The Enterprise Strategy Groups’ recent survey revealed that despite 3/4 of the corporations forbid their workers to use online sharing services, the employees still bypass the restrictions.

The survey was carried out late last year to cover statements from 500 IT workers, and most of them were obliged to comply with blocking online file-sharing across the United States. It turned out that IT had control of the information before, but 3 years after the file-sharing market has taken off, the data was virtually everywhere. The study revealed that more than 3/4 of the respondents were strongly discouraged or prohibited to use online file-sharing services, with only 22% of them being free of such terms and conditions.

Moreover, 36% of end users at the workplace use non-IT approved OFS services, 28% don’t, and 34% of IT employees admitted they suspect end users are using these services. As you can see, circumventing the blockades isn’t out of the ordinary. In most cases, people use Wi-Fi hotspots or a conference room network to access their favourite services. It seems that IT will have to do something to address this challenge, because if one of the employees leaves the company, the data would leave with them via file-sharing services. In addition, few of the end-users think of erasing corporate data from their mobile devices, online backup services or file-sharing portals.

According to the study, 1/3 of the companies had deployed a corporate file-sharing service, with 22% saying they have examined the possibility of deploying it within a year. 11% of the respondents said they are going to do the same in the next 2 years, while only 17% saying they have no interest in it.

Last year, Enterprise Strategy Groups started testing a dozen of corporate file-sharing apps, but initially people said they weren’t as easy as Dropbox. However, later the effectiveness and advanced features proved to be of great value after the respondents got used to the apps. It then turned out that one of the biggest cost-savings opportunities of deploying a private or public file-sharing tool is the ability to get rid of your VPN. In fact, this will have a material impact on business, so if the company is able to remove friction on file-sharing, it can also speed collaboration.