GRANO – Improving competitive edge with secure cloud services

Grano is a versatile expert of content services and it has quickly become the market leader in creative design, printing technology, and content design. Grano produces marketing and communication solutions to promote its clients’ sales, brand, and result in both digital and print channels. Grano serves its customers in 27 locations and it is headquartered in Helsinki. The company has approximately 1,100 employees and its revenue is over EUR 140 million.

SokoPro – decades of success in cloud services

Grano is a forerunner in the digitization of print and content services. One of Grano’s success stories is SokoPro – a cloud service for data and file management, sharing, and archiving. SokoPro’s origins date back to 1993 when there was a need to facilitate the transfer and management of large print files.

Sending and receiving large image files is an important part of everyday work — especially in the building sector which welcomed SokoPro with open arms. The introduction of SokoPro has speeded up several construction projects in Finland. For example, the massive data of the mall and transport hub Tripla constructed in Helsinki is managed with SokoPro software.

Faster network connections and new technology have made information security, too, a hot topic for SokoPro. SokoPro was the first Finnish project bank to be granted Nixu Corporation's information security certificate in 2012.

Increasing user traffic set the standard higher

Grano wanted to maintain their high level of service, which meant that continuous software development was necessary. The company wanted to offer safe and certified services. As a result, Nixu started to provide information security consulting and assessments for Grano on a regular basis.

In 2016, the two parties decided to take their partnership to a new level. Nixu’s Security Engineering team is a continuous and proactive information security service that helps Grano to identify the risks and threats connected to its services and to set their information security to the appropriate level.

The cooperation has increased the customers’ trust in Grano’s services, and the number of users has increased as well. Today, SokoPro has approximately 90,000 users, and 17,000 users log in to the service every day. By investing in information security as a service, Grano has succeeded in reducing general costs compared to the non-recurring project model.

Customers have become aware of information security matters

The need to increase the role of information security was brought up by the customers.

“Grano has a very long history in working with customers who require that we and our employees undergo various types of security audits related to print products. In terms of digital products, the number of certification schemes is constantly increasing,” says SokoPro Development Manager Fernando Korpi from Grano.

“Audits and reviews begin with the basics, such as password handling, related requirements and how passwords should be sent to new users. The information security work conducted as part of software development examines the service ‘under the hood’. It takes more than simple ‘band-aid’ solutions to pass the audit,” says Korpi.

Partnered with the leading provider of cybersecurity services in the Nordic region, SokoPro’s developers can carry on concentrating on their core expertise – providing top-level content services.

“Information security has become a part of our everyday work and it is an important competitive asset for us,” says Korpi.

Further information: https://www.sokopro.com/en/