Why IT Support is More Important Than Ever Before
During the COVID 19 health crisis (which has turned into an economic crisis) businesses have had to put their priorities in order. Since closing up shop is not an option, SMBs and SMEs are quickly shifting their budgets towards one “essential” service that must be deemed downright critical at this juncture – outside IT support. Evolving your IT infrastructure with professional guidance is no longer something that can be put off while waiting for an ideal time to get started. Here’s why.
4 BIG Reasons Organizations Must Consider Outside IT Support to be a Critical Service During the COVID 19 Crisis
1. Advanced Cyber Attacks Are on the Rise
Cybercriminals are a capitalistic lot. They look for prime opportunities to strike and now is about as prime as it gets. The FBI reports that since the COVID 19 outbreak cybercrime activity has increased fourfold and hackers’ malicious campaigns are becoming more successful. Why? They know that businesses are flustered and scrambling to get their financial and operational affairs in order. Companies are letting their guard down, getting careless, and becoming more susceptible to phishing schemes. In addition, the reactive desire to hold on to budgets while taking a “wait and see” stance has resulted in less investment in AI and machine learning tools for cybercrime prevention at the corporate level. These cutbacks create large vulnerabilities to advanced malware threats. Instead of cutting back on cybercrime initiatives you must do the opposite. To mitigate your risk and better manage the costs of more robust cybersecurity, allow an IT support firm to step in to perform an audit and tighten up defenses for all of your tech-driven operations.
2. Remote Work Creates New Challenges
One of the biggest challenges companies are facing right now is navigating the whole “work from home” requirement. For one, having staff away from the office environment increases the risk of cybercrime. You can’t assume staff will be as careful as they are under the watchful eye of their workspace and in-house IT. But there are also huge communications and productivity hurdles to overcome with everyone working from their at-home stations. For these reasons businesses are having to increase adoption of cloud services. But unless you and/or your limited in-house IT team is an expert in cloud management the transition could create more problems than solutions. Simply put, you need an expert in cloud services for both IT security and productivity.
3. You Need to Grow and Evolve Online Business Opportunities
While many businesses are hurting, adaptable ones are evolving operations and placing a greater focus on online revenue generation. Brick and mortar sellers are growing their eCommerce capabilities, private health professionals (physio, etc.) are now offering virtual services, and more. Companies that expect to thrive, much less survive, the economic calamity caused by the government response to the health threat will grow their online presence. This unequivocally requires a greater investment in IT through the securement of a partnership with a Managed Services Provider (MSP). An MSP can help your business identify opportunities, can assist with IT budgeting and hardware/software acquisitions to take advantage of these opportunities, and will be there to manage some to all of your IT needs. This is one investment that can deliver an ROI despite COVID 19, but only if it’s handled with expert care.
4. You Need a Disaster Recovery Plan Amidst a Current Disaster
There is a ton of uncertainty at the moment. During such times organizations need to immediately revisit their IT disaster recovery plan – correction – create an IT disaster recovery plan. That’s right, Nationwide Insurance reports that 75% of small businesses don’t have a disaster recovery plan. And what about those SMBs who do? TechRepublic reports that nearly a quarter of all companies don’t bother to test their disaster recovery plans. Long story short, most business have nothing solid in place to ensure business continuity amidst a major crisis. And guess what? We’re in the thick of one! The pandemic is increasing susceptibility to a number of potential IT events, including cybercrime and lack of preparedness (due to budget cuts and loss of focus) to traditional disasters such as extreme weather (floods, wildfires, etc.) along with power outages due to strained municipal resources. While you can reference our 5-step guide to creating an effective disaster recovery plan, there is little time to execute and test it on your own. For this reason you need immediate IT support that offers data backup and disaster recovery services.
Don’t let another day pass without taking this important new step to protect and grow your business despite the COVID 19 crisis. Contact us today to discuss – we’re here for you every step of the way!