Enterprise File Sync and Share, or EFSS, is a technology most enterprises prioritize, especially if those organizations exchange protected health information (PHI) or personally identifiable information (PII) internally or externally with any regularity. And for those businesses operating in highly regulated industries like financial services or healthcare, an effective EFSS solution is even more critical.
The rise of Shadow IT in conjunction with an increase in cyberattacks has placed more pressure than ever on organizations to deploy an effective EFSS solution that standardizes and secures how employees access, share, and collaborate on sensitive information. But in order for an EFSS solution to be truly successful within an organization, it must support existing use cases and complement existing workflows. In total, deciding which EFSS solution is the right one for your organization is a complicated endeavor.
Gartner, a leading information technology research and advisory company, recently compiled a list of ten best practices for organizations to consider when choosing an EFSS solution, based on the most frequent questions they receive from prospective EFSS buyers. Here are the first five best practices:
- Start by identifying use cases and user types – for example, sharing documents with people outside the organization requires more controls than for internal sharing.
- Give IT functionality and ease of use equal weight in your decision making – ease of use will always stand in the way of employee adoption.
- Define strategic goals for your EFSS implementation even if your initial use will be tactical – consider how an EFSS solution can enhance strategic efforts including infrastructure modernization and collaboration.
- Create an advisory team of existing and new users – a cross-functional team can help with adoption and how the technology can be further utilized.
- Choose the right EFSS architecture for your organization’s security needs – encryption key management, compliance, data sovereignty and other security issues must be considered before choosing a public, hybrid, or cloud architecture.
Choosing the right EFSS solution can have long-term implications in an organization’s ability to secure their most sensitive content, demonstrate compliance with rigorous industry requirements and enhance workflows and employee productivity. In order for these benefits to be fully realized however an organization must consider how an EFSS solution affects - positively or negatively - an organization’s existing investments in infrastructure, mobility, security, collaboration and other strategic imperatives. Organizations therefore must make an EFSS investment decision carefully.
To Learn More
To learn more about these and Gartner’s other EFSS selection / deployment best practices, click here to download your own copy of The Top 10 Best Practices for Choosing and Deploying an Enterprise File Sync and Sharing Solution.