Making your business more efficient, secure and profitable through IT - Part 2

Have you ever wondered how much time you are losing by having a slow computer or how much this is costing the business? Perhaps when you’re busy, this is just a frustration and an accepted norm but as the impact can be so huge on a business there are some tips below to help you to be more IT efficient, minimise the wasted time and reduce those IT worries. After all, we all want to go home happy at the end of a working day, or if we are already working from home, we need to know that our home PCs are as secure as our business PCs.

This is the second blog in the series, breaking down some simple steps to check, which will help you to be more IT efficient and reduce those worries and frustrations. Use these as a checklist; work through each one and tick them off that list of things which you know you probably should have been doing but never got round to…. There’s no better time than now!

1. Maintenance

Many of us do it: wait until your laptop is almost ready to conk out before even considering repairing or replacing it. It’s more important to get the tasks done than fix the problems. It’s a toss up between earning money and spending it, and let’s face it, there’s one slightly more tempting option there. But, what would the impact be if you’d not saved what you had been working on, and your device stopped working? How frustrated would you feel with yourself?

Don’t wait until things go wrong. Consider hardware performance monitoring software to alert you to issues early. You can also get a maintenance contract with an IT support company who will do this for you. Before an issue becomes an issue, it could have already been fixed.

2. Spam

Do you get frustrated with the amount of spam that clogs up your inboxes? Full inboxes can be overwhelming enough, let alone how annoying it is when this inbox is just full of junk. Not only are they annoying, but spam emails can also contain malware and viruses which can cause data loss or corruption.

How do I avoid these emails, you ask? Introducing the Spam Filter. The filter should be adaptable for your business, to ensure genuine emails get through and time-wasters get blocked.

3. Passwords

Remember when you last forgot your password!? I’ve clicked the ‘forgot my password’ button this week and know that setting the same password and never changing it is so tempting. However, should someone get access to that password who shouldn’t, think about everything else could they get access to?

There are a couple of options here to maintain security:

1.      Use a password generator and regularly prompt staff to change their password

2.      Install a secure system that stores passwords for authorised users. This means you will not have to remember all your passwords and ensures access if somebody is on holiday. Much better than written on a post-it or saved in an email.

4. Web/Domain hosting

When you have a website, you have a domain (the www name). Your emails are linked to this name and it needs to be point to the web files which are your website. The files are hosted so visitors can see your website. The last thing you need while you’re busy is for your website to go down and be replaced by a virus ridden site with your domain being held at ransom or visitors seeing incorrect or inappropriate content instead of your website.

Our advice here is to ensure you own your own domain and that you have a backup and full access to all of your web files and emails providing an extra level of security to avoid this from happening.

5. Linking systems and offices

Do you have a team who are working remotely or flexibly? Do they need access to files and communication methods that match that level of flexibility? If you answer either of these questions with yes, the next thing to consider is whether all your team can access the right files and folders when they need to. If not, chances are a lot of time is being wasted, productivity is down and frustrations are running high.

The easiest way to ensure this isn’t the case is by making sure you know where files are stored. This includes knowing who needs access to what and who must be restricted from what (ie HR or financial information etc.) If you’re not sure where to get started with this, give us a call and we can help.

The above points are all included in our IT audit, so you if need help to answer the many questions, book an audit now. If you think your IT system are working, but you do not know for definite or cannot answer these questions, you need to know BEFORE you lose any data.

To find out what other tasks to tick off that list and keep your business safe and stress-free, keep tuned for our next blog in the series.

Otherwise, if you are stuck with how best to implement any of the above, please get in touch on 07775 800156 to arrange your free IT audit.