Two of our clients recently came to us with similar problems. We think they’re probably not alone in the film and TV industry, where compliance standards are rising and cybersecurity remains a constant threat. The challenge is to stay flexible – and creative – without compromising on quality of output at the same time as staying secure. Here’s the story of how we helped our clients achieve just that…
Marshall Info Tech and CPL Productions
CPL Productions, who typically swell to 50-100 IT users per production, wanted to strengthen their data security without losing flexibility. TV and film production rely heavily on flexible working, and CPL was no different. They had a complex mix of remote working, network restrictions from no longer using VPNs, and a need to scale up or down with freelancers, often on location, as and when new projects came in.
Working closely with CPL to understand their specific requirements, we consolidated all their content libraries over to Microsoft SharePoint, retiring their file servers. By putting all their data in the Cloud, all staff – freelance or permanent – had easy access wherever they had internet access, secured by two-factor authentication. CPL’s administrators are now able to define access permissions by role, and there’s now no risk of freelancers using their own repositories to store production data – which was then hard to reclaim whenever they left a project. Through SharePoint, CPL now has secure access to one central data store, which also helps drive collaboration and creativity to fuel their projects.
Marshall Info Tech and another production company
Another of our clients also needed flexibility but security from where they stored production data, whatever happened with staff turnover as projects cycled. They also needed to find a solution that would fulfil their partners’ compliance requirements, as well as keeping things well-documented and updated for GDPR. Involved in large drama productions, they needed to improve their record-keeping to meet compliance requirements further up the supply chain.
SharePoint represented a great solution. Using SharePoint in tandem with Office 365 meant that multiple people could be in the same document, saved, logged and backed up through SharePoint. By implementing simple security settings, they could prove to their partners that content was stored centrally, with consistent standards of data security in place.
Security doesn’t have to mean an iron-clad approach to handling data, to the downfall of creativity. SharePoint as a Cloud solution creates a shared workspace, with permissions that can be adjusted by the sensitivity of the data, and scaled up or down as and when you need it. Taking on a freelancer? You can grant them SharePoint access and control and monitor their level of access without so much as a phone call to IT. Things are changing – and creative businesses only stand to gain. Contact us today to find out more about our approach to SharePoint.
