Preface

Compliance is a requirement for any company regardless of its size and configuration. Being compliant will generate benefits for your company. Take your customer purchase, sales, and invoice data as an example. Regardless of where this data resides—in an Excel sheet or Customer Relationship Management system—if the server system this data is on is stolen because it was not protected, even by a simple lock, then your company has ended up having multiple problems, and you become non-compliant. In that case:

Being compliant will not only help you to save money in the long term and potentially keep your managers out of jail, it could also lead to competitive advantages.

In recent years, more and more companies have demanded certain certifications or adherence to standards from participants in a tender. So, being compliant with certain standards will provide you with a competitive advantage.

This book will start you on your journey to creating a compliance program and realizing the benefits of implementing this program using Microsoft Security Compliance Manager and the Microsoft System Centre family.

We will start with the basic recipes that you should have as the absolute minimum and, with each chapter, add greater complexity.