The seismic shift in communications habits caused by the pandemic has left regulated businesses needing to accommodate new platforms while also complying with any applicable regulations. This is particularly challenging now as the return-to-office movement has seen growing numbers of workers return to the office, yet there is still a need to participate and collaborate digitally in activities with remote workers and customers. Compliance needs to be assured across all environments and continue uninterrupted, even as the means and methods of communication change.
“Zoom went from infancy to adulthood overnight at the start of the pandemic and came out of it with a rich portfolio of offerings but, when you think about compliance, the use cases are blurring,” explains Blane Warrene, Vice President of Product Management at Smarsh.
“You might start a call in the office on your Zoom account and then leave the office on your mobile phone but still be on the Zoom call. Our job is to make sure that’s possible for a regulated business.”
Warrene says this is a critical priority for regulated businesses in the US, Europe, and the UK, but globally, regulators are placing greater burdens on businesses. “Regulators want to know if you are certain that you have a policy and technology in place that enables employees to go where they want,” he adds.
To support this, synchronisation is essential to help ensure changes by users don’t impact the audit trail of compliance. “Zoom has done a great job,” confirms Warrene. “The most important thing was the introduction of Zoom Phone, and Zoom became obsessive about synchronisation. This creates a familiar experience for users, when technology at work behaves in the same way as consumer technology, it becomes invisible and non-intrusive to the users.”
To help enable compliance across platforms such as Zoom Phone, Smarsh spends significant time aligning with Zoom’s roadmap, so it can build the compliance utilities and connections that businesses need. This also involves influencing the roadmaps of Zoom and other businesses, based on the building blocks for compliance that Smarsh can help provide, so businesses can readily add compliance capabilities.
