The business world is filled with a variety of unique terms, but there are few as significant as the bottom line. The term comes from this: once you add up all of a company’s assets and subtract its expenses, the bottom line is the number on the last line of the balance sheet. Put even more simply, the term bottom line refers to a business’s net income after all expenses have been deducted from revenues.
There are countless ways that a business’s bottom line can be affected, and any changes in a company’s net profits are heavily scrutinized—especially when the change is a dip. A business’s bottom line could be low because of high interest rates, natural disasters, employee turnover, and myriad other reasons.
However, there’s one surprising factor that may be affecting your bottom line without you even realizing it—and that’s your file transfer system. In this blog, we will discuss exactly how your file transfer system can affect your bottom line, which is something every savvy business leader should know.
File Transfer 101
File transfer is simply the process in which one computer system transmits a computer file through a communication channel to another computer system. For nearly every type of business, company leaders need to ensure that their exchange or delivery of data is secure, compliant, and efficient. For example, banks need to securely transfer information about customer accounts and financials and hospitals need to share sensitive patient information.
But what if you don’t work at a business such as a financial institution or healthcare provider?
There are some business leaders out there that might think their companies are exempt from needing solid file transfer systems, but they would be wrong. File transfer lies at the essence of daily business operations. Companies regularly transfer data both internally among employees and externally with customers, suppliers, and partners. Whether a bank needs to wire a customer’s money to another bank or a marketing company needs to send their client a digital advertisement video, they need to securely and efficiently transfer data. Here are a couple of common security components of file transfer systems:
- Encryption: When data is encrypted, the information gets changed into an unidentifiable format for transit and then becomes readable when it reaches its destination. This is a security measure that prevents outsiders and potential hackers from being able to read the data that is being transferred.
- Electronic signatures: An electronic process that indicates acceptance of an agreement or a record. This is a legal way to get content or approval on digital documents and can replace a handwritten signature.
So how does all of this tie into your company’s bottom line?
Bottom Line Killers
We’ve already touched upon the crucial need for secure file transfer solutions, but it’s important to understand how this can affect your company’s net profits. As cybersecurity concerns continue to heighten, companies need to protect their file transfers from data breaches. According to the 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report, 70% of all data breaches were perpetrated by External actors, with organized criminal groups behind 55% of breaches. The report also found that 45% of breaches featured Hacking, with errors being causal events in 22% of breaches and 17% involving Malware. And according to IBM’s most recent Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average total cost of a data breach in 2020 was $3.86 million, with the United States coming in as the country with the most expensive costs.
A data breach can financially impact a business in several ways. Of course, there are costs directly related to the time and resources needed to deal with a breach. This can involve assembling a team of experts, such as forensics, legal counsel, and information technology, to stop additional data loss and fix the vulnerabilities that led to the breach in the first place.
But there are also indirect costs associated with a data breach. Data breaches can significantly impact the customer experience, which in turn affects your bottom line. First, data breaches will likely delay company operations. If your company’s services or goods aren’t available when a customer decides to go with your brand, this not only causes missed revenue but can also be a frustrating customer experience. In addition, a data breach can harm your company’s reputation, making it difficult for existing customers and potential ones to trust your business. Furthermore, a data breach can result in a loss of intellectual property, which may include company designs and strategies that your competitors might not hesitate to take advantage of.
Poor file transfer solutions can also kill business productivity. An ideal file transfer solution offers high-performance capabilities that will reliably communicate large amounts of data over any distance, over and over again. However, if you have an inefficient file transfer system, your employees’ productivity can be significantly hampered. Imagine needing to send a large file and uploading that file to your e-mail server, only for it to say you’ve exceeded the file limit. Then, you need to find another method to send your file, or figure out how you can split the file into smaller files.
An inefficient file transfer solution can also negatively impact customers by creating significant amounts of friction during a transaction. For example, if your customer has to create an account with a username and password, receive and enter a pin, and then answer security questions just in order to sign a simple loan document, they may consider other providers. Your file transfer solution should streamline the experience by reducing unnecessary or complicated touchpoints, as well as be intuitive and friendly on a variety of interfaces such as mobile, browser, and email.
All of these aspects of file transfer are serious challenges that can significantly impact your business’s bottom line, however directly or indirectly they may seem tied to your balance sheet. Whether your file transfer lacks security, which can lead to costly data breaches, or efficiency, which can sour the customer experience and hamper employee productivity, choosing the right solution is critical to the success of your business.
The Botdoc Way
Botdoc is the first ever easy, remote, and secure file transport service that works via text messaging and email with end-to-end encryption. Our solution is always simple to use because the consumer experience is everything to us. With Botdoc, you’ll close transactions at least 50% faster with no pins, no passwords, no logins, no accounts, no apps, and no software to download.
Intrigued?
Let’s schedule a demo today and discuss how the secure “FedEx” of data can help you better manage your bottom line.