“There’s a way to do it better: find it.” 
Thomas Edison

Australian businesses have hit the ground running in 2016. The year promises significant growth in digital technology and a continuing focus on innovation, both to improve user experience and to promote easy gathering and processing of big data. In the document management industry, large internationals are merging, often at the expense of clients: merged entities have a heavy emphasis on low price, which is usually accompanied by poor service. In contrast, I am pleased to announce that TIMG is on target to meet its financial goals without compromising the high standard of service our clients have come to expect from us.

Although document management is still at our core, the worldwide trend away from paper presents us with new opportunities to innovate and redefine our service offerings. As a company, we are making great strides towards achieving this. At TIMG’s recent Sales Conference, our people were given a clear mandate to look for opportunities to innovate. Our eBusiness focus has already produced smart new business solutions to improve services for our clients. The success of the TIMG Verification of Identity (VOI) app is one example; TIMG’s ongoing development of KIOSK for the motor industry is another.

Globally, technology will continue to impact on businesses of all sizes. The Business Insiders BI Intelligence report for 2016 has made 25 predictions of what will shake up the way we do business and go about our lives. 

“There are two kinds of consumers: those who know they’ve been breached, and those who don’t.”
Eva Velasquez – CEO, Identity Theft Resource Center

Globally, thousands of companies are being hacked on a daily basis, and some of them don’t even know it. Many, fearing reprisal from clients and authorities, fail to disclose privacy breaches. A recent survey conducted by the Association of Corporate Counsel[1] found that one in four Chief Legal Officers reported experiencing a data breach in their companies within the past two years.

The legal industry, like so many others, is reviewing what it can do to mitigate these risks. Last year, executives from some of the top United States law firms and large corporate legal departments gathered to discuss cybersecurity threats. The executives identified four pervasive cyber threats that confront law firms every day:

• rogue employees who purposely leak confidential data
• sophisticated cybercrime aimed at stealing personal credit card data or other financial information for re-sale on the black market
• state-sponsored espionage designed to obtain company secrets for purposes of blackmail or damage to a company’s reputation or trading position, and
• socially motivated data breaches conducted by “hacktivists” seeking to bring attention to their causes.

Jordan Furlong, Principal of Edge International, made this disturbing prediction on cybersecurity in the LexisNexis Business of Law Blog[2]:

“2016 feels like the year we’ll finally have our first high-profile law firm cybersecurity catastrophe, revealing many firms’ substandard approach to protecting client data from criminals. This will trigger a crisis of client trust in outside counsel’s reliability and prompt clients to administer make-or-break security audits that quite a few firms will fail. It will also lead regulators to either toughen the measures firms must take to ensure their ethical commitments or risk consequences to their own independence through intervention by state actors.”

These days, it should go without saying that you should back up your data regularly, especially to mitigate against the risk of major disaster. No company large or small is immune from this need. Disaster may come in any number of forms, including cybercrime, fire, or flood. Most companies will have some type of data storage system that involves physical drives, data tapes, or virtual servers through cloud-based solutions. What many fail to realise, however, is that without an efficient backup system and a tested Disaster Recovery (DR) plan, critical files are highly likely to be lost, along with large amounts of the valuable time that is usually required to restore data.

Time, as we all understand, is money. The longer you are unable to access your data or locate backups, the greater your cost. An efficient backup system will enable swift file access, while a proven DR strategy will provide the infrastructure needed to restore your business within minutes.

There are many backup products available. Physical media such as tapes were once the most cost-effective method of ensuring secure offsite backup storage. With the combination of ever-increasing bandwidthand storage capacities, cloud services have become very competitively priced. As a result, many—if not most—IT departments are moving towards cloud-based DR solutions as a cost-effective method of maintaining productivity in a recovery situation.

TIMG offers three core digital backup solutions: BackOnline Server Edition, StorageCraft Shadow Protect, and Veeam Cloud Connect. So, which backup solution will best suit your business? Your choice depends partly on your current infrastructure and partly on your DR requirements. If you only need access to certain files and folders, TIMG’s BackOnline Server Edition probably has you covered. And if it’s immediate restoration of business-critical servers that you’re after, TIMG can provide a Shadow Protect or Veeam Cloud Connect solution that will equip your business to return to full productivity within minutes.

With all three of these options, all your data is stored on TIMG-owned server infrastructure that is housed in datacentres within Australia. 

LitSupport was born 21 years ago from founder Val Pitt’s desire to disrupt the status quo and improve the services available to Australia’s legal industry. As a mother with young children who worked as a legal secretary, Val’s passion for and knowledge of the industry enabled her to grow LitSupport into the resounding success that is today. Val modestly claims that timing had a big impact on LitSupport’s dramatic growth. But, ultimately, success comes down to hard work, understanding what clients need and want, and—most of all—delivering on promises.

Val was joined in her vision to create a highly specialised legal support service by her brother Brad Gabriel, who drove operational excellence, and her husband Craig, who focused on service delivery. LitSupport set out to provide law firms with high speed, high quality support services including eDiscovery (an electronic evidence gathering solution), legal scanning, and copying and management of documents. Initially, it was a difficult proposition to put to a legal industry that was deeply concerned with managing risk. Like anything new, it took Val and the LitSupport team time, courage, and perseverance to make progress. Ultimately, LitSupport’s cost-effectiveness and efficiency allowed them to win over even the most conservative of Australian law firms. After gaining significant levels of success in Sydney, LitSupport set its sights on expanding across the country, and now has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

TIMG’s Business Development Managers and Operations Teams from all states converged on head office in Sydney in the first week of February to set new performance targets and learn new skills. The Sales Programme was designed by Maurice Hewson, TIMG’s Foundation Sales Manager, and provided staff with in-depth product and sales training over four days. Innovation was the underlying conference theme, reflecting TIMG’s strategy of developing new digital solutions to help clients to protect data, improve performance, and manage their workflows.

Maurice congratulated everyone on their achievements to date, and spoke highly of the company’s performance and future sales direction:

“We’re continuing to outstrip our competitors on service. We’re delving deeper into our clients’ operations looking for opportunities to make their job easier. With a full suite of TIMG services on offer, we have the capacity and expertise to service every aspect of data management. While future growth through technology is encouraging, especially with eBusiness, we’re not resting on our laurels but innovating.”

Greg Baker, TIMG’s National Infrastructure Manager, has been with the company since its inception in 2000. Starting as a Service Manager and, later, progressing to become NSW State Manager, Greg is now TIMG’s go-to guy for advice on matters ranging from minor repairs to major relocations and construction of new warehouses.

Greg’s responsibilities span the whole of Australia, from Perth to Darwin to Hobart, with compliance and security issues representing a substantial part of his work. TIMG complies with an extensive set of national and international standards, including those relating to Information Security, Health and Safety, and Environmental Management.

Greg has been responsible for co-ordinating some of TIMG’s major relocations and the amalgamation of offices and warehouses. These have included a Brisbane relocation, a new warehouse in the Northern Territory, a warehouse expansion in Adelaide, and the merger of four warehouses in Sydney.