Keeping Security and Compliance Top of Mind
Since 1987, FinPro has been a leader in providing advisory services to financial institutions of all sizes across the country. FinPro consultants help moderate over 100 board retreats every year, teach classes at Stonier Graduate School of Banking and the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado, and host 24 webinars (with over 2,500 attendees) each year.
FinPro provides data-driven guidance to every size bank – from de novo formation to enterprise level – to help them grow, remain compliant with regulations, manage risk, plan for long-term feasibility, and institute and maintain corporate governance.
Challenge
The FinPro team is comprised of many talented individuals who provide a diverse range of services and expertise to their customers. However, the team frequently had to divert resources away from their clients and towards the management of their IT infrastructure.
Like many modern organizations, FinPro was utilizing an Azure and Microsoft 365 environment which provided a secure way for them to manage customer data. However, they wanted assistance with the management of the environment so that they could ensure it had the most up-to-date patches and any system issues could be resolved without their direct intervention.
In addition to minimizing the resources required to manage their environment, the FinPro team recognized that – on a long enough timeline– every organization would be targeted for a data breach, so the company wanted to ensure that they weren’t missing any steps to maximize protection of their organization’s systems and their clients’ data.
Solutions
FinPro was introduced to Hammer Tech through the Hammer Dev team, with whom FinPro had partnered to streamline key processes and create a structure that could easily scale, leveraging Microsoft solutions to meet FinPro’s compliance and security needs.
The partnership began with an assessment of how FinPro was managing their IT needs and implementation of their Microsoft investments. Following that assessment, FinPro migrated management of their Microsoft Azure and 365 environments to the Hammer Tech team.
Following the audit and migration, FinPro worked with the Hammer Tech team to take their existing security to the next level and get more value out of their investments through increased utilization of the Microsoft cloud’s features and capabilities. The team began with core security elements such as layered Conditional Access and multi-factor authentication to provide identity and access management security, utilizing controls and safeguards like geofencing, trusted devices, risk-based policies, and break-glass accounts. More advanced security measures such as global edge application firewalls were implemented as needed throughout the cloud architecture in accordance with Microsoft’s best practices for security architecture and to help meet standards in the financial industry. FinPro also engaged the Hammer Tech team to help implement compliance measures including communication policies and data archiving and retention to meet federal and SEC requirements.
In addition to the improved security measures, FinPro also implemented a user training and adoption platform that integrates directly into the Microsoft 365 environment. Using this solution, FinPro and Weidenhammer developed a training program that includes regular productivity training courses to help FinPro’s users get more out of their applications, saving time and improving the employee experience. This same solution continues to be used on an ongoing basis to provide monthly security awareness training and to roll out more advanced training when new tools and applications are introduced.
Results
With a managed Azure and Microsoft 365 environment, FinPro’s team spends less time keeping the IT infrastructure going and more time serving clients. Additionally, the increased utilization of existing Azure and Microsoft 365 licenses ensured that FinPro benefited from the most up-to-date security protocols and hosting in a cloud environment.
Furthermore, with the guidance of the Hammer Tech and Hammer Dev teams, FinPro became significantly more flexible in its business model, making it more scalable and secure while also opening avenues of business that enabled them to serve a greater number of clients. By leveraging their partnership with Hammer Tech and Hammer Dev, FinPro is better positioned to thrive as they chart their course into the future.
Our partnership with Weidenhammer has enabled FinPro to focus on our clients more than ever. The Hammer Tech team has empowered us to worry less about the daily tasks of operating our technology and focus more on making an impact for our customers”
Bob Musso -External CTO
