Author: Spanish Chamber

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER VECTOR ITC

Nowadays, telework is more present than ever in the life of the Spanish people due to the state of alarm under which the country is. From Vector ITC they raise the most common scenarios where problems could occur during this period of remote work and recommend key actions to help companies to protect their data and minimize the risk related to their digital security.

In recent weeks, many organizations have implemented remote working among their employees to be able to continue with their activities. Some already had telework policies in place and have experienced fewer difficulties in moving to this model. However, most will discover obstacles during implementation as they have not had the time to prepare.

Two of the biggest contingencies in a scenario with a large number of remote connections is the overloading of the internal network and the need to ensure that all computers can connect to access the tools needed for their day-to-day work. This happens because nowadays most companies need to have their own internal network where to execute certain processes. If these scenarios were to occur, they would put the thousands of data stored at risk.

So how do you protect your organization’s data during this period of teleworking? Vector ITC recommends the following preventive keys in cyber security:

Determine what data is stored: It is essential to audit all data, identify what is in the public domain and what is personal or key business data.

Use multiple authentication methods: Passwords alone are not sufficient in many cases, so it is increasingly popular to use multiple factors, such as sending a code via SMS or biometrics for facial or fingerprint recognition.

Enable the HTTPS protocol: The SSL/TLS certificate guarantees that the data transmitted between the browser and the server are encrypted, protecting them from possible intrusions by third parties.

Use strong and unique passwords: If the user uses the same password for all his accounts, the subtraction of this one in a single environment allows the access to the business platforms to which the employee has access. It is advisable to use a password manager, which automatically generates secure passwords and stores them to prevent them from being forgotten.

Keep software updated: Development companies try to detect all possible vulnerabilities in their programs, and create patches that solve them as soon as possible before they are exploited by cyber criminals.

Backing up: Many cyber attacks aim to steal or destroy data, which can result in millions of dollars in financial loss to an organization. It is essential that all sensitive data is backed up regularly and stored in secure environments, physically and virtually separate from the computers involved in day-to-day operations.

Establish a policy of using your own devices: Training employees to access the business environment from their mobile phones or tablets, and designing an appropriate policy for the protection of these devices are essential measures.

Enable secure email communications: To prevent data disclosure and phishing attacks, it is important to use tools to encrypt messages in transit and verify their origin.

Simulate phishing attacks: Many organisations run simulation tests to check employee alertness, and detect staff training needs.

Internal threat analysis: This type of study reveals threats to the IT infrastructure from within the company.

Create rapid response guidelines: This is about preparing to respond quickly to a cyber attack. The plan must be known by the whole organization, and a person responsible for its execution must be appointed.

Take out cyber insurance: The material and reputational losses that can be caused by a cyber attack are of immense value. It is essential for organizations to secure their infrastructure, databases and digital identity.

Segmenting the network: It is necessary to prevent the entire computer network from being accessible from the same point. It is necessary to separate the infrastructures physically, and above all at the level of network architecture, to divide the systems according to their importance and to apply adapted security measures.

Monitoring the network equipment: it is very important to do it in a centralized way, enabling logs in all the equipment.

Securely delete information: When files or data are deleted from a computer, their trail remains on the hard disk, making them recoverable. This entails significant dangers in the face of possible cyber attacks, so it is advisable to use specific data erasure tools, which overwrite the memory fragment with random chains.

“Data storage, especially of those that are classified as confidential, is often one of the most attractive targets for cyber attacks. Companies must ensure that their data repositories, whether on physical or virtual servers, have the necessary security measures in place to prevent theft, kidnapping or even destruction of the information,” says Rafael Conde del Pozo, Digital & Innovation Director of Vector ITC.

Vector ITC has a great experience in the design and development of solutions and services of Cybersecurity fully adaptable to each type of company. In addition, it has comprehensive solutions for the analysis of large volumes of data, essential for the efficiency of processes, improved decision-making and cost reduction.

For more information, consult and download our whitepaper about cybersecurity here (content in Spanish).

About Vector ITC

Vector ITC is an international digital and technology group. Founded in 2002 and consolidated as Vector ITC in 2014, it has more than 2,500 professionals who offer services in Spain (Madrid, Coruña, Albacete, Córdoba, Segovia, Palma de Mallorca and Ávila) and internationally at locations in Peru, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, USA, Costa Rica, Paraguay, United Kingdom and Germany.

In 2019 Softtek enters the share capital of Vector ITC acquiring 75%

Vector designs and develops initiatives based on cutting-edge technology to drive digital change and generate the greatest value for companies, sectors of the economy and society. Its disruptive DNA coupled with its technical, business and sector experience, helps companies in their technological challenges and strategies, developing innovative projects, implementing exclusive digital products and solutions, and always based on a culture focused on innovation and new digital age.

Also part of Vector ITC: Keyland, specialist in the implementation of technology for the industry; Management Consulting, focused on strategic consulting services; Ágora, experts in technological solutions for the supply chain; and La Moderna, a marketing and communication agency.

 www.vectoritcgroup.com

LinkedIn: @Vector-itc

En esta nueva edición de TradeTips, abordamos el tema relativo a la preparación de Ferias en el Reino Unido, mencionando algunos de los errores observados en empresas españolas y dando algunos consejos sobre los elementos a tener en cuenta.

Para más información no dudes en contactar a nuestro equipo enviando un email a info@spanishchamber.co.uk con el asunto Trade tips mayo.

 

This new TradeTip edition will explain some of the existing problems when participating in an exhibition in Spain and the UK, mentioning some of the most common errors and giving some advice on how to avoid them.

For more information, please, do not hesitate to contact us by sending an email to info@spanishchamber.co.uk mentioning TradeTips May 2020 in the subject.

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER TAILORED LIVING INTERIORS

Right now there is no single place more important than your home. Within these walls we must work, teach our children, exercise, feed, entertain ourselves and then feel relaxed enough to fall asleep at night. Only to do the same again the next day. How we conceptualise our personal space is changing with the evolving methods of meeting our daily needs solely within the home. No wonder many people out there are re-considering how they use their space and how to make the existing space work better for themselves.

It is a perfect time to make space for new designs within your home. Are there areas in your home that no longer serve you or don’t offer the functionality that you need? Do you have unused garden space that you could convert into an extension? Do you need to set up a smart corner for your work video calls? Is it a home bar that you are missing to unwind in the evenings? Or extra kitchen space to make easier cooking 3 times a day?

Once you define your wish list of your perfect lockdown home, it’s time to consider if you do have the time and knowledge to do it alone or should you need help from the professionals. We caught up with Gloria Sanchez from Tailored Living Interiors ( www.tailored-living.co.uk) to find out how you might benefit from hiring an interior designer to help you achieve your dream home.

Interior design is a skill and an art. Hiring an interior designer is always the right decision when you have invested or are about to invest some money into your property. An interior designer will ensure that the final result is not only beautiful to look at but also functional. At Tailored Living Interiors we like to take this statement a step further and create interiors that are a reflection of your personality and style, making it work for the way you live your life. A good designer will bring a set of trained eyes to any project and will notice things that are often missed, as a result of years of experience together with an artistic eye.

Here we summarise the principal benefits you will accrue when appointing an interior designer for your project:

1. Financial savings

In the long term an interior designer will SAVE YOU MONEY in more ways than one;– Hiring a designer will save you money by helping you avoid making expensive mistakes and recommending correct materials for the project. Have you ever walked into a friend’s home and realised that some items of furniture were not the right size or shape for the room? Or have you ever painted a wall to realise that it was not the right colour and had to do it again? Or bought an item of furniture that looked great at the showroom but didn’t look so good at home and you can not quite understand why?

– A designer can ultimately make you money by enhancing the value of your number one asset – your home.  Take any three similar properties on a given street or location; the one that has been interior designed will always command a premium in price. In our own experience, our client in Dulwich had the property valued before and after the complete home renovation took place. Price guidance doubled post renovation.

– A designer can save you money by closely monitoring your budget. The designer will allocate a percentage of the budget to various elements of your project, helping you see what you can afford (and are willing) to spend on each area of redecoration. If you want to have very elaborate curtains it might mean you’ll need to reduce your budget for floor covering. All these adjustments are made through the design process and always before the actual job begins. At Tailored Living, we have an excellent track record at achieving our client’s vision with the agreed budget.

-Interior Designers also understand the lead times required for decisions and can make sure items are on site when required, saving the client money on having to bring trades people back in to fit that late tile or sink, or whatever.

2. Enriched environment

A good interior designer will ENRICH YOUR LIFE by improving your environment.

– When people think about health and well-being they generally think about diet and activity levels. However, the environment they choose to situate themselves will affect their emotional state of mind in both a negative and positive manner. For example, a designer will know which colour to use to aid calm and repose within a bedroom or how the lack of light in a room can have a negative effect on our emotional state of mind. Lighting can play a vital role when it comes to enhancing interior ambiances and at Tailored Living, we have quite a few lighting tricks up our sleeves.

3. Time saving

An interior designer will also SAVE YOU TIME.

All interior designers have a little black book of exclusives contacts and they will know where to go to get the most skilled craftmanship.
The designer will also manage and co-ordinate the relations between builders and contractors using drawings and other tools at their disposal to ensure all parts involved fully understand the intricacies of your project, ultimately minimising or eliminating any potential mistakes or pitfalls.

4. Reducing Stress

An interior designer will REDUCE STRESS in your life.

A designer can speak to the trades people and suppliers in their “language” and make sure everyone is on the same page.  They will have an extensive network and range of resources that they can tap into and will able to provide appropriate solutions when those unforeseen problems do arise. Clearly this minimises any stress for the homeowner.  The designer will also have experience of working with the trades that they recommend so that you can be confident in the quality of the trade person’s work and will not be wasting your money by having to re-do any sub-standard work.

Great spaces don’t happen by chance, they are the result of professionals working, planning, sourcing and co-ordinating for hours, weeks and months before installation even starts to take place.

 

 

 

 

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER DIVERSITAS INSTITUTE

Gender diversity, inclusion and equality in the workplace matter and in these unforeseen and challenging times are more relevant than ever.

It is still too early to measure the real impact this crisis is having on the challenges that women face in the workplace. The economic consequences for women will probably be more severe than for men. In addition to this, we cannot forget the social aspect of this crisis. There is an indirect impact towards women in terms of violence and domestic abuse as we have seen a spike in domestic violence. According to the charity Refuge, since the lockdown, The National Domestic Abuse helpline has seen a 25% increase in calls and online requests for help.

We are in a health crisis that affects both women and men but despite women representing 50% of the population they are still invisible. As Caroline Criado Pérez points out in her book Invisible Women. Exposing data bias in a world designed for men, there is a gender data gap. Particularly, and according to Global Health 50/50, the UK hasn’t yet reported sex-disaggregated data related with the coronavirus pandemic. This fact is quite surprising because the effects and levels of risk of exposure to the virus are different between men and women.

Additionally, this crisis has unearthed and accentuated the economic and social issues that women are currently facing. Women’s stereotypical role as caregivers is now more visible. Women are taking care of the family inside the house while also taking care of the society outside.

On the one hand, women traditionally spend more time doing unpaid work (family and household care). Before the crisis, and according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), women spend on average 4 hours and 25 minutes per day doing unpaid care work while men only 1 hour and 23 minutes per day. This has been emphasized due to the present lockdown. Now we are witnessing the unprecedented situation where men and women are sharing the house as a workspace. There still are no studies about how men and women are distributing their time between the working paid and unpaid hours. It will be interesting to see the impact of this crisis in the amount of hours dedicated by both genders to the family care and household tasks. Let’s hope this new situation could lead to an increase of men’s awareness and empathy for domestic and care work.

On the other hand, women are the majority in the front line sectors of this crisis. In the UK’s case, according to the economics think tank Autonomy’s study The Jobs at Risk Index (JARI) more women than men work in the frontline sectors with a higher risk of exposure to COVID-19. Actually, 77% of the “high risk” workforce are women. Also, women are more likely to work in low paid jobs with a higher risk of exposure to coronavirus. In fact, 98% of workers in high risk jobs that are being paid poverty wages (£335/week) are women. Furthermore, and what is more striking, in a great number of higher risk occupations where women are majority, there is still a gender pay gap.

In conclusion, to be able to overcome this current crisis, organisations will have to be much more innovative and creative in order to find solutions and put solid plans in action. There is a business case for gender diversity and a positive correlation between gender diversity within companies and innovation. Therefore it seems absolutely essential to involve women in the management, decision-making, and outcomes of this crisis.

In that sense, from diversitas institute we strongly believe that this is not just the right thing to do but the smart thing to do and that is why we encourage organisations to work towards gender diversity.

BLOG POST BY OUR MEMBER FASTRACKTOREFOCUS COACHING

While you’re stressing out about whether your remote is working — Why hasn’t she sent an update? Why isn’t she on chat? —your remote could be stressing out about whether you trust that she’s working. And ironically, these doubts could be taking up precious time and mental space for both of you.

Instead of letting your worry distract you and potentially harm your relationship with your direct report, or even her performance, take action.

What could be going on?

You’re falling prey to unproven fears because you can’t see your remote working, are new to managing remotes, or have been burned by remotes in the past.

The person is, in fact, getting plenty done but not updating you to the extent that you want.

Poor communication tools (or poor use of them) is making it hard for you to keep tabs on the person’s output.

You haven’t provided the person with enough guidance — maybe because it’s hard to do so over chat or video — resulting in work that’s incomplete or disappointing.

The person really isn’t working enough or to a high enough standard.

How to handle it:

1. Focus on what your remote has accomplished, not on whether you can see him or her accomplishing it.

Remote team members force managers to confront the extent to which they’ve been letting sheer face time bias their views of a direct report’s productivity. Seeing a co-located direct report work late or through lunch, for example, doesn’t actually say much about her efficiency. Yet it could lead you to think she’s getting more done than a remote team member — someone whose effort isn’t visible to you.

To fight this potential bias, make a list of what your remote has accomplished in the last month or quarter. Don’t rely on your memory, which is prone to highlight and corroborate your fears. Instead, objectively assemble the facts: Go back to old emails, lists of goals from planning meetings and performance reviews, and task updates in project management tools.

If you do uncover evidence of underperformance, you’ll need to address the cause, whether it’s a motivation issue or skill gap.

2. Take steps to build trust and rapport with your remote direct report.

If you don’t trust your remote, it’s all too easy to use the physical distance as an excuse to disengage with the person. Maybe you delegate fewer assignments, check in less frequently, or hold off on providing tough feedback or development opportunities.

To build or rebuild trust with your remote, try:

Getting to know your remote better. Maybe you reserve the first 5 minutes of every 1-on-1 for informal chatting and check in on how being remote is working out for the person: “How are you handling the lack of separation between home and work? Do you have something that helps you decompress?”

Asking your remote for feedback on what you could do better as a manager. When you ask your remote in a genuine way, it sends a signal that you value her opinion

3. Seek and apply insights from peer managers who have remote team members.

Every organization has its own culture around remote work. To better navigate yours, turn to the knowledge bank that’s already all around you: your peers.

Try out what seems relevant to your situation and reinforce effective management practices across your organization.

4. Clarify and align your performance expectations with your remote.

What if your remote thinks his or her work is exactly what you’re looking for — when it’s not? This is more common than you might think.

The problem often lies in how you’ve set and enforced (or failed to set and enforce) performance expectations, which can be especially tricky with remotes.

In addition to going over instructions carefully with your remote, try:

Using visual aids. Think slide decks, images, mock-ups, and spreadsheets — anything to help direct reports literally see what you mean when you’re giving instructions.

Probing for input and understanding. This is especially important during chat or phone conversations. Try asking questions like, “Does this approach feel doable to you, given what I’m asking for and your other responsibilities?” or “What do you think will be most challenging about this project?”

Following up. Since remotes can’t tap you on the shoulder for a quick reminder, be sure to send a written recap of what you both discussed, both so your remote has an opportunity to clear up misunderstandings and so you have a written record you can refer to in the future to gauge progress.

To set and uphold expectations around how, and how often, your remote provides progress reports, consider:

The frequency and level of detail you want in 1-on-1 updates. Depending on your situation, you could ask for a status update each morning, or weekly, or whenever your remote hits a milestone in the work. It could be a brief email or call with highlights, or an in-depth report.

5. Make check-ins more interactive — for example, have your remote screen-share work.

Maybe you need to see a remote’s work, not just hear about it, to take the guesswork out of what the person is getting done. And when you visually review work together during a check-in, you create the opportunity for a back-and-forth discussion that can be used for feedback, coaching, and development. Screen-sharing could also circumvent cultural or language barriers. There’s less to interpret if you’re both looking at the same thing, versus inferring progress from tone and your or your remote’s understanding of a second language.

If you’ll need time to review the work before the check-in, be sure you give your remote enough advance notice.

And my last tip that is THE ONE thing that changes everything is the trust.

In this time of change, crisis and uncertainty, the greatest assets and security any leader has in their credibility. The greatest currency they have is the trust people have in them.

Trust in an accelerator, so if you have to focus on anything it is going to be on trust.

We will be talking more about How To Achieve Results In Unpredictable Times during our webinar on April 21st. SECURE YOUR SPACE HERE

We Are Here To Help

For more information about  Your Member’s Discount for Corporate & Executive Coaching and workshops please contact me at fastracktorefocus@fastracktorefocus.com or BOOK HERE

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The Spanish Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom is aware of the existing difficulties, problems, risks and other unknown elements to be considered when trading with other countries, including Spain. That is why, the Foreign Trade department presents this new initiative to help your company to identify the main elements and problems in this country. A short video that will explain a concrete topic each time in order to increase your knowledge of the market.

On this occasion we focus on frauds in which certain individuals pretend to be a real Company and confirm an order that is not paid afterwards, being a problem that is affecting both British and Spanish companies. We will analyse some elements to be considered and give some recommendations to identify them.

This video is divided in 3 main sections,

• Explanation of the problem
• Main affected industries
• Recommendations

 

 

 

 

For more information, please, do not hesitate to contact our team by sending an email to info@spanishchamber.co.uk and mentioning TradeTip april 2020 as a reference.

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Desde la Cámara de Comercio de España en el Reino Unido, somos conscientes de la existencia de problemas, riesgos, elementos desconocidos, entre otros factores, a la hora de abordar el mercado británico. Es por eso, que desde el departamento de Comercio Exterior lanzamos esta nueva iniciativa en la que identificamos los principales elementos y/o problemas de interés para las empresas interesadas en este país: un breve video explicativo que permita conocer obstáculos y oportunidades, con el único objetivo de permitir un mayor conocimiento.

En esta ocasión, abordamos la problemática de los fraudes vinculados con impagos y la suplantación de identidad de empresas reales para la realización de un pedido a empresas españolas. Analizaremos algunos elementos a tener en cuenta y ofreceremos algunas recomendaciones.

El vídeo se divide en 3 secciones principales:

• Explicación de la problemática
• Principales sectores afectados
• Recomendaciones

 

 

 

 

Para más información no dudes en contactar a nuestro equipo enviando un email a info@spanishchamber.co.uk con el asunto Trade tips Abril.

 

 

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