By Nuvotera Guest Blog 1

I can still hear the beat from the classic 808 drum machine in the background. In the ’90s, the words “stop, collaborate and listen” beckoned an immediate call and response from the audience, complex dance moves and questionable fashion choices.  Collaboration, today, means something very different in my business life.

Personally, the idea of an eight hour workday is completely foreign. The global business community has created a 24-hour cycle of messages making their way into our pockets. We find ourselves needing to communicate and make business decisions miles away from home base. Collaborating via email, we’ve grown accustomed to the freedoms of hosted services and multidevice access. The business expectation is that Outlook on the desktop will remain in perfect sync with the mail client, contacts and calendars on my smartphone and tablet.

So, what about the rest of my files and folder structure?

As a remote employee, my 5-pound (company-provided) laptop has the general tech collaboration suite; VPN, Citrix, SharePoint, Outlook and OneNote, all installed and ready. Someone smarter than me has mapped a magical “J” drive to host everything. During conference calls, I am forced to attempt to connect via VPN or SharePoint, or remotely into some machine that looks like the weird alter ego of my cluttered desktop. Out of frustration, someone will ultimately just email me the draft, but by that time the meeting is invariably over.

Navigating the Connection Maze

IT repeatedly attempts to walk me through this connection maze, but, in the real world, I sort of just want it to work like my email client. Anytime. Anywhere. Online. Offline.

The simple answers have not come from the tech department, but rather from our own personal lives. Our devices come pre-loaded with cloud storage that we (as users) fundamentally understand. We know that we can save a personal photo in one place and access it in another without thinking about it. The mechanics of this process are equally seamless and irrelevant to the user — they just work. App-driven, collaborative technology is not a foreign concept. We just get it!

MSPs failing to see the big picture or unwilling to provide viable alternatives may have bigger concerns. Frustrated users will often set up their own apps and data store, creating a compliance nightmare. Deploying the right solution often requires finding the balance between business “needs” and user “wants.”

Meeting Both Business Challenges, User Needs

Cloud distributor Nuvotera has partnered with Soonr to simplify the process for service providers. Enterprise-grade and security-focused, Soonr Workplace provides MSPs with the opportunity to meet the business challenges of synchronization, access, mobility and device management, while allowing users to seamlessly manage files and collaborate with team members. I’ve looked forward to the day in the not-too-distant future when I could forget about the “magical J: drive” and just be able to get my documents when and where I need them. Thankfully, the future is now!

Getting complete answers from clients can be tough. Contact Nuvotera for more tips and tricks, and click here for more on File Sync and Share and becoming truly data aware.   

Eric Pinto brings more than 12 years of SaaS security and management experience to Nuvotera.  He is tasked with developing and engaging the partner community. Eric is well-versed in managing relationships among vendors, channel partners and customers. He provides guidance in SMB threat security and compliance, globally.  Guest blogs such as this are published monthly and are part of Talkin’ Cloud’s annual platinum sponsorship.