Top Trends in Enterprise File Sharing Chandana Gopal
Research Manager
Business File Sharing
Agenda
Growth in file sharing
Challenges with sharing in a business context
Definition of business file sharing
A real-world use case
Trends in Business File Sharing
Recommendations
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A viral growth pattern
to adoption
File Sharing has
followed the adoption
pattern of popular
social networking sites
600
60
200
50
900
100
462
95
1100
200
555
170
Facebook LinkedIn Twitter File Sharing
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Files Are Everywhere In Our Lives
We share moments of our lives with our family and friends with files
Consumers use services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, and iCloud to store personal files
People have used personal file sharing services to share large files
• A local dance studio uses Dropbox to send
music home for students to practice
• Demo recordings are accessed by clients via Box
• Homework assignments are all done on Google Drive.
Files hold the content we communicate to market, sell, explain and support customers
4
Files Are the Context of My Digital Life
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Friends Family
Colleagues Acquaintances
I Control Access To My Files Across
These Different Groups
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Friends Family
Colleagues Acquaintances
Similarly, In A Business Context…I
Need To Control My Files
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Colleagues
Contractors
Customers
Partners
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At work we live at two extremes
that are hopelessly obsolete
We cannot share – or we share
without any control
Modern business requires us to
control how we share
In Most Businesses, there Is a HUGE
Disconnect Between…
…What I need to do…
Share my work with my business network
• Contractors
• Customers
• Partners
• Business service providers
Work on large files
• Video
• Large #s of files
• File packages & folders
Share anywhere using mobile
Control what I share and who I share with
… And what I am forced to do
Sharing is an “employee” thing or a VPN thing
Other than that, sharing is using email, which isn’t sharing at all!
Files larger than my email system accepts have to be sent via • USB drive
• Consumer service
• FTP
No control over sharing privileges, which means NO SECURITY
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Business File Sharing Cloud Software
Definition
Cloud software that allows:
Sharing across multiple devices owned by the
same person
Sharing across multiple people in virtual teams
Users to have administration capabilities
Easy set-up by the modern business worker
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File Sharing Services Align With Modern
Workers And The Modern Enterprise
With File Sharing, we can: • Work anywhere
• Collaborate inside and outside the enterprise with virtual teams
assembled based on skills and availability
• Always available content on any device
• Supports a mix of personal and enterprise-owned devices to perform job
• Work on projects that cover a spectrum of confidentiality requirements
In other words, file sharing supports what modern
workers need to do their jobs well
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Email Versus File Sharing
Email is the most common method for sharing files within an enterprise and between virtual teams • There is no control over the confidentiality, security
and privacy of the email and its attachments
• There is no workspace and file management is chaotic, and versioning is impossible
• We are increasingly working with multimedia files that are larger than email attachment size limits
Enterprises are rapidly adopting business file sharing services to solve these problems
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Case Study
An Executive
Networking
Firm
Requirements:
• Needed to collaborate with many
external parties
• Had to exchange large video files
• Had to allow access and revoke
access to files
• Needed versioning on files
• Needed a reliable & easy-to-use
solution
Email or content management systems
could not satisfy any of those
requirements!
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Top Trends In Business File Sharing
Services
Incorporating more business oriented
features
Designing services for different roles
within an enterprise
Integration with process automation
Improving performance on mobile devices
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File Sharing Adopts More Business
Oriented Features
New features align with the business
requirements:
• Security
• Administration
• Collaborate
• Visibility and reporting
• APIs and integration with core enterprise services
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Different Roles Within Businesses that
Share Files
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Author Editor Reviewer Viewer
Heavy document
editing
Works mostly on
a computer
Heavily uses
desktop sync
Moderate
document editing
Toggles between
file system and
browser UI
Sets tasks for
author for review
Light document
editing
Uses mobile
device and
browser to review
files
Needs ability to
sign-off
Uses mobile
device and
browser for
viewing
Viewing without
download is
advantageous
Guest access
Desktop Sync Mobile and Browser
Integrating File Sharing With Process
Automation
Managing content in one location, which is
accessible by a virtual team that includes trusted
external team members
Integrating processes to the content as needed
to support efficiencies and application
requirements
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Improved Security On Mobile Devices
Integration with mobile device management
vendors to separate business and personal files
on the same device
Improving security of files on mobile devices
Integrating files with applications on mobile
devices
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Recommendations
Email is the least secure application within your organization. If you
have teams working on confidential projects using email, you should
consider file sharing services as a replacement
• Many organizations are considering data loss prevention as way to
make email more secure. File sharing is a cost-effective first step
Large files that have to be exchanged between team
members. File sharing provides:
• a cost effective alternative to using courier services and USB drives
(slow and expensive)
• FTP (unreliable and complicated)
• Consumer services (no control over what is shared)
File sharing is optimized for virtual teams
• If you find that you have a large number of contractors and partners,
then a file sharing solution is logical to adopt
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Thank You
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