As New Zealand resigned itself to the new normal of working from home in response to COVID-19, the reality set in for companies who simply weren’t ready for their team to be working remotely. The complexities and time involved with rolling out a company-wide solution to off-site access might have seemed unattainable to a lot of businesses who didn’t have the means in place before lockdown.
One of the most common ways of enabling remote work is a VPN, which provides employees with private, protected access to their corporate network so they can continue working as if they were in the office. A VPN offers full access to files, applications and network folders, essentially acting as an extension of your corporate firewall. It also provides a good level of protection for your company’s information.
Unfortunately, we meet with many businesses that don’t have the resources—be it financial or technical—to implement file storage or a database with their on-premises servers. Instead of a secure VPN, some have resolved to using external file sharing applications that pose a security risk no one can afford. The good news—there is a viable alternative—one that can be your saving grace both during and long after the COVID-19 lockdown.
What is M-Files?
If you’ve already had a chance to read through our earlier feature that worked as a crash course in M-Files, feel free to skip this part. If you aren’t familiar, M-Files is essentially Sharp’s information management system that can be deployed as cloud-based software, on-premise, or as an amalgamation of both. While we focus on enabling M-Files as your alternative to requiring a VPN, our recommendations are based on a cloud-based deployment.
What does that mean for you?
All your company data—from documents, files, workflows and databases,—can be stored in M-files’ robust cloud-based servers and accessed from virtually anywhere (even on mobile devices) in a shorter amount of time and a significantly lighter investment.
Cloud-based security
Through M-Files’ remote access program you get the benefit of a fully-managed operation where you won’t require additional know-how to keep your files secure. M-files’ ISO certified cloud operations provide active encryption services so your data is always safe, even when shared.
You can also opt for further security measures within the platform, such as multi-factor authentication (user identities are verified through multiple credentials) to keep business-critical information safe.
Scalable and Accessible
Thanks to Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing platform that M-Files runs on, you benefit from increased scalability and accessibility across your entire business. While you may consider yourself a small business now, you’re bound to grow... and M-Files grows with you. As a flexible cloud service, you’re covered with an elastic, expandable cloud service that can meet your future needs with an affordable price tag. Want to expand storage? Easy. Want to increase the number of user licenses as your team grows? Easy… and affordable.
Implementation
Thankfully, a cloud-based server deployment is quick and painless. Since no two businesses are the same, we take you on a discovery journey where we assess your needs and what you hope to achieve, then come up with an offering especially suited to you. After the initial discovery session, we can build your M-Files site in our demo lab in just a matter of hours. Once approved and ordered, your very own version of M-Files is available for use within 3 to 4 working days.
If you think M-files can help your team work remotely, get in touch and book in for a no-obligation virtual discovery session.
