There’s no question that the Box IPO has validated the market demand for simple ways to share and collaborate on content. Business users are adopting file share and sync platforms such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and others because they often find these tools more accessible and easier to use than those provided by their company for managing documents and other business information.
However, many companies do not regulate employee use of file sharing and sync apps. Unauthorized employee use of file sharing apps for storing and sharing sensitive documents can pose a serious security and compliance threat for companies because employees can share sensitive information with external parties, or store documents on their personal devices completely out of their organization’s control.
M-Files conducted a survey in 2014 revealing that nearly half (46%) of employees have stored confidential company information on their personal file sharing and sync apps. Furthermore, 70% of employees do not have or know of corporate file sharing policies. The survey results are featured in this infographic.
Enabling Easy File Sharing and Collaboration While Securing and Protecting Information Assets
As the popularity and adoption of file sharing and sync tools has grown, an increasing number of companies have become aware of the need to balance security and data protection against their employees need for a simple solution for sharing documents and collaborating with individuals and businesses outside of their organization.
The ‘Holy Grail’ of information management is to enable a more collaborative workplace with easy sharing capabilities that enable access to content from anywhere, at any time and on any device — while avoiding the security and compliance threats associated with using personal file sharing and sync tools.
The good news is that there are solutions available today that combine the functionality and benefits of an enterprise-class information management solution with the ease of use, transparency and collaboration benefits of file sharing and sync solutions.
Organizations should look for solutions that make it easy for employees to share information and collaborate with external parties, while also providing robust security features that ensure strict control over sensitive or confidential information assets. In addition, it’s important to make sure the solution can integrate with existing repositories and business systems, such as SharePoint, and CRM and ERP systems, to avoid creating yet another information silo that contains important or confidential information with little or no visibility from other key systems or processes.
For organizations in highly-regulated sectors where strict compliance mandates dictate the manner in which certain information must be stored, processed, tracked and archived, additional considerations must be taken into account. For example, look for support for robust access permissions, eSigning that supports industry regulations, such as FDA 21 CFR Part 11, as well as other capabilities that support compliance initiatives and information governance policies, such as event logging and audit trails.
About M-Files
M-Fil
es enterprise information management solutions are disrupting the ECM market by eliminating information silos and providing quick and easy access to the right content from any core business system and device. M-Files achieves higher levels of user adoption resulting in faster ROI with a uniquely intuitive approach to ECM that is based on managing information by “what” it is versus “where” it’s stored. With flexible on-premise, cloud and hybrid deployment options, M-Files places the power of ECM in the hands of the business user and reduces demands on IT by enabling those closest to the business need to access and control content based on their requirements.
We are a company grown out of one simple vision: that finding, sharing and tracking files and their various versions is a widespread business problem—and that solving this common problem would reap measurable productivity gains. Since our founding, we’ve opened offices and expanded our partner network worldwide, and our products are now available in 24 languages.
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