A small team hardly ever means small results. Like many others in a small business or department, you probably feel like if you could only have more hours in the day you could complete all your tasks. Well, we can’t help with that (though we have our top scientist working on it around the clock), but what we can help you with is giving you information about file sharing with a small team.
With a few solid considerations and smart implementations, a good file sharing platform can help reduce costs, streamline processes, and more. Here are a few things you should know about file sharing to make it work for you.
Shadow IT
The first thing you should know about file sharing for your small business or department is that just because you don’t provide your team access to a file sharing platform, doesn’t mean they aren’t using one. Shadow IT can be a big problem for businesses of any size.
There are so many great tools out there that can make work more efficient, including file sharing solutions, but if each team member goes out on their own and finds a different tool, then you can’t be sure that files (and the important information they contain) are being handled with the appropriate level of controls. Just like a fragile box in the mail (or the emotions of others), your files need to be “handled with care.”
You can’t ask your team members to simply not use tools that make their lives easier. There are way too many benefits to file sharing solutions for them not to seek one out. So you’ll want to give them all access to one that will work in your favor.
Remote Access
One of the biggest benefits of a file sharing solution that you will want to think about using is the ability to implement flexible or remote work as an attractive benefit to your current or potential team members. More and more, strong talent is looking for a flexible schedule that allows them to take control of their work life.
Plus remote access means you can get to your work files from home for those times when you need to put in a few hours on a Saturday at 10:00 pm (we’ve all been there, even when we didn’t want to be).
Remote Access is also Remote Collaboration
As a small business or department, you can’t do everything yourself. Remote access gives you a platform that makes it much easier to collaborate on certain projects and files. It might be hard to give up full control of a project and ask for help, but I can almost guarantee it will be better in the long run if you let your team members (who you’ve hired for a reason) collaborate when you have too much on your plate.
But if you’re concerned, make use of your file sharing platform’s versioning capability. You can always see who has made what changes and go back to an older version if necessary.
For more about how to leverage file sharing with remote work, take a look at this article.
Small Size, Big Security
Just because the amount of people you’re working with isn’t as large as a global company doesn’t mean that the information that you possess is any less confidential or sensitive.
Sending files back and forth through email or even using USBs can be potentially risky and that’s why so many businesses have turned to a file sharing solution. Not only is your information encrypted, but with a file sharing solution, you don’t need to fear files being lost or corrupted. Your provider will be able to resolve your issues.
Time is Money
As the leader of a small team, it’s important to save money where you can, but as I’m sure you know, the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best. You need a solution that will be as efficient as possible for your business processes. Luckily, SmartFile has experience in saving organizations money by saving them time.
We’ve worked with companies to simplify their processes, like loan company, Illinois Lending Corp and internet marketing agency, Designed Social Media. SmartFile worked both to provide an automated loan application process, immensely increasing productivity for loan specialists and individual loan applicants. Read more about the case study.
Money is Money
As a small business or department, every penny counts. Your spending priority is probably anything that directly affects serving your customers, but you should know that utilizing a file sharing platform can save you money in the long run, whether that’s by reducing your operations costs through remote work or simply all the money you save on ink and paper by not printing out your documents.
Usually, the best file sharing option for a small team is through cloud storage instead of an on-prem server because there is no need to pay for maintenance or licensing for hardware, which can be pretty costly upfront. But if you are a small department among a larger office, you may think about using an on-prem solution.
A file sharing solution like SmartFile could be exactly what you need to increase efficiency and decrease costs without sacrificing the security of your files. Our solution is a perfect balance of user and IT features.