Most of the trouble a small business has with its technology is not exotic. The same five things come up again and again, and all five have a known fix. Here they are, in the order they tend to cost the most.
1. Not enough security around your staff
The people using your systems are the most important part of the problem. Almost half, 48%, of all data breaches come down to negligence on the part of employees. Staff carry sensitive data around all day, and it is easily lost to:
- Phishing attacks
- Weak passwords
- Unauthorised access to information
To reduce that risk, map out who has access to sensitive information on the company network and restrict it where it is not needed.
It matters just as much that your staff understand why weak passwords and phishing attacks are dangerous, and that they are kept up to date on what is currently being used against businesses.
2. Outdated hardware and software
Running out of date hardware and software is the next big one, and it is most noticeable in smaller businesses. Owners often struggle to fit new hardware or software into the network they already have, because of how involved it gets. Budget is the other constraint, and for a small business it is usually the binding one.
Regular maintenance on your devices matters, as does contacting support when something needs it rather than working around it.
The better habit is to talk to somebody who does this for a living. Outsourcing your IT keeps the spend inside a budget you set, and the crashing, freezing and general slowness get dealt with before they become the way things are.
3. Data loss and recovery
Losing data is the thing businesses worry about most, and with reason. It has been reported that losing 100 files can cost a company between $18,000 and $35,730.
Data goes missing for all sorts of reasons:
- Power outage
- Cyber attack
- Equipment failure
- Human error
The answer is a disaster recovery plan with cloud backup in it. A reputable cloud service with real layers of security lets a business hold sensitive information without worrying about losing it. A plan worth having covers:
- Backup, disaster recovery and business continuity
- Cloud services
- Who to contact for IT support
- Backup servers
- External storage
4. Fitting new technology in
When you bring new technology into a business, check that what you already run is compatible with it, and upgrade what is not, before the two have to work together.
The way to get that right is to talk to whoever supports your systems, or to a managed service provider. It is worth asking before you buy rather than after, so the changeover is easier and you find out in advance whether it was a sensible thing to spend money on.
Not sure whether what you are running still stacks up? We will go through it with you and tell you plainly what is worth changing and what is fine as it is. Get in touch.
5. Band-aid fixes instead of proper ones
Technology moves quickly, and it is tempting to keep applying quick fixes as things go wrong. The trouble with a band-aid is that it covers the problem up rather than dealing with it.
If the same issue keeps coming back, it is time to deal with the cause. That usually means replacing the equipment or the software, or closing off a security risk that has been there the whole time.
Performance metrics matter here. They give you a baseline, which is what lets anybody say why something happened and what stops it happening again. Without one, every recurrence is a fresh mystery.
What actually works
The simplest answer to most of this is to hand it to a managed service provider: the everyday problems, and the ones that turn up at four in the afternoon without warning.
A business that outsources its IT spends its time on its own work instead of on managing technology in-house. Staying ahead of these problems, rather than reacting to them, is the whole point of using an MSP: issues get prevented before they happen, and security risks get dealt with as they appear.
If you want to know how your setup is holding up, have a look at what a managed agreement covers, or get in touch and we will go through it with you.