Sherpany
Transforming Meetings Into Value Creators

The wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed businesses to adopt new working practices rapidly, and at scale. As organisations across the world shifted from traditional, in-person operations to remote working, online meetings became mainstays. However, while remote and hybrid work practices came with untapped benefits, they also brought with them complications, driven largely by the increased data privacy and security risks. As a result, IT personnel that are tasked with navigating the data security of remote working channels are struggling to maintain the efficiency of remote and hybrid meetings. So how can an organisation ensure that their online meetings are highly productive and efficient without comprising security?

Sherpany, a Switzerland-based technology scale-up, answers this question with its state-of-the-art meeting management software that helps clients streamline decision-making, shorten the meeting organisation process, and securely access everything they need for their meetings. “Our meeting management solution not only enables organisations to achieve efficiency in the way that their meetings are run, but also gives them peace of mind in the way that their sensitive data is stored, shared, and accessed,” says Mathias Brenner, CTO and Co-Founder at Sherpany. The company prides itself in its ability to enable productive and efficient meeting management at C-level and Board level, regardless of whether leaders of organisations are working from the office, or from elsewhere. Sherpany’s meeting management software is designed to guarantee meeting security. “Our commitment to being at the forefront of security is demonstrated by the resources (in terms of people, time, and knowledge) that we put into the development of a security mind-set across our workforce and solutions,” states Brenner. The company has a set process where at least two engineers review every line of code, vulnerability scanning tools such as Sonarcloud, a set of other manual and automated quality gates, before it is intensively tested in staging to, ultimately, reach production. To safeguard client data, Sherpany’s software leverages end-to-end encryption methods and the solution boasts two-factor authentication, which ensures risk-free access to critical documents for authorised users only. The platform is also run on a georedundant setup with independent Swiss-based data centres, which assures unparalleled availability along with fool proof protection from malicious entities.

With respect to certifications, Sherpany’s software is ISO 27001 and ISAE 3000 certified, and is fully compliant with the EU’s GDPR security standards.

Further discussing his company’s core competencies, Brenner mentions how Sherpany emphasises the importance of regularly training its teams, and educating them on the latest security practices to help them identify and mitigate security risks. “Our social engineering tests simulate real attack scenarios, and we conduct these with our whole company multiple times a year,” adds Brenner. In fact, the company simultaneously collaborates with multiple penetration testing companies that specialise in infrastructure, web applications, and native apps. Additionally, to highlight its prowess in safeguarding sensitive information, Sherpany allows potential and existing clientele to leverage their preferred pen-testers’ breaching techniques, and encourages them to evaluate the company’s data security and privacy measures through continual attempts. “On average, we have 2 penetration tests per month”, says Brenner.

With such unparalleled capabilities, Sherpany has ignited several success stories since its inception in 2010. In one instance, the company assisted W&R Barnett, one of the UK’s largest family-owned businesses, to bring structure, security, and efficiency into their leadership meetings. As highly diversified business, with subsidiaries spread over numerous countries, time zones, and industries, the customer was struggling to manage their evolving digital footprint. This led W&R Barnett to consider digitalising their meeting processes as a means of digitally managing meeting materials, enabling directors to search documents and recall outcomes from previous meetings, and streamlining meeting organisation processes. Sherpany won the contract due to its productivity enhancement and data security prowess, and its Customer Success team subsequently collaborated with leaders to ensure that a seamless transition to digital meetings was undertaken. For security, Sherpany gave W&R Barnett the confidence that their vital management information is kept confidential and secure, and is only shared with the appropriate individuals. “The ability to set different levels of security for different users was important in our decision to choose Sherpany. This feature allows us to retain control over our management information and share only the relevant parts with those who are outside of our company.” said William Barnett, CEO at W&R Barnett.

Similarly, Sherpany has aided numerous other organisations to enhance the security and productivity of their remote and hybrid meetings with its innovative meeting management software. Today, the company is continually working toward boosting the data privacy and security capabilities of its solution. A prime example of this is Sherpany’s recently launched bug bounty program, which the company is running, in collaboration with ethical hackers from Bug Bounty Switzerland, to test their data security. So far, the program involved over 110 hackers trying to gain access to sensitive information with high-value cash prizes for ones who were successful. None have succeeded, however, and this fact further validates Sherpany’s commitment to security. To conclude, Brenner reiterates the ethos of his company, “IT security threats never sleep and continue to evolve. Therefore, at Sherpany, we continually invest, test, and adapt to meet the challenges of tomorrow and offer our customers and employees a secure IT infrastructure.”