Is your Small Business ready to fight against cyber attacks?

IT industry has evolved in the last two decades and although the larger businesses have adopted the new and improved productivity tools, the SME segment still wants to go with the Break-fix approach. This means that something needs to go wrong before you receive any service, resulting in an inevitable reduction in IT system performance while you wait for the problem to be fixed. I have been a business owner for the last 7 years and would like to prescribe two solutions to increase your productivity:

1. Break-fix is no longer good enough for your business

Today, no business can really afford the risk and uncertainty of relying on a “Break-fix maintenance service” because your business is too dependent on having a reliable IT system. Surprisingly most managed services cost less than traditional break-fix services, especially when including the true cost of downtime. Remote monitoring, remote maintenance and the prevention of major issues allow a managed services provider to be more efficient than a similar break-fix company who is constantly rolling a truck to visit customer sites. Therefore the managed service company can offer a “better” service without charging more.

Managed services providers usually price their services on a flat-rate monthly basis. Depending on the services included in the program offered, pricing is usually based on the number of devices, with different packages priced at different levels. Small IT companies come and go quickly – and so do the Technicians. If you’ve been in business for longer than 5 years you know the frustrations of having a new technician working with your network. The question becomes that do you need a technology adviser or just a guy trying to fix your computer problems?

2. Secure your small business’s critical information with a data security and backup strategy

As a small business owner, investing in technology is investing in your success, and it can be devastating to lose something, such as financial records or a customer database, in a computer crash or virus corruption. These five points can help you in designing your security and backup strategy:

1. Set up a security policy and use a firewall.

2. Test your backup strategy.

3. Backup data offsite.

4. Constantly monitor and conduct regular audits.

5. Stay up-to-date on antivirus and backup software.

Email us at [email protected] to schedule a readiness assessment!