To keep up with the rest of the world, your business needs to be able to operate at light speed. To this end, you have already invested in several digital solutions to streamline your daily operations. One of the most beneficial moves that you have made has been to convert your paper documents to digital files. To further enhance your document's accessibility, you are likely thinking about sharing your documents online via a third-party cloud sharing/collaboration tool such as DropBox or Google Docs. Doing this, however, would be a big mistake. Here are the reasons why:
Your company's security will be compromised
When sharing documents online, digital security evolves from something that you should be on top of into a major concern. This is because cloud, email sharing and online collaboration tools compromise your company's security in the following ways:
One wrong click could result in sharing sensitive documents with the wrong party
Online sharing services have no safeguards against user error when it comes to sharing data. Couple this fact with the numerous autocomplete capabilities that many data sharing services come with, and one of your team members could easily send sensitive data to the media, a competitor, or anybody else who should not have access to it.
Cloud accounts are hacked all of the time
When sharing documents online, you could end up sharing documents with an uninvited third-party without ever knowing it. This is because hackers constantly swarm the servers of large organizations like Google and DropBox; occasionally, as Apple discovered not too long ago during a hack of their iCloud services, one of those many hackers could slip through the cracks. To make matters worse, even the largest online file sharing companies openly ignore huge exploits in their security.
You will lose control over your company's data
In addition to your data being at risk for security breaches, sharing documents online also puts you at the disposal of the data sharing company's whimsical terms of service.
Your document's data will be aggregated unpredictably
Companies like Google are known for freely taking in whatever you post on their servers, and using it to "provide a better user experience." While their intentions may be as so, the fact remains that this causes you to lose full control over your company's data.
Is there any way to enhance my company's document sharing efficiency without seriously compromising my company's security?
Although you shouldn't share documents online, there is a way to connect your team members and business associates to important documents whenever you need to. The key is, instead of signing up for an online cloud service, to invest in secure document management software that has cloud sharing capabilities.
It's all being shared online, so what's the difference?
Security is enhanced
A business grade cloud-based document management solution is created with businesses – and not somebody who wants to share vacation pictures with friends – in mind. Good document management software encrypts data when you are storing it, and then encrypts the transmission of the data when it is being shared.
Everything is controlled by you
With cloud-based document management software, you determine who can access your documents and when. This means that you could give a business partner viewing access to a document, while still allowing relevant employees to modify it as needed. You can do this without worrying that some omnipresent automated spy program is crawling through your data.
Keep control over your company's documents in your hands
Avoid the mistake of sharing documents online, and instead invest in more secured, fully controllable cloud-based document management software.