Customer stories
Mastering Data Security in a High-Stakes Financial Environment
Industry
Financial Services
Employees
200
Use Case
M&A and Data Retention
The challenge
Ellement’s business was deeply rooted in actuarial services and third-party administrative roles, which required a unique and sophisticated approach to managing vast amounts and types of sensitive data.
Because they were managing pension and financial information, Ellement faced a dual challenge: ensuring data integrity while managing risks associated with legacy systems often burdened with poor-quality data (the company often jokes that the one rule in the pension industry is that the data is usually poor quality).
The company’s growth through mergers and acquisitions only complicated its data landscape and introduced additional layers of complexity in data management and compliance.
With an evolving regulatory environment surrounding pension and financial data, their challenges were multiplying. The company needed to comply with stringent data protection regulations that varied by jurisdiction, which required robust systems capable of adapting to these requirements. The sheer volume of data combined with the sensitivity of the data meant that traditional methods of data management weren’t going to cut it.
As Ellement grew, the data amassed from different sources needed careful sorting, classification, and management to ensure its integrity, security, and availability. Their expanding operational scope and corresponding data types also exposed significant gaps in their data classification practices. The integration process often revealed the poor quality of the data received, which only exacerbated their need for a robust data security solution.
The solution
After contacting several data security vendors without success, Ellement turned to Concentric AI to overhaul their data management and security frameworks.
Concentric AI’s advanced data discovery and classification capabilities helped Ellement gain a comprehensive understanding of their data landscape. The company found Concentric AI’s ability to identify sensitive data across dispersed legacy systems incredibly helpful in streamlining data handling and reducing exposure to risks.
This level of visibility was crucial for Ellement in implementing more targeted security measures and improving their overall data framework. With Concentric AI’s ability to understand years, sometimes decades, old scanned images such as PDFs, the company was able to understand what data they actually have so they could implement a proper data retention policy.
Concentric AI’s was deployed across Ellement’s diverse data environments, from cloud storage to on-premises servers. The deployment was strategically planned to ensure minimal disruption to ongoing operations while maximizing data processing and analysis capabilities.
The solution’s scalability allowed Ellement to maintain security and compliance as their data volume and complexity grew.
“I’m able to point it at databases, at file servers, and it runs and it crunches and it gives me back a very good overview,” Joubert said. “It really allows me to start doing things like looking for files that have passwords in them or files that are shared with way too many people.”
From the customer
Results
Fast integration:
Concentric AI was seamlessly integrated into Ellement’s diverse data environments, including cloud and on-premises storage, effectively managing and securing a vast array of data files. The company gained a clear overview of its data landscape with comprehensive coverage.
Improvements in data security and governance:
Concentric AI provided better control over sensitive data, allowing Ellement to identify and manage data shared excessively or stored without adequate protections.
Advanced data management and retention:
Over and above identifying sensitive data, Concentric AI played a key role in helping Ellement establish effective data retention policies. By determining how and when data was accessed, the company could implement tailored data retention strategies, ensuring compliance and reducing data redundancy.
More efficiency, better compliance:
Ellement was able to automate and enhance their data classification and management processes, significantly reducing the effort required for manual data handling. This boost in operational efficiency was like adding multiple full time employees with expertise to the team. With Concentric AI’s robust data management framework, the company could keep up with compliance with relevant data protection regulations including SOC 2.
Managed customer support:
Concentric AI’s proactive customer support and proven expertise in data security empowered Ellement to approach complex data challenges with confidence. The ongoing partnership with Concentric AI’s team ensured that the company could leverage the solution’s full potential and adapt to new challenges as they arose.