IMI chooses WorkDrive as their central file repository over DropBox.

INDUSTRY Non-profit
TYPE B2B

About International Mediation Institute (IMI)

International Mediation Institute (IMI) is a non-profit organization that has a vision of professional mediation worldwide, promoting consensus and access to justice. They develop international mediation standards in collaboration with panels of global experts, convene stakeholders and parties, promote understanding and adoption of mediation, and disseminate skills.

Challenges faced

IMI’s strategic decisions are made by a team of strong professionals and volunteers who are scattered across the globe. With such a widely distributed workforce, their major challenge was to overcome the time difference and work together seamlessly. From communication to conflict resolution, managing virtual teams was IMI’s major concern.

"While IMI has a large global footprint, we are a small organization, and none of our staff or volunteers are located in the same country. We work across regions and time zones, and that means that co-ordinating efforts, from conference calls to working on documents together, can be a challenge."

- Laura Skillen, Executive Director of External Relations - IMI

How WorkDrive helped

With Zoho WorkDrive, Laura and her entire team had access to the right information at the right time. WorkDrive's Team Folders helped them organize documents based on different projects. Any document created within the Team Folder will be available to everyone associated with it. This reduced the hassle of sharing files to people individually. WorkDrive also offers granular-level permission control, so users can set access permissions not only at the Team Folder level, but also at a file and a sub folder level. Laura also mentioned how WorkDrive's compliance with Safe Harbor and GDPR gave them extra assurance about the tool.

"Thanks to Zoho WorkDrive, we can now access the files we need in their latest version without having to email back-and-forth in the middle of the night. It’s particularly well-suited to international organizations—because it’s cloud-based, we can have a central file repository that is not limited by geography. It’s also very important to us that Zoho complies with Safe Harbor and GDPR legislation."

Zoho WorkDrive features that IMI loves the most

Laura and her team found the Desktop Sync feature quite useful as it gave them the freedom to use a tool they were comfortable with and still reap the benefits of WorkDrive. And with Selective Sync, they could save files that they frequently worked on without syncing the entire Team Folder. This way they didn't have to compromise on their device's storage.

Laura also loves how WorkDrive's global search feature helps them spot any file instantly, even if they aren't intuitively named. WorkDrive not only looks up a file name, it also looks up the content and brings up every file related to your search. You can further narrow down your search using the filter options.

"The desktop sync is very helpful, as it means our staff and volunteers don’t need to learn an unfamiliar IT ecosystem. I also really appreciate the search function in the browser version, which is fantastic at digging up old files. "

Three key ways WorkDrive has impacted IMI's business

- Better collaboration

- Better organization

- Improved ability to locate files