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The research conducted by FactPoint with both business users and IT administrators into the firm’s most important workflows revealed that business-critical digital files must often be delivered on an urgent basis to keep the business running efficiently and projects moving forward.
FactPoint found a great deal of productivity lost to inefficiencies in current methods of business-critical file transfer using existing methods such as email, burning CDs or DVDs and sending them with overnight courier services such as UPS™ or FedEx™, or by using older electronic methods such as FTP. Users identified problems in sending and receiving files as one of their top pains.
The primary business need for users was to find an effective solution to help them manage sending and receiving business-critical digital files as part of their work, regardless of the size of the digital file. These users needed a solution to be more responsive to clients, customers and other team members and wanted to keep their projects moving with the certainty that the intended recipient could receive the digital file regardless of that person’s email gateway size limitations or firewall restrictions on email attachments.
Both users and IT stated that they valued the simplicity of a managed file transfer service so that recipients could use the solution to receive business-critical files with no training. Other highly valued user capabilities were the integration of managed file transfer into familiar environments such as Microsoft Outlook™, allowing users to send files to others from within their familiar email interface; and DropBox capabilities which allow users to “drop off” files using a simple web interface. FactPoint found these capabilities to be particularly important in environments where customers, vendors and suppliers needed to send or receive business-critical files but were resistant to learning more complex tools such as FTP, or enterprise-class collaboration environments.
The primary need for IT Administrators was to deploy a solution that is highly reliable, auditable, cross-platform, private and secure, and could be provided to users with little or no ongoing administration. IT Administrators spoke of the need to speed up email delivery times which were sometimes as slow as 15 minutes due to additional email server processing resources required by the ever increasing number of large file attachments. IT Administrators also discussed the problems and security concerns in using FTP, especially if the FTP site content and user accounts were “unmanaged.” IT wanted to choose managed services that had centralized administrative capabilities and would minimize their time spent on routine provisioning and maintenance activities. They simply wanted to provide new services to any user or team and then to “get out of the way.”
FactPoint’s research found clear benefits from the use of a managed file transfer service for both users and IT, regardless of company size. These benefits include providing faster turnaround on projects and business workflows, such as the working with a team in a creative design process, project related collaboration for reviews and approval, communicating important product design and build information to manufacturing partners, and receiving business-critical data from customers.
Other benefits included the ability to free up time and resources from administrative tasks that could be devoted to more profitable endeavors, improving responsiveness and service to clients and team members, and the confidence that business-critical files would be delivered on time and as intended.
FactPoint researched the usage patterns and workflows of individuals and teams working with files that are important to their work and found that most users had a great deal of lost productivity because of the inadequacy of current solutions.
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