3 reasons Dropbox is good for business

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What do the majority of Fortune500 companies have in common?  Well, other than an annual revenue of over $4.8 billion, not much.  How these businesses operate varies radically.  With different values all running on different infrastructures and operating within different industries, the list of companies on the Fortune500 couldn’t be any different if they tried.

However, there is one factor that appears to resonate within nearly all of these companies – 97% of them to be exact – and it’s this little thing called Dropbox.  Odds are you’ve probably heard of it, which isn’t all that surprising since over 500 million people and 2 million businesses globally have adopted this file-sharing service with open arms.

It’s kind of a big deal.  At one point, even Apple wanted a piece of Dropbox, and Jobs himself made an offer to purchase the startup.  However, the two MIT students responsible for the birth of Dropbox declined the offer, and as a result, these two flash drive haters were able to successfully build a platform that can be used anywhere, by anyone, on any system.

Good for them.

But for those of you not currently on the Dropbox train, you might be wondering what the big deal is.  What’s so fascinating about sharing files?  And to that question, we say, “A lot,”… which is why many of the businesses who use Dropbox consider it to be an indispensable tool for collaboration and an asset that increases in value each and every day.

It encourages team work.

Managing a team is a difficult job for any person, especially since team members rarely ever belong to one team exclusively.  Theoretically, one employee can be involved with multiple teams at once – company-wide, departmental, project-specific, and so on and so forth – and all of that, can get real confusing, real fast.  As a result, working as a team quickly morphs into, “How much work can I get out of the way on my own before the next team meeting?”       

This mindset defeats the whole purpose of working as a team, though, creating a chore out of something meant to be inspiring and exciting.  Dropbox, however, aims to eliminate some of the common barriers and drawbacks associated with teamwork – like file-sharing, editing, storage, and organization.  With perks like real-time editing, document-specific comments, assigned folders, version history, and anywhere, anytime access, Dropbox keeps every team member on the same page in the simplest way possible.

It can save you time.

Dropbox can be used in a variety of ways – not just to build better teams.  In fact, Brandt, a company specializing in mechanical and electrical services for larger facilities, incorporated Dropbox into their business and found a way to shave 15 minutes off each on-site service call.

Service coordinators created a job folder that technicians use while on-the-go to complete invoices, send out new job requests, and simplify communication.  With 120 technicians saving an average of 15 minutes per job, Brandt claims Dropbox has helped them save $400,000 a year and increase their ROI 300%.  Not too shabby Brandt.  Not too shabby.

It stays backed up and secure.

A huge area of concern for most businesses is data loss – whether they realize this concern exists or not is an entirely different matter.  Nonetheless, it’s there, and it’s certainly not going anywhere, especially with forms of Ransomware popping up all over the place and the reliance on BYOD increasing every day.  With Dropbox, however, the potential for data loss becomes less of concern.

You have the option to automatically sync certain folders across all your connected devices – so even if your laptop is stolen, you can still access important documents from your phone, tablet, or computer.  In other words, data is not tied to one specific device.

All other files can be kept off your personal storage and saved solely onto your online Dropbox account.  This means that if your business experiences a particularly bad manmade or natural disaster, your files are kept perfectly secure.

Dropbox is a great addition to any business and for many more reasons than the three listed.  If you’d like to learn more about how Dropbox can change your business for the better, give ARRC Technology a call today.