Aside from personal resolutions, the new year is also a great time to make business-focused goals. While goals in business typically relate to sales figures, we advocate that our clients also think about technology goals.
Every company is a technology company in today’s world. Digital transformation has swept across sectors. Whether you are a retailer, hospital or manufacturer, you undoubtedly rely on technology for business operations.
Great usage of technology can be a business differentiator. A study done by the Boston Consulting Group found that companies that adopt new technologies quickly perform much better than their competitors.
The reason for this can be traced back to what customers crave today: speed, convenience and friendly service (as found by PwC). The last one is down to you. However, reaching high levels of speed and convenience today is impossible without the help of technology.
How can you use technology to boost your business this year? Here are the technology goals that we think you should make for the year ahead.
1. Embrace the Cloud
Legacy technology systems can prevent your business from growing and adapting as the world becomes more tech-driven. The cloud offers a scalable, flexible and cost-effective solution for small and medium-sized companies. As your business grows and shifts, cloud infrastructure evolves with it.
Cloud storage and backup are a must-have in modern business. This is even more crucial with employees working from home. We advise that you invest in cloud backup. This ensures that a copy of your data is stored in the cloud so that you won’t lose it if your hardware stops working or there is a disaster.
A great cloud backup solution works in real-time and backs up company data on all corporate devices as your people work. The cloud also offers a convenient pay-per-use model that only charges you for the number of resources you use.
The one thing to keep in mind with the cloud is security. The cloud works via a shared responsibility model. This means that the cloud provider is responsible for securing the underlying infrastructure. However, it is up to you to make sure that the correct configurations and access controls are in place. This is proving tricky for many companies. Gartner predicts that 99% of cloud data breaches will be the customer’s fault by 2025. If you need help securing your cloud resources, our dedicated IT support team can guide you through the process.
2. Be Ready for Anything
The pandemic has shown us that we never really know what will come next. A disruption could be around the next corner. It is challenging to plan for these unknown factors but you can boost your company’s resilience so that you bounce back from a problem quickly.
We advise you to create business continuity, incident response and disaster recovery plans. These are high-level documents that guide you and your people through responding to an incident (floods, cyber-attacks, etc).
Securing these kinds of plans will help you respond to incidents calmly and efficiently which reduces the damage done to your business.
3. Harness Outside Expertise
Research indicates that 80% of small businesses are not taking full advantage of available technology. This statistic is a concern because technology has the potential to supercharge a business.
Many small businesses lack the in-house expertise to harness technology’s potential. They stick to functional technology rather than exploring technology as a differentiator.
Even for small businesses with a dedicated IT person, this employee is often overwhelmed by tedious IT support queries which gives them no time to look at the big picture.
This is why we advocate IT sourcing. A great outsourcing partner can help you to discover new efficiencies through technology as well as ease the burden on your in-house IT staff.
4. Cover the Security Basics
Verizon found that 81% of breaches in 2020 were due to stolen or weak passwords.
Employees use memorable – but guessable – passwords like ‘12345’ or ‘password’ far too often. Using these simple passwords makes you more likely to suffer a data breach.
Hackers search for low hanging fruit when they target your business. This means that they look for easy ways to break into your network. You can bet the first tactic they will try is entering easy-to-guess passwords.
Many small businesses think that cybercriminals won’t target them. This isn’t true. All businesses today hold sensitive data and that is what hackers are looking for. In fact, some cybercriminals will specifically target small businesses because they know their defenses will be weaker than a large corporation.
Improving your password policies is straightforward. Here are some tips that you should share with employees:
- Employees should use a mix of characters, special characters and numbers for their passwords.
- Employees must change their passwords at least every six weeks.
- Employees should maintain a unique password for each of their accounts.
- Employees should use a free password manager to keep track of different passwords.
Make 2022 the year you reach new heights!
Sound Computers can help your Connecticut business start 2022 with better use of technology so that you can create new revenue streams.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Call 860-577-8060 or reach us online.