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HITECH Act Enforcement and Heightened Regulation Begins February 18th

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

By extending HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rules for secure transfer of protected health information (PHI), the 2009 HITECH ( Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act mandates that health care providers enforce encryption and audit controls over all business processes involved with data transfers. The provisions with the most significant impact for health care organizations are the mandatory breach notification requirements, combined with a new, punitive enforcement scheme. The risks for penalties, fines, brand damage and loss of business are great. So, what does that mean when it comes to the risk to your health care organization? It means that your organization can be heavily fined for data breaches. And you, your employees and business partners are even subject to criminal penalties. 

What’s your best option for ensuring that you, your employees and business associates are in compliance with the spirit and letter of HITECH? The simple answer is secure all PHI according to HHS (Health and Human Services) guidelines. Make certain that all electronic PHI is encrypted. For PHI that is in transit within or outside your organization that means employing a Managed File Transfer solution that meets best practices for data encryption. 

Are you ready for February 18th?

Until next time,
Kyle

Retailers See an Encouraging Start to Holiday Shopping Season

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

November 30th was the strongest Cyber Monday since the term was coined five years ago, matching the heaviest online spending day on record – December 9, 2008. And ShopperTrak reports that bricks-and-mortar retailers had a 1.6% increase in sales over last year during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

While we’re all keeping an eye on holiday sales (they are, after all, one indication of how our economy is or isn’t recovering from recent woes), many retailers are taking a longer view. Beyond just short-term revenue numbers to longer-term strategic goals of cutting costs, streamlining back-office operations and improving their brand. These savvy retailers are adopting a number of best-in-class technologies to make their strategic goals a reality. Among them – managed file transfer solutions (MFT).

Here are a handful of real-world examples of how retailers are reaping the rewards of MFT:

• “We’ve eliminated any risk associated with the transfer of credit card data to our processer. And we’re now in compliance with the PCI DSS -- our latest audit was a piece of cake.”
• “Previously two people had to spend more than six hours each per day manually transferring customer orders from our web site and telephone orders. Our business volume has grown, and so has our workload. With our new managed file transfer solution, it takes about five minutes a day. We’re spending more time selling, less time chasing down customer orders.”
• “We use it to manage the exchange of electronic files between more than 1,000 retail outlets and our corporate order processing and accounting systems.”
• “We’re now able to meet the file exchange requirements for our retailer network without having to change our business processes. Now we’re extending our MFT solution into our global supplier community.”
• “MFT provides us with a simple, straightforward, secure file transfer solution, one that we put on auto-pilot to automatically transfer financial transactions between our back office applications in different banks on a daily basis.”

We’d love to hear how you’re retail business is doing this holiday season!

Happy holidays!

Kyle

Retailers are Gaining Business Value with MFT

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

As retailers wait out the holiday shopping numbers, they’re continuing to enjoy lots of business value from their managed file transfer solutions. Retailers are early adopters of MFT for numerous reasons, but the top two are the need to:

• Exchange exploding volumes of information – online catalogs, product images, price quotes, invoices and so forth; and
• Comply (and prove compliance) with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

The new generation of MFT solutions meets these challenges and many more. Other benefits that retailers tell us they’re reaping include:

• Streamlined global order and fulfillment
• Improved order-to-cash and days-sales-outstanding
• Enhanced competitive sourcing capabilities
• Improved demand forecasting
• Eliminated order and invoice errors
• Reduced costs and headaches associated with PCI DSS compliance
• Met audit and governance requirements
• Reduced transaction costs
• Improved customer loyalty

Until next week,

Kyle

MFT Vendor Due Diligence is Complete. Software is Installed. What Benefits are You Reaping?

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

Last week I talked about things to consider when looking for a Managed File Transfer solution. You have done your due diligence. You’ve chosen your vendor based on your business requirements. And all went swimmingly with implementation.

So, now you have a single solution, and it’s integrated with your internal systems and with all of your trading partners. You can send files of any type via any protocol from one centralized place.

Your data is secure. Whether or not the files you send contain sensitive data, they can be secured using whatever protocols your suppliers, customers or other business partners require. You can also prove they were secure when they were sent using industry and regulatory compliance standards in audit logging. In addition to secure protocols, your data is also secured by other means as it travels around your enterprise using best practices technologies on the back-end.

Though your data is safe, you can still do business quickly and easily; more quickly and with less effort than ever before. You have protected your data, and you have used the centralized console to administer a fine level of detail regarding who can and should access the sensitive data.

You have reduced your administrative costs in several ways, including: reducing the number of point solutions being supported and administered; removing script processes and disparate end point clients; and (perhaps best of all) you’re pushing business partner administration out to the business partner! Your business processes are now poised to react based on whatever turn the market takes.

You can now scale on demand -- hopefully UP!


Until next week,

Kyle
 

Not All MFT Solutions Are Created Equal

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

There are, of course, a number of standouts in the new generation of managed file transfer (MFT) solutions. But there are also a number that may not meet the file transfer needs of organizations that require secure, reliable and integrated communication gateways.

Some of the things you should consider when vetting prospective MFT providers about an enterprise-class MFT are:

• The MFT must be pervasive.  Ask providers what platforms they support (Hardware, OS, DB, etc); ask what protocols they support; what encryption algorithms, etc.
• Partner management can be difficult and time consuming.  Understand the vendor’s capabilities around the set-up and maintenance of trading partners, customers, suppliers and other business partners.  If you trade with numerous partners, consider a solution that allows them to manage themselves; taking the administrative burden off of your organization.
• A key component of MFT is centrality.  Integration of a single solution to all of your back-end office systems and with your strategic partners is critical.  Make sure you understand the provider’s integration capabilities.  Are they web interface enabled?  Do they require separate client applications at each end point, or can they integrate to existing applications?
• There are several considerations where sensitive data is being moved . . .
  • In addition to the supported secure protocols and encryption methods, what other security features does the solution offer?  This can be related to user authentication and authorization; as well as to the back-end protocols once the files have made it inside your enterprise.  Consider every angle of security and ask the vendor how they address each concern.
  • Proving compliance is a necessity.  Dig into the provider’s reporting, alerting and notification capabilities.  Make sure the solution meets requirements for compliance audits and risk management.
• Speaking of reporting, make sure you have visibility to vital transaction information as it happens.  This can be delivered via a management console or dashboard.
• Some solutions, such as secure e-mail, have file size limitations.  It is important to understand how these file size limitations can affect your ability to do business. 

To help enterprises analyze the solutions that are currently available, nuBridges offers a white paper that explores the key best practices that define enterprise-class MFT solutions.

Download your free copy of “Best Practices in Enterprise File Transfer.” Once you read the white paper, we’d really like to hear from you! We’ll respond to your comments in our next blog.

Until next week,

Kyle
 

 

Enterprises Work Smarter, Faster with New Generation of MFT

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

In my blog last week, I promised that I’d share some specific, real-world examples of how enterprises are benefitting from the new generation of Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions. And I will. But first I want to share some insights we’ve gained from speaking with a number of organizations recently.

We’ve learned that MFT solutions are significantly improving and streamlining the way these enterprises are exchanging critical information inside and outside their organization.  Several enterprises noted that they’re now able to more quickly and “intelligently” respond to business events and market conditions, helping them make smarter, faster decisions. We’ve also learned that top line and bottom line results are being positively impacted by improved order-to-fulfillment processes; reduced charge-backs and returns; and improved invoice-to-cash cycles.

As promised, here are a few real-world examples that illustrate how these benefits translate into business value:

• A regional hospital system is improving revenue cycle management by eliminating billing errors, creating clean claims and streamlining billing operations across its network.
• A multi-national pharmaceutical company is sharing clinical studies to speed up the FDA-approval process, providing faster product-to-market cycles and generating revenue faster.
• With its MFT solution, a large fulfillment operation is reducing inventory discrepancies, reducing costs associated with picking errors, improving invoice payment cycles and ensuring optimal distribution of manufactured products.
• A global computer retailer is driving efficiency in its customer order-to-fulfillment processes by effectively responding to bottlenecks through notifications that drive action and inform customers about order delays. In this case, a best-in-class MFT solution is helping the retailer drive more efficiency through real-time measuring and monitoring activities.
• One of the world’s largest retailers is exchanging purchase orders, invoices and other business-critical documents with more than 15,000 global suppliers to reduce the order-to-cash cycle.

Care to share how MFT helped your bottom line? We’d love to hear from you.

Until next week,

Kyle

PS... To help enterprises analyze the solutions that are currently available, nuBridges presents a discussion of the key best practices that define enterprise-class Managed File Transfer solutions.  Request a copy of the White Paper, "Best Practices in Managed File Transfer Solutions" today. 

Savvy Enterprises See MFT as a Strategic Requirement

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

We’re seeing Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions being embraced by savvy global enterprises that recognize the business value of investing in what is increasingly being viewed as an infrastructure requirement. Today’s extended enterprise needs to share information internally across departments, divisions and acquisitions. It also needs to share information externally with customers, suppliers, business partners and with online collaborative communities.

These enterprises are telling us that the new generation of MFT solutions is providing numerous benefits on both sides of the business partner equation – supply and demand. For example, MFT is providing them with an opportunity to speed business cycles, improve responsiveness to market conditions and remove barriers to doing business electronically on a global scale.

Let’s look at some specific benefits:

• Real-time business partner collaboration and business application integration
• System-to-system and person-to-person file transfers
• Visibility into all file transfers
• Integration of critical back-end business applications with file transfers
• Best practices in governance, risk management and compliance
• Real-time issue/problem detection, resulting in speedy resolutions and avoidance of supply chain disruptions
• Timely decision making, reporting and analytics

We’d really like to hear about the benefits your enterprise is reaping from MFT.

You’ll want to read next week’s nuBlog, where we’ll tell you about several real-world examples of how extended enterprises are translating these benefits into bottom-line business results.

Until next week,

Kyle

More about Why Enterprises are Investing in a New Generation of Managed File Transfer

Kyle Parris
Director of Product Management
nuBridges

We received a number of emails in response to last week’s blog. Thanks to all of you who responded. Having said that, we’d really like you to use the comment feature of nuBlog, so all of our readers can share in your insights!

Your emails pointed out several other challenges that you’re facing with current file transfer solutions. Challenges that you’re asking the MFT vendors you’re considering to address. Let’s take a look at these:

“We’re looking for a strategic partner; a partner that can bring new functionality to the MFT solution as we grow. In fact, as we research vendors, we see the strategic partnership relationship every bit as important as the software itself.”

“Managing our trading community is a headache. Is there an MFT solution that could help us push partner provisioning out to the community?”

“The IT folks that handle our company’s file transfers have been turned into de facto shipping and receiving clerks, spending lots of time each day manually processing files for delivery. Constantly checking on file deliveries. Help!”

Thanks for your emails. Next week we’ll move away from the challenges and discuss how best-in-class MFT solutions can solve your file transfer headaches.

Until next week,

Kyle