Much more sharing is going on these days, as demonstrated by local authority figures.
New information has revealed the extent to which local authorities are sharing services in a bid to fight back against funding cuts.
Figures from the Local Government Association showed that at least 337 councils across Britain are engaged in arrangements that see them sharing services, which saves £263 million, Computer Weekly reports.
This means 95 per cent of them are cooperating with other authorities in areas like human resources, payroll, finance and procurement, with the south-east and East Midlands the most active in terms of sharing.
Back in December last year, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude encouraged authorities to make more use of each other’s offerings.
He commented: "There is absolutely no need for departments and arms-length bodies to have their own back-office functions and duplicate efforts, when they can be delivered more efficiently by sharing services and expertise."
The government recently opened two shared service centres for the Department for Transport and Department for Work and Pensions, which it hopes will save £600 million a year.
This was dubbed "ambitious but not without risks" by the office, perhaps because of the data protection issues the project presents.
Lots of businesses are no doubt sharing more between different buildings and headquarters as a result of the recent leaps and bounds in technology.
For example, faster broadband has allowed companies to send documents between different machines in a flash, while others will be letting staff work from home for the first time.
However, have you thought about protecting your organisation when you start to share more? The risk is that you could unwittingly also be sharing sensitive information with prying eyes and leaving your systems open to malware being received.
If you’re worried, give Dajon Data Management a call, as we offer secure offsite storage facilities that mean all the members of your organisation can access documents and files without leaving them open to theft.
We also provide a huge range of other bespoke services, so drop us a line to discuss how they could help your business.