GOOGLE Message SECURITY CASE STUDY
Growing regional bank in Midwest improves responsiveness with Google Message Security
BUSINESS
Company: United Bank and Trust Location: Tecumseh, Michigan Industry: Finance Challenges: As a regional bank with 275 employees, customer responsiveness is a key to United Bank and Trust’s success. But with many employees receiving more than 100 spam emails each day – about 80 percent of daily volume – the bank’s trademark responsiveness and its ability to generate revenue – was at risk. Results: Google Message Security eliminated the volumes of spam users at United Bank and Trust received each day, restoring productivity in the firm. As a hosted solution, Google Message Security has offloaded the bank’s IT staff from managing each user’s individual spam settings and has enabled them to spend more time on revenue-generating activities.
“What we really loved – and still love – about Google Message Security is that it provides a portal for users to manage spam on their own. That, and the fact that it’s a hosted solution, made us say ‘Sold!” Arell Chapman Assistant Vice President of Network Administration
Challenge Based in southeast Michigan, United Bank and Trust (www.ubat.com) has 18 regional offices and nearly 275 employees. As a small but growing financial institution, United needs to ensure that its employees – bank tellers, loan officers, and regional managers – can respond quickly to customer inquiries and requests in order to secure the best possible interest rates and sell the right financial product to meet their needs. But in early 2002, bank employee productivity and customer responsiveness slowed to a crawl. Why? “Because we were just getting hammered with spam. Many of our users were receiving more than 120 spam emails a day, which was about 80 percent of their total inbox,” recalls Arell Chapman, assistant vice president of network administration for United Bancorp, Inc., the bank’s parent company. “We didn’t have a spam solution and we realized we needed to find one. Based on the size of our IT organization – there are just seven of us – we wanted to outsource that, if at all possible, so we started looking at various solutions.” Solution Chapman asked one of his IT employees to research the bank’s options. She came back with a short list of on-premise and hosted solutions, which Chapman immediately narrowed to just the hosted solutions. “Some of the on-premise solutions were very complicated and there was no way we wanted to – or could – manage them internally,” remembers Chapman. “When we looked at the Google solution, which was hosted, easy to manage, and gave our users tremendous flexibility, we knew right away it was the right solution for us.” One of the primary selling points of Google Message Security, powered by Postini, for Chapman and his team was the user portal. “As an IT administrator, I did not want to have to manage every user’s particular spam settings. What we really loved – and still love – about Google Message Security is that it provides a portal for users to manage spam on their own. That, and the fact that it’s a hosted solution, made us say ‘Sold!’” Chapman says.
“I can’t imagine not using Google Message Security. I have had vendors approach us about purchasing an on-site solution and when they find out we’re using Google they say, ‘Oh, you’re probably not interested in switching.’ And my response always is, ‘You’re right!’” Benefits Immediately after turning on the Google Message Security service, United noticed a significant drop in the amount of spam hitting users’ inboxes. Says Chapman, “We saw a huge difference in our inboxes right away. Not only did Google Message Security help reduce the amount of spam email reaching legitimate users’ individual inboxes, but it also caught the general spam email that was being directed at our
GOOGLE Message SECURITY CASE STUDY
ABOUT Google Apps Security and Compliance Google Apps security and compliance products, powered by Postini, are available to businesses and organizations who want to make their existing email infrastructures more secure, compliant, and productive. The message security products protect you from spam and messaging threats The compliance products enable you to enforce message policy and content management, archive messages with discovery services, as well as secure your web browsing and encrypt your sensitive email. As a service, there is nothing to install or maintain, so you can start small and implement additional services as your requirements grow. For more information, visit www.google.com/a/security
server and not at any particular user – the kind of spam that spammers were throwing into any email box they thought might exist.” According to Chapman, the bank also saw a reduction in the number of viruses entering its network, thanks to Google Message Security. “We took anything that Google Message Security identified as a virus and we blackholed it. We trust Google Message Security enough that if it identifies something as a virus, we want the solution to kill the virus. We don’t even let our users see the viruses they receive, so that risk is eliminated immediately,” says Chapman. Results Recently, a regional internet outage threatened to cut off the company’s email delivery, which could have had a negative impact on revenues and customer satisfaction. But Google Message Security’s spooling feature immediately switched on. Says Chapman, “I called Google to check on our email and the rep said that spooling had already kicked in, so our email wouldn’t be lost. Without being asked, she increased our spooling limit to a full gigabyte, which was a load off my mind during a very stressful situation. The spooling feature has saved our bacon a few times now.” Chapman is so pleased with Google Message Security that he is currently adding the encryption option to secure sensitive email communications between the bank and its customers and partners. “As a financial institution,” says Chapman, “we often need to transfer confidential customer information to customers and partners in order to complete loan and mortgage documents, transfer balances between accounts, and submit credit card applications. Now, every email we send marked ‘confidential’ will be encrypted and will keep the information safe from prying eyes.” Through its branded, customized portal, United can also send confidential files to its legal team, board members, and other trusted partners for review. “Thanks to Google, we can customize the portal with our logo so that when our partners retrieve encrypted emails from the portal, they know it’s legitimate and they’re dealing with the bank, not some other third party.” Chapman says he’s also evaluating the Google archiving option, once again extending the Google Message Security solution. Says Chapman, “I can’t imagine not using Google Message Security. I have had vendors approach us about purchasing an on-site solution and when they find out we’re using Google they say, ‘Oh, you’re probably not interested in switching.’ And my response always is, ‘You’re right!’”
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