How GIW shares files and sheds backup risks with Dropbox
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Slurry pump manufacturer GIW has deployed Dropbox for two reasons: to enable it to share files across its globally-dispersed workforce, operating in often challenging environments; and also to create a centralised backup of files hitherto held only on field personnel’s laptops.
Case study key facts
| Organisation | GIW |
| Industry | Mining and metals |
| Current goals | GIW is focused on solving two main business problems, namely: sharing content securely amongst its teams of geographically dispersed personnel and staff at headquarters; and ensuring files that field personnel hold on their corporate laptops (which are often taken into hazardous environments) are securely backed up by being synchronised with GIW’s central cloud-based file store. |
| Current approach | GIW has deployed Dropbox both as a means to share files, and also to utilise its desktop sync function to act as a de facto backup service for field laptops. |
| Outcome | Dropbox has enabled GIW personnel to share content with partners, customers, and amongst themselves much more efficiently and securely than before, and Dropbox’s admin functions and its sync function has reduced the company’s exposure to data loss risks. GIW isn’t currently looking at any deeper, longer-term, strategic integration of Dropbox with its wider business applications at the moment. But with the solution in place and well adopted now, there are collaboration capabilities the company is able to explore in the medium-term without the need to roll out more new technology. |
| Tools and suppliers used | Dropbox, Okta |
Organisation background
US slurry pump manufacturer GIW Industries, Inc. was founded 1891, and is now a subsidiary of German pump manufacturer KSB. Its pumps are used worldwide, primarily in mining and dredging operations.
The markets GIW is active in mean that its sales personnel are scattered across different territories and timezones, complicating effective communications amongst the teams themselves, and also complicating communications with customers and partners.
Project background
GIW’s primary use cases centre on sharing content (often large data files in remote areas with poor connectivity); and backing up from laptops in the field.
When sharing content both internally, amongst its dispersed workforce; and externally, with suppliers, customers and partners beyond the company’s firewall, GIW previously relied upon the use of email attachments (though this had file size limitations), cumbersome access via FTP sites, and even the fallback solution of popping DVDs or USB memory sticks in the post! GIW wanted a solution it could deploy to improve content sharing and sync’ing and also deploy to address its remote backup concerns (a particular issue for its field sales representatives, who might have had 50Gb of material on a laptop being used in potentially hazardous conditions – such as aboard a dredging barge). GIW’s previous reliance on unsecure email attachments and memory sticks, etc. presented the company with security concerns around immediate access, audit trails, and data loss prevention.
The issues became a priority for GIW in 2012-13. At that time, the company didn’t have many staff using (consumer orientated) Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) solutions because of the strict controls it had in place on its corporate networks to block their use. However, despite preventing shadow EFSS at work, it did find that staff were simply taking the files home and using such services on personal accounts from their own networks, thereby circumventing GIW’s safeguards.
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The post How GIW shares files and sheds backup risks with Dropbox appeared first on The Advisor.
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