In my recent interview with Cyber Defense Magazine, I observed that the world still runs on files, and that whether you own the local flower shop or manage data for a large healthcare organization, it’s vital that those files be secure. More than that, they need to be managed properly, and they must be reliably sent and received at the times they are expected, to the locations they need to go.
That’s a good segue for us to continue our stroll down Main Street and to take a closer look at that florist, and the files that the shop may need to share—securely and reliably—with business partners and other third parties during the course of a typical business week.
Floral Design isn’t Software Design
When I am out and about here in San Antonio, I pass a number of local florists in the many neighborhoods in our great city. A good floral arranger is known for choosing the right colors, shapes, and complementary greenery to create a special arrangement for special occasions. Coding and technology management are not often part of the process when learning the art of floral design. And so, whether it’s Bertha’s in Prospect Hill, Flowerama in the medical center, The Flower Bucket in Castle Hills, or any of the dozens of other local flower shops that dot the Alamo City, I know they’ve got plenty of things that go on behind the scenes to make their businesses run.
As a retail operation taking and fulfilling orders for flowers and gifts, whether in-person, over the phone, or online, each transaction typically requires the exchange of personal and financial data. Whether the customer writes a check, swipes a credit card, or has a business account, there’s a lot of information that must be exchanged with banks and clearing houses in keeping with privacy and security regulations and standards like PCI-DSS. Some of those files may be routine transactions, while others may need be examined for bank fraud prevention. But all need to be sent securely and on time.
Around the Corner or Around the World
Some flower shops are members of national and international exchanges that allow a San Antonian to place an order with their local florist and have a box of roses, funeral arrangement, or congratulatory bouquet delivered by a local florist somewhere across the country or even overseas. Those exchanges require a lot of information sharing associated with membership and licensing agreements, financial fees and transactions, and other data that has to be shared each month no matter if the florist uses the service one time or one hundred.
Florist-specific file transfers aside, there is the management of data that is common to every retail operation, including communications with suppliers, and data transfers associated with employee payroll and benefits management. These involve the transmission of highly sensitive, and highly regulated employee financial and health information, as well as sensitive business data, like accounting files, tax records, business insurance, and any information required by local and state governments.
The Sweet Smell of Success
Because most of that information is time sensitive, and a failure to deliver the right data at the right time could incur fines and penalties (or simply cost the business in lost revenue due to sloppy business practices), it’s important to establish reliable, automated workflow processes that know what is expected and can execute the process automatically. And for smaller businesses, it’s important that they have access to tools that are easy to use and that are not cost prohibitive. That’s where Coviant Software’s Diplomat MFT comes into play.
Diplomat MFT is an easy-to-use, secure managed file transfer platform that takes a no-code approach to workflow creation, and comes in three ethically priced editions to make sure that no business large or small is without a cost-effective option for automating secure file transfers. Even if your corner flower shop or large national florist network (or any business, for that matter) lacks a tech-savvy employee or IT support service, you can quickly have Diplomat MFT up and running and smelling like a rose. Try Diplomat MFT for free and see for yourself.
