In 2010, I got a call from Tigris Sponsorship & Marketing asking me to help them figure out a better digital business strategy. Tigris handles sponsorship and marketing contracts for some of the largest brands in the nation. They had been in business for a while but needed to streamline their workflows since they were rapidly becoming a digital company. At this point, every record of their business lives on a computer. They needed to make sure everything was secure, accessible by the right people, easily shared with their clients, and backed up properly so nothing ever disappeared. We had a great intro meeting, sent them a proposal, and have been working with them ever since. Like all our clients, we’ve been able to grow with them and recommend the best solutions as their company evolves. If you need help with your digital business strategy, we hope this case study will serve as an example of how Drift Management can help your business.

Over the last six years, we’ve been their on-demand IT department and their digital business strategy advisors. Instead of hiring an internal technology position, they call us when they need something fixed, upgraded, or replaced and we make it happen. We monitor their systems regularly to keep everything running smoothly. If something does break, we resolve the issue quickly. We’ve also built a great relationship with their team. We know everyone by name and provide a friendly support environment to keep things operating efficiently. To us, having a good working relationship is just as important as getting things done.

Digital Business Strategy

With new clients, we start by attempting to fix what’s broken within their digital business strategy. Sometimes the solutions they have are the right choice but need some extra help to make them great. Then we look at what’s missing and help them implement it. Tigris needed a new file server and better security overall. As Tigris grew, they started working with larger corporations that required very strict security measures to qualify for contracts. They also needed a secure way to share documents with their clients. Lastly, and most importantly, they needed a backup for their backup’s backup. That may sound funny as you read it, but it’s crucial for any modern business. Let’s break down these solutions and find out how they helped Tigris’ digital business strategy.

Security is Job 1

No modern business can afford to ignore security. That’s an article for another day. Here at Drift, we treat security as job one in our digital business strategy. It was the first thing we improved at Tigris. We gave them an enterprise-grade firewall from Kerio, a Mac server with the latest software, and taught them about secure password strategies. The Kerio firewall keeps their internal network protected from viruses, malware, external attackers, and all of the liabilities that come with each of those vulnerabilities. That one box, and a few hours of setup, has saved Tigris from countless hours of downtime and potential external threats. It’s a simple, necessary solution for any digital business strategy.

Tigris had several clients that would not allow typical “cloud” technology like Dropbox or Google Drive for corporate documents. While unusual in 2016, that was a very common conversation in 2010. In order to meet their requirements, we gave them a secure Mac server for file sharing and data backups. They didn’t want every employee to have access to every file on the server. We set them up with a complex user and group system that allows them specific control over their internal documents. We also set them up with a secure file sharing solution to use with their clients. It’s similar to cloud storage in concept but still satisfies the strict security requirements for their corporate clients.

Beyond securing a network or a server, we always train our clients on proper password usage. We’ll probably write an article on this some day, but let’s just talk about the basic password policies we created for Tigris. Passwords are not supposed to be simple. Every password should include upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Moreover, it shouldn’t have any common words found in a dictionary. Every account we gave them — file server, email, computer, etc. — had a different password and these passwords change quarterly, at minimum. When possible, we encourage our clients to enable two-factor authentication for even more protection. We know it’s difficult to keep track of regular password changes, but applications like 1Password can help make that easier.

Since 2010, here are the highlights from our security strategy:

  • Tigris has never had a security exploit.
  • Our proactive approach to IT meant zero downtime for our solutions.
  • None of their passwords has ever been used improperly.

A Backup for Your Backup’s Backup

Simply put: redundancy keeps businesses in business. It may sound ridiculous to have three different layers of backups running at all times, but it’s extremely important. In this industry, many of us hear horror stories about a computer and its backup failing at the same time. Most businesses can’t afford to lose data like that, so we recommend three layers to ensure complete redundancy. Since all of Tigris’ data lives on their server, that’s where we’ve implemented the three-layer protection. Here’s what three-layer protection includes: continuous incremental backups, a nightly clone, and a continuous incremental offsite backup. That means their data stored on the server is copied onto two local backups and one offsite backup every single day. In addition to that, every workstation has its own local backup and an offsite backup for added redundancy.

Since 2010, here is the highlight from on our backup strategy:

  • No one has ever lost saved data.

Daily IT Support

The last part of a good digital business strategy is daily IT support. Workstations, printers, monitors, software, etc. — we help Tigris with everything digital whenever they need it. We’re not just about solutions implementation; we’re here to help our clients with any aspect of their digital business strategy. Onsite or remote, if something isn’t working, Tigris calls us to get it fixed.

Since 2010, here is the highlight from on our support strategy:

  • If it broke, we fixed it.

Let Us Help Your Business

While the highlights of this case study may seem a little tongue-in-cheek, we’re serious about our clients and their digital business strategy. We’ve been doing this for years, so we tend to over-simplify these scenarios. We’ve found great solutions for our existing clients that often translate well to new clients. Give us a call; let us come out for a free intro meeting. We’d love to see how we could improve your digital business strategy. We’ll probably save you a lot of money too.