access to branded templates and content.

If you are looking for a solution that allows for quick and easy template and document creation, is managed centrally and easily accessible by employees according to a permission-based system and can be retrieved whether online or offline from anywhere in the world, read more about BrandOffice here.

Did you know that the font type and colour used in your emails are one of the first things recipients notice before they begin to read the content? The colour of the font and branding elements used in your email are key to increasing brand recognition[1].  

Every organisation should use a specific font for their emails that aligns with their brand. For larger organisations, this may even be a unique font that they have designed to further differentiate and reinforce their brand in the market.

These fonts may need to be loaded on to each employee’s computer to be able to use them, and as such, they may not appear in the same font on your customer’s computer. This primary font should therefore be used in banners and email signatures, and a secondary font should be used for the body copy. Secondary fonts, that are easily available on most computers and are cross-platform fonts, should be used to align with the brand and ensure that the email appears on the recipient’s end as the sender intended. If a font is not available on the recipient’s PC, Windows will default the font to Calibri.

The colour of the font used in your emails is also important. This should align with the overall brand as colour is one of the most memorable components of a brand. The colour scheme used in emails is key to establishing brand trust with your audience as this is one of the first things recipients will recognise from your brand after the logo.

More than the font type and colour, companies should consider the size and spacing of the font, particularly when using a default font as this will help recipients to recognise emails that are sent from your brand. By keeping the font consistent in terms of type, colour and size, customers will quickly recognise that emails come from your organisation. This aids in building brand trust as it demonstrates that you care as much about the smaller details as you do about your client’s needs.

More than this, as fraudulent emails are a concern for many recipients, consistently branded emails give customers peace of mind that the emails sent from your company did, in fact, come from your organisation. Verification tools can help provide an extra layer of security and reassure your customers that the emails they receive from your organisation are authentic.

Our next post will delve deeper into the content of your emails. In the meantime, if you want to overcome brand consistency challenges with a secure, easy-to-use solution read more about BrandMail here.

Identity theft and data breaches are on the rise with Fraudscape[1] stating in its 2019 report that identity theft hit an all-time high of more than 174,000 cases in 2017 in the UK alone.  Locally the figures are just as grim with TransUnion[2] research revealing that 49% of South African consumers have either been a victim of ID theft, or know someone who has. As identity theft is a growing concern for consumers, they are encouraged to take precautions to prevent falling victim to cybercrime and identity theft. The Banking Association of South Africa[3] has provided customers with several tips on preventing identity theft, including not disclosing personal information to anyone without knowing who you are disclosing the information to and what it is being used for.

While customers may be taking precautions to safeguard their personal information and verify the companies they provide personal information to, they are entrusting organisations with their details and expect them to have measures in place to ensure that their data remains secure. However, according to the World Wide Worx State of Enterprise Security in South Africa 2019 study that was conducted in association with Trend Micro and VMware, only 35% of South African IT decision-makers were prepared for cyberattacks at any time in the next 48 hours. Companies need to take action and have processes in place that not only protect their customer’s details but also provide their customers with tools to help prevent them from falling for phishing scams or spoofing emails for example.

EMAIL VERIFICATION TOOLS

Email spoofing occurs when recipients receive emails that resemble official organisation emails. For example, a client may receive an email that appears to be sent from his bank with the corporate logo and similar distinct graphics that have been sourced online or copied from legitimate emails sent from the organisation previously. These images are embedded into spoof emails to convince recipients that the emails are legitimate and encourage them to follow specific phishing instructions for example.

However, email spoofs are not only sent to customers, there are instances where emails appear to be sent from internal sources to company departments and employees with particular instructions. These include instructions that request immediate payment of funds or for funds to be released or even requesting particular customer details. Without the necessary verification tools in place, these emails are often actioned with immediate effect.

With approximately 93 percent of malware coming from emails[4], it is evident that companies lack mechanisms for email authentication. These emails often look legitimate at quick glance and as such the recipient is likely to action it as per the instructions included. To overcome this, company email signatures should aid in enhancing security. This could include providing recipients with a verification page that provides additional information about senders, qualifications, titles, and details about the company.

The details included on the verification should be approved by various departments within the organisation to ensure that the job title and qualification for example, are accurate. In addition as email correspondence can constitute a legal document, the organisation should put measures in place to ensure that all emails that leave the company authenticate the identity of the sender on behalf of the organisation.

By adopting these security measures, companies provide added peace of mind to their customers that emails they receive from the organisation are authentic.

SECURING COMPANY TEMPLATES

Looking beyond email signatures, companies need to put measures in place to secure company documents and templates from third parties. This includes removing former employees from systems and limiting the access vendors and other external parties have to company documents. For example, if important documents such as company letterheads are easily accessed via an unsecure platform, anyone could use the document to spoof recipients into providing valuable personal data or releasing funds.

For added security, company documents and templates should be housed centrally on a cloud platform that restricts usage to only those departments and individuals that need access to these documents. In addition employees should not be able to save company documents to their desktops for future use as these can be easily tampered with or shared with employees that do not need access to them. Companies should incorporate a tracking system that provides line of site of who is accessing documents and when, as well as providing executives with statistics of user template compliance at any point in time. 

This is supported by Varonis which states that fewer people should be able to access to sensitive company information as some of the biggest data breaches in the past year stem from a user who had access to files they shouldn’t have been able to see in the first place[5]. In addition they found that on average, only 3% of company folders are secured leaving employees open access to the majority of company documents and customer information.

PROTECTION FROM THE INSIDE OUT

In many instances, companies have invested significantly into improving IT security with firewalls and antivirus and antimalware software, however, internal security measures have fallen through the cracks.

In some instances companies rely on third party organisations for email branding to be applied in the form of banners and email signatures which are applied after the email has been sent from the sender. By intercepting these emails, the emails are effectively tampered with and could put customer data at risk. It also poses questions about email authenticity which is key to establishing trust with customers.

Identity theft can occur by neglecting to cancel former employee access to documents. When employees leave an organisation, their access to company documents and systems should be removed from the system immediately and any storage of documentation on the workstation should immediately be flushed. According to Varonis 34% of company user accounts are stale but enabled and 64% of user accounts are stale or inactive. This opens up additional opportunities for identity theft and gives hackers access to useful information that could go easily unnoticed for an extended period of time. As stated by Varonis, “if you’ve got outdated users with active accounts, it’s like handing over a new set of papers to your hacker.”

Giving employees’ access to locked content that cannot be tampered with, provides additional security for customers. This practice reduces the risk of employees and third parties from altering the content and minimises the possibility of intentional and unintentional sabotage from employees. It also adds a layer of authenticity to the email, giving recipients added peace of mind that the content is authentic.

PUTTING THE BASICS IN PLACE

While protecting customer and company data is a huge task, most companies have already started putting measures in place to minimise the risk of data breaches and identity theft. However, in order to provide holistic protection, they need to pay attention to basic requirements that can go a long way to adding a layer of protection to both the company and its customers.

Companies would benefit from building compliance standards into company documentation and emails, adding additional verification measures into emails and limiting access to specific documentation can all go a long way to helping to minimise threats and taking security to a higher level.