Providing appropriate file upload tools is key to collaboration

Category:: File Upload
Wednesday, March 28, 2012

After several years of nudging on the part of decision-makers, employees are now more eager than ever to work with co-workers, business partners and clients on projects and everyday tasks, according to a recent CIO Magazine report. Now, it's up to the companies themselves to provide robust solutions that allow for a high level of collaboration.

By providing file upload tools and file sharing programs, CIO said, companies can ensure that employees are not only working together effectively, but are also doing so in a manner that will protect enterprise data.

"There is more and more of a need and a desire to collaborate flexibly with business partners. Companies that are growing don't rush off to hire 20 new employees," collaborative software expert Fahim Siddiqui told the news provider. "They find a partner in the value chain who can be more flexible and conduct work for them. As soon as that happens, there is a critical need to exchange information."

However, if file sharing applications aren't provided by the company, employees are likely to circumvent IT policies and the firewall to send and receive information. Such practices could put enterprise files and documents at risk and also impact the effectiveness of collaboration as consumer-based tools and email both have their drawbacks.

"One of the things that's happening in the world today is that end users are desperate to share information with the people they need to. Sometimes they self-provision," expert Whitney Tidmarsh Bouck told CIO.

Recent research conducted by Palo Alto Networks also highlights the need for collaboration tools within the enterprise sector. According to the IDG News Service, Palo Alto, which provides network solutions, audited more than 1,000 networks and found that file sharing was being practiced on 92 percent of them.