Failure is not a term sought after by most. People do not start a project with the intention to fail, but rather to succeed. The same is true for the key file transfers that keep your business moving. Nobody wants to be set up for failure; however, with the wrong tools in place, failure is quite possible.
We’ve come up with the top three classic file transfer “fails” to show what you could be risking.
- My customer knew the file transfer failed before I did. In interactions and transactions with clients, there is an expectation that promised files will be delivered in a timely manner. When a customer notices that a file did not make it before the delivering organization does, it can create tension and questions about reliability. Additionally, with FTP (the basis for many home-grown file transfer solutions) there is no alert that a file did not reach its intended destination. So while FTP may be quick and easy to implement, it doesn’t protect you from the potential embarrassment and doesn’t provide a failsafe system that alerts you of an error.
- My email attachment is too big. The number one file transfer fail that we hear time and time again is an email attachment that has been blocked from being sent or received because it is too large. This is the way that the majority of people send documents to other people; inside and outside of their organization. Not only is the file transmission not secure, but there is no way to know that the file made it through your email and into your intended target’s inbox. Email attachments also take up inbox space. “Your inbox is full” messages are so annoying.
- My IT staff is spending too much time involved manually managing file transfers. When there are multiple file transfer solutions within an organization, it requires a great deal of maintenance. Custom scripts for each solution are hard to maintain and hard to support. This is increasingly difficult as an organization grows in size and the demand increases. Provisioning tasks are often manual, requiring a great deal of time and effort. Wasting resources is a big fail, when resources could be allocated to more pressing tasks.
The good news is these classic fails don’t have to happen to you! Your organization can avoid failure and be prepared for success by implementing a managed file transfer solution, like those offered by Attachmate. Read our previous blog post on tools for evaluating your solution.
