Why centrally managing your digital workspace is the smart, safe and secure choice

23 Jun Why centrally managing your digital workspace is the smart, safe and secure choice

Digital workspaces such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace can be complicated to manage correctly.

Within each workspace, there are multiple elements above and beyond email systems and office software. For example, within Microsoft 365 there are OneDrive, Teams, Exchange, and SharePoint.

Accurately administering permissions and access whilst reacting to evolving requests and issues, can be risky without the right knowledge and expertise.

Businesses that run on an effectively administrated digital workspace are likely to be much more productive than a poorly managed one. There is also an inherent danger when some of the most valuable assets of your business – your digital workspace and all the data it holds – is in the hands of just one or a small team of internal individuals.

What does your digital workspace need to do? 

The optimum digital workspace needs to be fit for purpose for users. Your team needs to be able to access the systems they need from wherever they are, and not have access to the ones they don’t need.

The workspace needs to be operational as dictated by your internal policies and procedures to ensure is it safe, secure, and aligned to your corporate values and identity.

Whoever is managing the workspace also needs to be able to react and respond quickly and efficiently to issues, requests and threats as and when they arise. All of these are much easier to achieve when your digital workspace is centrally managed with the right expertise.

Why you need centralised, independent, and expert management 

Engaging an external specialised provider to centrally manage your digital workspace does not mean the role of your inhouse IT team or specialists is defunct. In fact, it enables them to operate within the boundaries of their specified roles but protects both them and the business by restricting the actions they can make.

For example, within Microsoft 365, there are multiple administrator levels, each with varying degrees of access and purpose, typically managed by one central Global Administrator with access rights superseding all others.

Where appropriate, ‘Helpdesk admin’ rights can be given to relevant individuals to assist colleagues with password reset requests, but more significant access is retained and managed centrally.

This removes any problems encountered when key members of staff are out of the office unwell or on vacation leaving issues unresolved or unprotected. It is also more future proof, removing the risk of abuse of power or malicious or unwitting damage by a disgruntled or offboarded employee.

With employees unwittingly often the weakest link in your IT security, it makes sense to shift the administrative access of your Microsoft 365 away from one or a handful of employees to be externally and centrally managed by specialised providers.

An external provider will typically have resources and expertise at its disposal which are out of the reach of many SMEs. Furthermore, your service delivery agreement is with a business, bound by codes of conduct and insurance, and free from any conflicting internal politics. This all results in more reassurance and significantly less risk than at the heed of a small proportion of your own team, no matter how capable or trustworthy.

Expertise you can trust 

Here at Transpeed, we can manage and administer all aspects of your digital workspace – whether it be Microsoft Office or Google Workspace – from our centralised portal. Once we know what you need and want from your systems, you can hand over administrative access and we can take care of the rest.

Centrally managing your digital environment with an expert external partner is the smart, safe and secure choice.

If you would like expert advice or guidance about centrally managing your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace environment or any of our other IT services, please get in touch, we’d love to chat.