When everyone was working in the office behind firewalls, your greatest IT risks were most likely employees clicking on suspicious links and the occasional coffee spill.
Beware. Email fraudsters are getting smarter and more aggressive. Nowadays, these cybercriminals can take over your email account and, by extent, your business. Your clients, your money, and trade secrets will all be at their mercy. Here is how it goes down.
Every business needs access to quality, reliable IT services. All our daily functions are online, but with so many options out there, it can be hard to know where to start. We’ve taken the time to outline some key questions we’ve been asked by our clients to determine if we were a fit; read on so they can help you: six questions you should ask before choosing an IT service provider.
The future of work begins here. Remote work, all signs show, will be a big thing in the post-pandemic world. Companies have found ways to make it successful at this point, and many would like to carry forward the benefits and costs savings into the future. If you plan to blend on-site and remote work environments for the long haul, here is the guide to getting started.
Before COVID-19, working from home was something only around 7% of Americans were doing, according to the 2019 National Compensation Survey. Since mid-March, however, that number has risen to an estimated 95% of all white-collar workers, as companies across the nation take steps to protect their workers and comply with shelter-in-place and lockdown orders.
Small business owners these days are keenly aware of the need for digital transformation to give them a competitive edge. You can no longer get away with using outdated programs installed on your server, or email applications that aren’t secure. The risks to companies of every size demand you use the latest technology, regardless of whether it’s practical for you financially. Thankfully, programs like Microsoft’s 365 (previously referred to as Microsoft O365) can give you a variety of hosted exchange options that enable you to keep your software up-to-date, access all the capabilities you need, and do it all at an affordable price. What’s more, you don’t need a complicated “tech stack” to do it with, because software-as-a-service (SaaS) often comes in the form of a bundle that lowers the cost and knowledge barriers.
Having a managed service provider (MSP) take care of your company’s IT operations full time is the gold standard, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses. That’s only true if you’re getting the right level of service, though. Few things are worse than mediocre IT, however, and it’s important to find out if you’re getting the value you need for the annual or monthly fee you pay.
Small businesses are just as vulnerable to cyber and network attacks as large corporations since the main concern of hackers is to steal confidential financial information. Once they've seized the data they can use it themselves to compromise accounts or sell it to other criminals on the dark web. Here are realistic ways your SMB can fight attackers, using multi-factor authentication strategies.
Leaders wear multiple hats, regardless of the organization's size. Sure. But we know, as small business leaders, we feel the pressure to try to do more with less. Over the last three decades, we've seen the role that technology plays in enabling us to be more effective as a company and for our clients. Technology, we find, is often needed and used, but not cared for or maintained as carefully as it should. Why? Because everything we do for our business requires time, money, skills, and resources to accomplish the caring and feeding each department needs to aid in the growth of the company.
These days, you don’t have to look too far on social media to find a #10YearChallenge. Some are simple: post a photo of yourself from 2009 and another from today to see how much you’ve changed. Others are using the hashtag for bigger and broader things to reflect on, such as climate change, sustainability, and global conflicts.