In today’s world, Start-Ups are the equivalent of the traditional Mom & Pop store. Maybe not exactly, but anyone who wants to start their own corporation is wise to rely on a minimum of regular employees. Your headquarters may be located in a shared office space or even a home office. The point remains that starting small is the path to larger profits in the future.
One way to continue working with limited physical space and employees is extend yourselves to clients digitally. As a Start-Up with limited financial resources, business travel expenses are rarely in the budget. Therefore, a reliance on digital material sharing and document storage is a must.
Virtual data rooms
One of the most efficient methods for running any Start-Up is with the use of a virtual data room. Unlike actual physical rooms of data, employees and clients can access important documents (in digital form) quickly. Your Start-Up still maintains complete control of exactly who is granted access to your data and is permitted to print out certain documents.
Unfortunately many people in the business world are apprehensive about setting up a virtual data room. They fear a loss of security for confidential data like financial documents. Ironically, a virtual data room is far more secure than physical means of storing and sharing data. Unlike physical libraries of documents and old-fashioned files, virtual data has fewer chances to be stolen or shared inappropriately.
Security
A virtual data room (or VDR) lets you disclose information and discuss contractual information without having to gather several people in a room at the same time. This is strategic because anytime you gather more than one client in the same room, there is always the chance of intellectual theft. In addition, permission to view virtual documents can be revoked immediately when necessary. This lessens the threat of corporate espionage that comes from disgruntled former employees or company spies.
Since your company is in its initial stages, you need to be on the look out for those who may wish to steal your original ideas. Often this is as easy as seeing a set of plans lying on your desk or awaiting pick up in the copy machine in the office. With a virtual data room, there is no actual “paper” for anyone to glance at. No virtual data will be seen sans your written permission. Should something go missing or be shared without your knowledge, it is generally easy to find the culprit.
Extranet Access
One idea is to set up your virtual data room as if it was a physical data library in the form of an internet site available only to company insiders and valued clients. This website therefore becomes an “extranet” site, because it has a strictly controlled audience and can only be entered with an allocated log-on and password. Whether the reader is allowed to make adjustments or add notes, is entirely up to your management team. Just as quickly as you grant access to someone, you can revoke it immediately.
Your Start-Up gains a massive boost in security by only allowing clients and bidders limited access to view digital information in a highly restricted virtual environment. Gone are the days when you’d have to have physical documents and files spread over a conference room table for all to see. Also gone, is that employee with eagle eyes who had to stand guard in the room to make sure no paperwork disappeared or was illegally photographed.
For any Start-Up company that is looking to keep their data secure, this concept is groundbreaking. You now have the ability to protect all of your digital data and manage it from any location. Employees working at your office can also work on data files while telecommuting from home or travelling anywhere in the world.