Keeping everything up and running on a minimal IT budget

We talked in an earlier blog about how not benefiting from economies of scale can hurt a small firm’s abilities to take full advantage of technology. Aside from using the cloud, another resource to get around these problems is the the outsourcing of certain tasks, including strategic technology planning to optimize the use of new technology.

As background, the term economies of scale refers to the increase in costs advantages as the size of a firm’s production increases. For example, your business relies […]

Hardware costs are barriers to growth and stability

Unless you are a Silicon Valley unicorn, small and medium size firms, especially newer ones, usually face serious limitations to accessing the funds to finance significant capex investments. This can be a particular problem with the IT hardware necessary for the growth of the business as well as for backup and redundancy.

Today we’re talking about two areas where hardware requirements create problems and what can be done about them.

1. Hardware is tiered. One of the frustrations about scaling up a business […]
   

How economies of scale make it hard for small firms to compete

Small and start up operations suffer from the problem of “economies of scale,” making it hard for them to compete with larger firms. This is especially true in the area of IT infrastructure. Small firms need, but generally cannot afford, a completely robust 24/7 monitored, redundant infrastructure. As a result, they are vulnerable to IT failures that could shut down their business.

What are economies of scale? As you begin producing more units of a product or service, the costs of […]

SD WAN – What’s up with that?

So what is this SD-WAN that you have been hearing about? SD-WAN, the acronym for Software Defined Wide Area Network is a new take on the traditional Wide Area Network (WAN). A standard WAN’s goal was to connect users at a branch to a main campus or central office. A WAN is fundamentally hardware-based, using routers to connect users to a central data center. Network administrators or engineers determine how data is moved across the various communication lines. WANs no longer are effective […]

Good Fences Make for Secure Data

Investing in firewalls, anti-malware and data encryption software

Firewalls and anti-malware tools can help you by keeping unwanted actors out of your IT network. These tools work by restricting access to only pre authorized users and these are primarily defensive measures. Data encryption software, on the other hand, is more proactive and works to code your data and store it in a different form such that it makes sense to only those who are authorized to access it, using a decryption key. Proactive measures are your strongest […]

SMB and Some Basic Employee Security Issues

Training teams

Your employees are your first line of defense. Training is a basic requirement and should be conducted for every employee. This necessitates involving Human Resources so that businesses incorporate cyber security training from the first day of onboarding. must train their employees on cybersecurity best practices and also constantly update them with information about the latest scams and techniques adopted by cybercriminals. This will help employees identify situations where they may end up becoming victims of cybercrime or unwittingly compromise the organization’s cybersecurity. Untrained employees may […]

Cybercrime – Two basic routines to Protect Your Data

Cybersecurity is certainly not something to be ignored by organizations no matter how big or small they may be in terms of client base, staff or sales revenue. This is because cybercriminals don’t discriminate when it comes to choosing their victims. While bigger organizations may be better equipped to thwart a cyberattack, smaller businesses may lack the resources to do so. Also, smaller businesses will find it more difficult to bounce back from a cybersecurity incident. However, that doesn’t mean small businesses should give up on […]

Why Managed Service may be the way to go for your data security

Since effective cybersecurity should be a proactive effort, not reactive, this means that SMBs tend to overlook the entire issue as something that can be pushed forward into the future.

One way to get around this challenge is to have a service level agreement with an MSP. An SLA with a managed service provider offers multiple benefits such as

1. The obvious one is, you get the benefit of their expertise. An MSP’s core job is managing IT infrastructure, so when you […]
   

Why Cybersecurity shouldn’t be taken lightly

Let’s start with a “fun fact”: In 1981, the first cybercriminal was convicted of hacking into the AT&T network and altering its internal clock so it charged off-hour rates at peak times. So, it turns out that cybercrime is not all that new. But it stays new in the sense that it is constantly evolving. Cybercriminals now target not only big businesses like AT&T, but also small- and medium-sized businesses. Cybersecurity has to be a conscious decision. It is not something to be taken lightly or […]

You can lose more in a cyber attack than you can imagine

One of the errors many smaller firms make–and some larger ones–is that they really don’t understand the broad-reaching effects of a cyber attack. If someone breaks into your home and steals a laptop, you may think “ well, insurance will pay for the laptop and the broken lock, let’s move on.” In reality, that usually isn’t the end of the story. It may take you a really long time to feel safe in your home. That’s the same problem that […]