There’s a word that strikes fear in IT circles: shelfware. It’s a term reserved for software that’s gone unused in spite of the effort, time, and money that went into deploying it. As its name suggests, it sits on a figurative shelf, wasting away instead of delivering on the promise to improve productivity or increase sales. Though the reasons why can be numerous, one rears its ugly head all too often: usability. If it isn’t easy enough or fast enough, or just doesn’t do what employees need it to do, they won’t use it.
That’s why we’ve designed Dropbox for Business to be not just powerful, but a solution workers actually want to use. We had IDC survey some of our customers to find out how Dropbox for Business adoption was helping their teams. 1 Customers’ top reasons for adoption were supporting collaboration and productivity, improving file security and control, lowering storage costs, and backing mobile initiatives. Some of the specific ways that teams used Dropbox for Business to achieve these goals were:
- Consolidating sharing: Bringing files into one sharing tool made up-to-date content easier to find.
- Improving recovery: Storing data in the cloud allowed immediate access from loaner computers when hardware was being repaired.
- Streamlining sync: Speed and reliability when sharing files with co-workers increased as teams moved away from FTP.
- Simplifying file delivery: With content made available outside the corporate network, off-site partners’ reliance on VPN dropped — as did the administrative costs associated with it.
- Reducing email usage: Automatic sync of content sidestepped the need to create new email threads to exchange content.
The benefits that the surveyed customers realized were more than just process improvement. The surveyed customers saw a return on investment of 860% per 100 users over 5 years. To get more detail on just how valuable Dropbox for Business was for these customers, check out the complete study.
1IDC White Paper sponsored by Dropbox, “The Business Value of Dropbox for Business,” Doc #252352, November 2014
