Ready to Reopen? IT Support Will Be Critical to Success
This sign, coming soon…
BC Premier John Horgan has indicated that the BC economy will slowly but surely begin the reopening process over the summer. Precautions and preparedness are the keywords being passed around, but all focus has been on how to conduct business operations while maintaining on-site social distancing and sanitary best practices. While these are absolutely necessary considerations, there is one critical service that no business should overlook as they prepare to reopen – IT support. Your organization’s tech environment has become more important than ever before and in order for you to enjoy a successful reopening (no matter how staggered the process will be) you need to integrate IT services into the mix. Here’s why.
3 Reasons Why Enhanced Tech Support is Critical to Your Company’s Reopen Strategy
1. Because Customers/Clients Will Take Awhile to Get Comfortable
Many customers and clients (as applicable) will take their time before returning to your brick and mortar, be it a shop or office. They may not yet be comfortable and/or may not have the patience to wait in line as allowance limits for how many people may enter an establishment will persist for months. While some businesses adapted during the mandatory closures, others took a “wait and see” approach before moving sales and services online. The latter is no longer a sustainable business model. As a part of a reopen strategy your business will want to grow your online presence to account for current consumer trepidations about frequenting a physical establishment. In addition, enhancing online operations will hedge your risk should mandatory closures return – for any reason. With greater revenue-generating reliance focused online, you will need to grow your IT support proportionately.
2. Because On-Site to Remote Staffing Ratios Have Forever Changed
Staffing will never really look the same either. When reopening, your on-site staffing demands will likely be limited, especially if you need to enforce social distancing. That means a greater number of employees will need to work from home which adds an IT burden that your in-house tech team may not be able to handle. For example, to ensure secure and coordinated productivity between on-site and remote staff your cloud computing requirements will grow exponentially.
In addition, to attract future talent you will need to offer remote working opportunities even if it’s in the form of a “flex day” to work from home once per week. Integration of offsite production is now expected of companies more than ever before.
Lastly, sick day allowances will be taken very seriously. The BC government and labor relations together will be enforcing mandates for businesses to ease up on sick leave limits. In the past, an employee may be expected to come to work with mild to moderate sniffles and a cough, but that will no longer be the case. The slightest symptom will come with a stay-and-work-from-home order, even if they can still be productive. Your business needs to be able to accommodate this without concern for operational consistency.
3. Because Cybercrime Will Follow
Cybercriminals go where the money goes. When your business reopens, your revenue will grow, and so will interest in your company as a target for phishing schemes and malware/ransomeware campaigns. During the mandatory economic shutdown data shows that cybercrime quadrupled through the fiscal second quarter of 2020. Do you think it will slow down once businesses begin to reopen? Definitely not! Small and medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprises (SMEs) will continue to be the hot targets of hackers and hacking groups during the reopening phase. They predict that you’ll be so focused on “quick revenue” generating investment (marketing, product/service development, etc.) while cybersecurity spending is temporarily reduced. Don’t prove them right. Instead, work with an outside tech support firm that makes IT security the foundation of their service, complete with data backup and disaster recovery.
We can help you attain a successful reopening strategy through the summer of 2020 and beyond. Contact SAV Technology today to discuss.