Advanced technology, globally collaborating teams, and virtual work environments redefine how data management is understood. There is a need for action among medium-sized companies to use new digital offerings and promote digitization. This article will explain how to use online data rooms to fortify data security.
Virtual data room: a new way to arrange secure business storage
The so-called digital workplace means the workplace of the future. Working online has become more critical in the context of digital projects and considering the restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The modern virtual workplace offers all the possibilities comparable to everyday office life, regardless of location. The modern digital workplace ensured by the virtual data rooms (VDRs) relies on features relevant to success, such as collaboration, security, cost-efficiency, connectivity, and communication. These criteria are essential for working from home. The optimal use of these elements has a significant influence on the continued success of the company.
Among document management systems, many competitive solutions have appeared over the years. Data rooms are perceived by many as part of the electronic document management system or separate file storage. And it is a big mistake. It is advisable to distinguish such solutions in a separate class of products with special characteristics inaccessible to traditional document management systems. So, modern data rooms provide reliable centralized storage of electronic documents following high requirements for their protection and safety. They are mostly applied during organizing M&A transactions, fundraising, real estate deals, and startups.
By the way, when working with digital data storage, on the one hand, companies need to provide 24/7 accessibility to electronic materials. On the other hand, access should be safe and protected, including control over unauthorized copying of documents. Therefore, a set of tools that have to be developed and integrated into virtual data rooms expands all the time – from delimiting access rights according to performed official duties and biometric identification to tooling that allows you to identify who made a confidential document that has popped up in public spaces to take reactive measures.
The benefits of storing data on a data room platform
Following data rooms pour les startup, the advantages of the virtual data room over the physical one include the following features:
- reliable protection of documents from unauthorized access by unauthorized persons;
- a quick search for the necessary documents, thanks to the entry of certain request parameters;
- protection of documentation from damage, loss, or destruction (electronic documents, unlike paper counterparts, will not suffer from sudden flooding or fire, as well as due to theft or intentional sabotage);
- the possibility of remote access to the data room storage (relevant when working together on the project of specialists of various departments, during inspections, management accounting, etc.);
- the possibility of monitoring access to the documentation (the system will show which user a particular document has watched and when it was);
- reducing financial costs associated with archiving and contents of the storage (from paper, cartridges, folders, racks, and cabinets to the maintenance of individual premises and payment for the services of a security company);
- structuring of documents (a single storage system makes it possible to sort documents according to the established parameters);
- the possibility of monitoring any actions performed with the documents (from opening and viewing the file and making adjustments to sending the document to another user);
- The possibility of integration with other services (with a certain request, documents from the archive in the data room system can be sent to the tax service or other public authorities for verification).