How to Get Budget Approval for a Hosted FTP Solution

All businesses look for ways to save time and money without compromising quality or security for their customers. But most aren’t willing to rock the boat if their current solutions are just good enough to get by.

With every transition, concerns about cost and lost productivity arise. And while you might recognize the need for a new FTP solution, you might be concerned that your company’s decision makers won’t be on board with the move.

However, it is possible to change the perception of a CEO or decision maker who believes a hosted FTP solution can’t benefit their business and offer a high enough the ROI to justify the investment. You just need the right talking points to convince them.

When you approach decision makers in your company about getting approval for a hosted FTP solution, use the following benefits to show your team that adopting this solution is the right choice for your business.

Saving the Business Money

For many business decisions, costs is the most important factor. When it comes to cost, it’s hard to beat a hosted FTP solution. These solutions come with a reasonable monthly fee based on the number of users you need to support and the amount of data your company needs to store.

Salaried IT Experts

There are a few ways hosted FTP solutions save costs compared to building and maintaining an in-house file sharing solution yourself. The first and arguable the longest-term cost associated with having an in-house file sharing solution is the salaries for full-time employees needed to manage these servers.

If you already have an IT team employed by your business, you’ve probably realized they’re overworked. Adding another huge task like implementing and managing an in-house solution to their list of responsibilities isn’t a viable option. So you’ll either need to hire full-time employees to take on this role or divert time away from your IT team’s current projects to focus on your servers. That’s valuable time you’re losing.

Ongoing Maintenance

You also face upkeep costs associated with the solution. Licensing FTP software, in addition to paying the $3,000-6,000 upfront cost, requires updates to keep the system relevant and running efficiently. You can estimate upgrades will cost about 25% of the initial software licensing fee.

Both of these maintenance costs are avoided with a hosted FTP. Your monthly subscription fee covers all upgrades and maintenance. And, your business doesn’t need to allocate space for large servers, which costs square feet in your office. You avoid purchasing any physical hardware since the solution is accessed through your web browser.

Lost Revenue

When you choose an in-house FTP over a hosted solution, you’re responsible for ensuring this solution is up and running 24/7 so your employees can work efficiently. If there’s a power outage, flood, fire, or other unexpected incident, there’s a chance your server could be down for a while. You could lose files or fail to deliver work to your clients.

With a hosted FTP, on the other hand, your host is responsible for keeping the solution running. Even if there’s a disaster like a power outage, they have disaster recovery safeguards in place, including frequent data backups. If you wanted to include these same safeguards in an in-house solution, they would come with additional – and probably large – fees.

Saving the Business Time

In business, time is money. This makes time as important of a concern as the actual price you would pay for an in-house FTP alternative. Here are a few ways a hosted FTP solution saves your business time both immediately and in the long run.

Adoption

Forget long, drawn out implementation processes. Once you sign up for a hosted FTP solution, you’ll be using it in no time. The entire solution is already ready for use; the host just has to prepare your separate dashboard.

When you build your own solution, the ramp-up and adoption process isn’t so simple. Building and deploying servers can take months at a time. And, that’s time your IT employees could be focusing on other tasks.

Disaster Recovery

While we’ve mentioned disaster recovery already, it’s important to emphasize that every minute your FTP server is down equates to lost productivity. With a hosted FTP solution, disaster recovery is reliable and simple. You’ll regain any data impacted by a disaster, and the solution will continue running efficiently.

Other Tasks

Maintaining proper protocols for a FTP server is a lengthy (and costly) process. With an in-house solution, you’re constantly required to keep your solution up-to-date to prevent advanced attacks from hackers.

Hosted FTP solutions are run by experts, working full-time to keep the solution running as efficiently and securely as possible. Your FTP host takes all of these responsibilities off your plate, allowing you to return your attention and efforts back to your other work tasks. By spending less time managing an in-house solution, you’ll deliver more for your clients.

Increase Customer Trust

Ultimately, hosted FTP solutions offer a level of security that is difficult and costly to match with an in-house solution. These advanced security measures not only benefit your business, but the increase customer trust, as well.

When you’re dealing with sensitive data, security is a necessity for both client trust, and possible compliance mandates, as well. Using a secure hosted FTP service is a badge of honor and differentiator for a business. Your clients can rest assured knowing that their data is safe when trusted to you and your hosted FTP solution. In fact, you could even use this as a selling point for your prospects.

Providing customers with a solution that ensures their data is handled professionally adds a new dimension to the trust-based business relationships you’ll build.

Outlining these benefits to your decision makers will strengthen your case for choosing a hosted FTP solution. You’ll avoid the cumbersome processes associated with building your own FTP server, and you’ll feel confident that your data is always protected from hackers or being lost to a disaster. With the right hosted FTP, you’ll reap all these benefits and more.

When your company is ready to adopt a hosted FTP solution, it’s key that you choose the right one. Download this free comparison guide to learn more about the top FTP options on the market.