With the world increasingly integrating technology (particularly cloud access and internet-based services) into every aspect of business, even those that are traditionally “offline,” a lot of your data will inevitably become available online. If you lose this data, the consequences can be devastating. According to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a quarter of small U.S. businesses never reopen their doors after a disaster or breach. To ensure that data stays protected and your company can thrive even in the event of an emergency, you should use third-party business IT solutions that specifically cater to your requirements. Read on to learn more.
How to Ensure Your Business Can Stand Up to Emergencies
Traditionally, this question is solved by implementing what is called business continuity planning. This branch of business management processes deals with implementing proactive and preventative measures to safeguard vital processes and data from natural disasters and hostile actors.
At its core, a business continuity plan is designed to minimize data loss and company downtime, both of which can be costly. It ascertains the potential risks a company may face based on its location and existing IT solutions and infrastructure. The plan allows the company to shore up those weaknesses with redundancies and defensive measures.
With that in mind, a business continuity plan aims to minimize these losses with the following:
- Risk assessment: Listing the most likely threats (both from natural disasters and hostile actions) that the company faces, which heavily depends on its location, industry, and prominence.
- Impact analysis: Determining the most likely scenario in the rare event that a disaster takes place. This typically calculates the direct losses that a company might be facing in terms of added expenses or lost revenue.
- Communication infrastructure: Vital for online-first businesses, the business continuity plan sets out a process on how teams will communicate during an emergency when traditional collaboration options are unavailable.
- Recovery process: If data has been lost in a disaster, what is the process to recover or reassemble it from previous records?
If you’re still not convinced, bear in mind that the COVID-19 pandemic led to 100,000 small businesses closing across the U.S. Business continuity planning allows your company to avoid that fate.
How Business IT Solutions Contribute to Continuity Planning
Considering the sheer range of IT solutions available in the B2B (business-to-business sector), you might think that some are redundant or don’t have much to do with planning for the worst. While you’d be right, most IT solutions ultimately help your business thrive and set it up for long-term success.
Here’s a list of some of the most prominent third-party IT solutions that can improve your business’ resilience in an emergency.
Data Backup and Recovery
While a large part of business continuity planning deals with minimizing the risk of losing data, chances are a natural disaster that catches your main office will inevitably lead to complete device destruction. That’s why most common third-party IT services focus on backing up and recovering that data.
This is a relatively simple principle, made significantly easier by modern cloud solutions. By uploading a copy (or a few) of your vital data and process documentation to a cloud-based network, you lower the risk of all the copies being lost simultaneously.
A qualified provider often works with a company to determine which data requires the most stringent safeguards. Additionally, it can set up a tiered hierarchy for accessing that data online to improve in-house data security.
Network Management and Support
Apart from storing your data, a third-party IT service provider will often create and maintain the IT infrastructure necessary for your business to perform the vital processes that help it grow. This can include both hardware and software solutions.
On the hardware side, you can get dedicated servers and access points, leading to improved data storage and workstation implementation. It allows the company to get a fully working network infrastructure that either uses its existing systems or completely overhauls paper documentation, heralding its digital transformation.
Software-based IT solutions include customized apps or user platforms. The former can give employees fragmented role-based access to the company’s background and communication systems, giving management control over who can see what in the company. The latter streamlines the company’s customer service and support processes and allows you to focus on delivering stellar products to the end client.
You should also partner with a long-term provider that not only sets up these services but also offers round-the-clock maintenance and support to ensure they are updated and compliant with modern standards. This is more straightforward than patching up the software with other models and designs, as it can lead to conflicts and increasing complexity.
Cybersecurity
Traditional business continuity planning typically dealt with the physical side of the recovery process (i.e. ensuring the business can recuperate after a natural disaster that destroys an office). But modern problems have propagated the need for defense of the digital realm, and cybersecurity has become one of the biggest corporate issues.
To put things into perspective, over 350 million people were affected by data breaches in 2023. This means that the information you collect on your customers (i.e. name, location, credit card information, and more) might be targeted by a savvy hostile actor. If the data gets breached, your company might suffer a damaged reputation and never reopen.
That’s why business-oriented IT solutions often include progressive cybersecurity packages to protect the data you upload to the cloud. It lowers the risk of being targeted in an attack and improves your resilience against threats.
IT Support and Training
While the tech world is building up defenses against increasingly modern threats, the human factor remains a significant cause of data breaches and losses. According to Egress, more than 70% of takeover attacks start with phishing, which relies on employees giving away access to a hostile actor.
By partnering with a dedicated IT solutions provider, your company’s team gains access to modern tutorials and training to improve internet and tech literacy. This will improve the long-term safety and security of vital company records and information.
How Third-Party IT Solutions Benefit a Business
There are a few reasons why you might want to sign up with a third-party provider for your IT needs:
- Cost and time saving: A third-party provider offers multiple “tiers” or customized service plans that can quickly and efficiently shore up your biggest weaknesses. This can be vital if your small business doesn’t have a dedicated IT person or a budget for a full-time IT role.
- Scalability: Along the same vein, since an IT solutions provider is a large-scale company, they can upscale their range of services to include additional offers when the company grows enough to need them. Effectively, the provider becomes an off-shore IT team that might cost a fraction of employing one.
- Integration and support: IT providers typically work with high-end or recognizable brands and have extensive experience with the solutions they build. This allows them to integrate existing infrastructure and create a more robust network.
What Are the Next Steps?
If your company needs IT solutions that cater to its every need, it’s time for a full-service provider that can grow with you, such as KDI. We combine enterprise-level solutions with good old-fashioned family values and customer support that helped build KDI from the ground up.
For more details on how we can help your business in Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware, contact KDI today.