Now is the ideal time to take stock of your IT strategy, the workplace has changed dramatically and the need to stay agile as a business is paramount. Keeping your data safe with many teams working remotely is essential. Here we take a look at five reasons to revaluate your IT strategy…
Remote workers
For so many businesses teams are working from home on a full or part time basis. Some have even made this permanent and closed the office altogether. With this seismic change IT strategies have gone from ‘Cloud First’ to ‘Cloud now’. To enable teams to be fully productive in any location Cloud infrastructure needs to be at the forefront of any new IT project or investment.
Back up and business continuity
Whilst Microsoft Office 365 is super secure, it only has a data retention period of 30 days and Microsoft SharePoint is just 14 days. If you haven’t got a backup solution in place already then you’ll need to find a solution to ensure your data stays put. Your Business Continuity plan needs to be clear and also get tested regularly, this doesn’t need to take up a vast amount of time or be expensive to protect you should the worst happen. A fall back for hardware failures, server issues and file corruption to name just a few scenarios is essential.
Security
The security of your data is always a concern whilst people are working remotely as opposed to on your premises. There are simply more factors to consider for data interception such as open wifi, unsecured home broadband, the devices they use and so on. New policies and procedures plus a secure IP-VPN connection and staff training can all help to keep your data safe.
Your business needs
After the initial panic back in March and the rush to get your teams up and running from home in some way, we’ve found many IT systems have been adapted or put in place fast so they aren’t working quite as efficiently as they should. Now is an ideal time to run due diligence on your infrastructure to ensure it’s allowing your staff to work as productively as possible with the systems you use. If they are facing any technology barriers it’s time to remove them.
Your team
COVID has affected everyone on the planet in some way. Perhaps your teams have stayed the same, maybe you’ve had to make redundancies, maybe business has boomed and you’ve been able to employ new members. Whatever has happened during 2020, you can be sure that if your teams feel they have well communicated procedures in place and systems that work they will ultimately be more confident to better serve your customers.
Our UK based data centres in London and Wiltshire are highly resilient and monitored 24/7, all our products and services run on our infrastructure, our network and our servers. This means we can design and deliver a bespoke solution that works for you and your business with the added advantage of fast and reactive support.
The friendly team at Cloud Heroes are always available should you want to chat through any of your hosting and data networking requirements so call us on 01225 776555 or email us here.