Of the 200 business users surveyed by cloud-sharing platform Pushfor, 89 per cent share confidential or sensitive information.
The survey looks at how businesses share content, with all but one using email, and file sync tools, such as Dropbox, following closely behind, used by 91 per cent of respondents.
Social media sites are the third most popular with 74 per cent, and content platforms come last with just under a third (31 per cent).
When asked what they consider the safest way to share content, 59 per cent of business users choose file sync services.
Email comes second with 35.5 per cent, followed by social media and content platforms, with 4 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively.
However, email is inadequate and other content sharing services are not providing the right level of safety – according to the research and whitepaper ‘Making Content Intelligent’, which accompanies the study.
John Safa, co-founder of PushFor says, ‘The results indicate that email is unable to provide a full service solution to today’s business environment and doesn’t address businesses’ privacy needs.
‘This isn’t a surprise given that email wasn’t created with safety in mind but it does show that it’s quickly becoming irrelevant.’
While privacy issues are a huge worry for businesses, they are not top on their priority lists. The survey shows that ‘ease of use’ is the most important factor when sharing content, with 68.5 per cent citing this as their biggest concern.
Business professionals were also asked which feature they would find most useful when sharing content. Ease of use is top again, with 74 per cent of respondents citing ‘sending large files with ease’.
Further reading on privacy
