Editor of the GoFAST Digital Workplace and Collaborative ECM-DMS solution
In a world where digitization is a sine qua non for the competitiveness of organizations, the need to review its working methods and tools is essential. Collaboration is one of the keys to taking advantage of data, company documents and employee skills. Of course, all this while guaranteeing the reliability and confidentiality of access and data.
To be effectively anchored in a digital transformation process, companies must equip themselves with effective collaborative digital workplaces. The benefits are numerous for users: fewer email exchanges, reduced document processing time, work on the move, process traceability, workflow automation, or even better data security.
There is no shortage of choice in the digital workplace platform market ! From American behemoths to start-ups, an anthology of features is available. But under what conditions? Lack of sovereignty and control of data, exorbitant prices, unavailable supports ...It is to overcome these weaknesses that CEO-Vision is investing heavily in R&D and relying on open source. Goals ? Strengthen business collaboration, develop a European ecosystem, benefit from the richness of open source communities and best support companies in their digital transformation.
The French company has the ambition to become a major player in digital transformation in Europe. With GoFAST, the publisher already offers a sovereign and open source alternative relevant to solutions from GAFAM and other large proprietary publishers.
Born in a Rhône-Alpine garage in 2011, CEO-Vision SAS noticed (long before COVID) that it was becoming impossible to work effectively with current tools (too many emails and attachments, file server mess, too many various and varied applications ...), while competition requires agility and efficiency, in a complex economic context which requires controlling IT costs and data security.
In 2013 and after 2 years of R&D, CEO-Vision launched GoFAST Digital Workplace: a unified Collaborative EDM platform, based on the best of Open Source technologies.
The primary objective is to put an end to information "silos", errors and wasted time in collaborative document management. An innovative "Document-Centric" concept: the "Document" is at the heart of collaborative work and more "alongside".
- 2011: Creation of CEO-Vision SAS by Christopher Potter, accompanied by Sylvain Jeandroz, the R&D Director who started as an intern
- 2013: Launch of GoFAST commercialization
- 2016: European public market of the Belgian Federal Agency Enabel and AIFE - Ministry of Finance, strategic references. Referencing at UGAP CSS (public purchasing center)
- 2017: Major version GoFAST 3.0 with more than 3500 man-days of R&D
- 2018: Launch of GoFAST Community for free download
- 2020: The European Agency EMCDDA (European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction) and AMRTP International Public Market (Malian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority), references that prove GoFAST's export capacity
- 2021: Major version GoFAST 4.0 with a new "look-and-feel"
The motto "Technology made Simple" illustrates the philosophy of CEO-Vision: no technology for technology, but technology at the service of users, for significant productivity gains.
The strength of the CEO-Vision teams is to understand the needs in order to provide the most relevant solutions. Each user deserves the greatest attention and through their feedback actively contributes to the evolution of the platform.
The publisher has a "pragmatic conviction" vis-à-vis the Open Source model, which is now no more than a "technology", but many solutions at the service of the businesses, with real added values: greater independence with regard to publishers and their pricing policies, better security thanks to the possibility of auditing the code and the responsiveness of communities, standards and technological sustainability, control of development costs, etc.
CEO-Vision is one of nearly 70% of French publishers to finance themselves (source Syntec Numérique). This self-financing is possible mainly thanks to its business-model, which is as disruptive vis-à-vis competitors as the technological concept of its GoFAST platform. This involves offering, as part of a subscription, services equivalent to a classic SaaS Cloud, while allowing client organizations to have their dedicated platform, either OnPremise (hosted by them) or with a sovereign hosting partner. .
In less than 2 years (2014-2015) CEO-Vision won its first public contracts and was included in the UGAP catalog in 2016 (public purchasing center in France). At the Salon des Maires 2017, GoFAST won the 2nd Innovation Prize, awarded in the Senate (France). With annual growth close to 50% per year for the past 7 years, nearly 80% of turnover is now generated by the public sector.
GoFAST gives Organizations and Companies the possibility of recovering their "Digital Sovereignty", the GoFAST solution is "Cloud Act Free" offering a very high level of data confidentiality.
The publisher aims to become a major player in Digital Transformation and the essential alternative to GAFAM solutions such as Google Workspace and Office365-SharePoint-Teams.
Open Source software edition
CEO-Vision's expertise is focused on Open-Source technologies carefully selected for their reliability and power. Technologies that are fully mastered by the development teams, including: Drupal (CMS Portal), Alfresco (Electronic Document Management), BonitaSoft (Workflows), OnlyOffice (Collaborative Office Suite), Element Matrix (Chat / Discussion Rooms), Jitsi.meet (webconference), Apache Solr (search engine), etc.
Faithful to its commitment as a trusted partner, CEO-Vision ensures the proper functioning of each of its clients' dedicated platforms. Monitoring carried out "hand in hand" with internal IT teams.
Data security
Among the most vulnerable systems, classic mail and the Windows file server are the targets of most ransomware, with catastrophic consequences: several weeks of downtime. These include Ryuk, Egregor, Ragnar Locker, Clop, Maze, Wanna Cry, Petya1, etc. Many communities have been affected in recent months, as well as hospitals, Dassault Aviation US, Sopra-Steria, Wagons-Lits, CMA-CGM, etc.
In the event of an attack, the entire file server is locked and a large ransom (sometimes several millions) is demanded to recover its data. According to ANSSI in October 2020, Ryuk is responsible for 75% of attacks on the health sector. Sometimes sensitive data is stolen and hackers threaten to disseminate it. Operators of the Ragnar Locker ransomware disclosed stolen data from the Dassault Falcon Jet aircraft manufacturer (an archive claimed to be 3.5 GB in size and named Falcon 6x project Archive.7z).
Data security depends both on technologies and the type and location of hosting, but also on good user practices.
The GoFAST concept takes into account these key factors for an optimal level of security:
- Access to the platform via the web browser, separated from the workstation, to significantly reduce the risk of contaminating the document base from a file that is present on the workstation.
- Document management by business managers is separate from system administration, so no user has access to the entire warehouse, also simplifying GDPR compliance..
- Ransomware encrypts files to block access, but because GoFAST automatically backs up each version, it is possible to recover previous unencrypted versions.
- Zero attachments: files are shared via secure and audited links.
- Authentication management is delegated to the internal directory (AD / LDAP) to comply with the client's password or SSO management policy.
- Open Source technology allowing the platform to be audited right down to the sources ("white box").
- The GoFAST offer includes a strict update policy, particularly with regard to "Hotfix" patches for potential exploitable flaws, with regular audits. This relieves CIOs of a very important job and avoids having vulnerable obsolete components ").
Digital transformation
Beyond the publishing profession, CEO-Vision created the "GoVision" Pole with two objectives: the success of the digital transformation of Organizations, and projects for the gradual exit of costly proprietary technologies.
CEO-Vision puts a lot of effort into supporting user change around GoFAST: needs studies, organizational assistance, process modeling, training, etc.
Change management plays a central role in the success of a project and providing good support to all employees without leaving them "by the wayside" is crucial. To be effective, CEO-Vision has established a methodology that is simple to roll out and consistent with the GoFAST platform.
The CEO-Vision team is made up of highly qualified talented professionals with rare human qualities:
- Involved in client-projects and "users-focus" to develop the GoFAST solution in the right direction.
- Extremely competent in the most advanced Open Source technologies, which allows winning strategic choices and a sustained pace of development.
- Polyvalent with varied responsibilities, allowing to understand the various trades and to work in good understanding.
- Committed: the key members of the team have contributed with passion to the development of the company for 10 years and the success of the GoFAST solution is at heart.
To allow organizations to test the GoFAST platform at no cost, in the context of their business issues, a functionally restricted version is available for free download: GoFAST Community Edition
In addition to CEO-Vision's customers, many organizations and companies around the world use the GoFAST Community solution.
All the users and developers of GoFAST constitute a community that can freely express themselves on the dedicated forums: https://community.ceo-vision.com
The free expression of the community is a source of ideas and remarks to guide the evolutions of GoFAST in "the right direction".
