Your Business March 2020 - 181

IT solutions
Go remote 

Given the costs involved in hiring IT staff, as well as the
ever-changing nature of technology, you may want to
consider outsourcing your IT services. This will mean
having qualified engineers based remotely, managing
your IT infrastructure and resolving any issues. They
can manage the whole infrastructure or only part of it.
This removes some of the financial burden from you -
some companies offer prices starting at £10.95 per user
per month - but there are factors you need to bear in
mind when looking for the right provider for your needs.
One of the most important factors is how well your IT
provider aligns itself to your needs. Opt for a support
company that has the ability to tailor its offering to you -
and not just at the start of the relationship. As your business
evolves, they should be able to tweak their services as well. 
On a related note, gauge how in tune they are with the
latest technology developments. Like you, they should
be proactive, so do they have good knowledge of trends
and updates that are a year or so down the line? 

Keep it close 

Even if your providers are based remotely, that doesn't
mean there should be limited face-to-face contact and site
visits. They should always be available to come to you. 
However, if you wish to have the reassuring presence
of professionals at all times, you may want to consider
an onsite IT team. A lot of companies who provide
remote services also give you the option of having

their engineers based at your offices. This may be
expensive, but when weighed against the cost of hiring
your own IT team it may be the better option.

Move your data

If you keep all your data on your onsite servers and
nowhere else, you are treading on thin ice. Backups are
crucial, but this doesn't just mean copying things to
external hard drives - you need your files to be stored
in different physical locations. This will protect you not
only from IT failures, but also robbery, fires and floods. 
You can, of course, use external drives, but you need
to make sure these are kept on a different site. Perhaps
once a month you can bring them into the office, copy
over the relevant data and then take them away again.
If there is sensitive data at stake, you may wish to store
the drive in a safety deposit box - an option provided by
many security firms. However, if you have many staff, it isn't
really feasible to ask everyone to store external hard drives
at different locations. Therefore, everyone should make
use of the cloud. Online backup services that automatically
save your files to the cloud start from around £11 a month. 
Smaller businesses may prefer for staff to work on
Google Drive or Dropbox. However, while these services
are definitely cheaper - and even free if you're not storing
much data - they don't have the stringent security measures
of an online backup service. You'll probably want to
change the passwords every time a member of staff leaves,
for example, which isn't the case with paid services.

Secure your business
Jake Moore, cybersecurity specialist at ESET UK, on
how SMEs can protect themselves against attacks
If businesses fail to protect themselves or their customers
from cyberattacks, they fail to protect their future.
Cybersecurity must be seen as a critical business process
and board members need to understand the risks.
Ransomware has become one of the most powerful
financially driven weapons used by malicious actors;
with this and artificial intelligent malware, we're moving
into a new wave of threats coming from all angles.
To protect themselves, SMEs should familiarise
themselves with the National Cyber Security Centre's 10
Steps to Cyber Security. Once these have been absorbed,
they should consider NCSC's Cyber Essentials and Cyber
Essentials Plus. These can be a relatively cheap way to
protect a business from simple or even complex attacks.
At ESET, we predominantly strengthen existing SME
IT teams by adding enhanced security. Our software sits
alongside and helps current IT specialists by stopping the
type of threats they face every day, and plays a significant
role in protecting businesses from specific threats.

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Your Business March 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Your Business March 2020
