How to Overcome IT Business Decision-Making Challenges
Read this article to know the challenges that come in business and how to solve them. Know the top 5 approaches you must always keep in mind while solving any challenge.
Technology is vital for industry and user efficiencies to help increase production while automating processes and ensuring communication is readily available and accessible for groups of people and systems. It's something that's also constantly changing and evolving.
Regardless of how you feel about technology, it's not going anywhere, anytime soon. It's something that's here to stay. To ensure you have the best chance of success, it's best to implement the latest technology innovations into your business model to help keep you a step ahead of the competition.
Don't worry, you aren't on your own. Use the tips here to help overcome IT business decision-making challenges related to technology. A key concept to remember throughout is that adoption and integration are key to success.Start with Security Top-of-Mind
Technology and cybersecurity go hand in hand. It's a major point of concern and companies can't ignore this when trying to decide what to do. Regardless of if it is technical or software services, overall security needs to be the main concern.
If an attack happens to occur, cybersecurity can become extremely expensive and some decision-makers believe that the chances of their organization being breached is extremely low.
They may not think their business is of any interest to a hacker or they may trust the services external or internal resource. This is never a good strategy and can leave any business extremely vulnerable to an attack.Always Plan for the Worst
System outages and data loss caused by natural disasters, malicious attacks, and hardware failures should be at the front of a decision maker's or business owner's mind. This is something that every organization needs to address proactively.
A question that any business needs to be able to answer confidently and consistently is: what's going to happen if the business opened tomorrow and all the information was missing?
If you are confident about information security, along with overall business continuity, it's a good idea to consider this fact: each year, data breaches cost organizations approximately $3.5 million. The bottom line is that there are hackers all around the globe that look for vulnerabilities at all times, from personal information like social security numbers to credit card information and more.
If you don't know what may happen if your building no longer exists or if your hardware failed suddenly, and if you aren't using a true backup currently or have a business continuity plan in mind, stop right now and create one. Your business's longevity and success depend on it.
Also, it is no longer enough just to have a backup solution in place. You also need to have a tested response plan. If an emergency occurs, it's crucial that management can reach every employee to let them know what is expected.Be Proactive Rather than Reactive
In some situations, an organization's decision-makers make choices that are, essentially, a gamble. They understand that their hardware or software is at the end of its life and are aware that there are no more security upgrades, but still do nothing.
Too many companies opt to "limp" for as long as they can for several reasons. It could be due to monetary concerns, a comfort of what is being used currently, or because they don't know how to take the next step.
Usually, most business owners are going to agree that saving money today isn't worth a bigger expense in the future. This means you need to take a proactive approach to prevent problems in the future. This means using updated software and hardware and making changes as they are needed, rather than after a problem occurs.
Know the Business's Limitations and Vulnerabilities
When it comes to best practices, it's a good idea to implement quarterly vulnerability scanning, along with annual penetration testing. With vulnerability scanning, you have help finding the internet-facing technologies of the organization and can identify any issues or vulnerabilities present on your network or computer.
Penetration testing is when you have an ethical hack done. This is when someone with good intentions tries to manually exploit any vulnerabilities that are present in your organization. You will receive a report from the ethical hacker that lets you know how your information and business may be exploited.
The information provided by this should be used to improve the security of your system and to create a roadmap to remediate the issues or to create a strategic plan for future IT decisions regarding personnel, software, and hardware.Demand "Proof of Life"
It is a great thing if you have an IT resource that you trust to help you make the best practice decisions about your business or organization. As an additional layer of due diligence, request that they tell you how fast they could restore your sensitive information if a breach or outage occurred. Make sure you request proof of their ability to provide a successful restoration.
You may also want to ask a third-party service provider to look into your systems in place as a type of IT risk assessment or to handle the penetration testing and vulnerability testing that was mentioned above. Any company that is doing its job isn't going to be threatened by this.
If a breach or outage occurs, especially when any type of compliance requirements are in question, having the ability to show that risks are being handled proactively is going to go a long way. As a business owner, it's going to help you sleep better at the very least.Decisions Made Easy about Business Technology
If you want to protect your business from serious risks that are present for all size businesses in all industries, then you need to that the information found here and use it. Your business is only as strong as its weakest link so makes sure that your cybersecurity isn't this weak link by testing it frequently and making updates or changes as needed. This will give you the peace of mind that your business can survive any tech-related issue.
