New year, new business: or at least, that should be your mantra. While the official start of a new year is relatively arbitrary in many senses, it is a good jumping point for some businesses to refresh. Most employees will have spent a fortnight or so away from their desks, and so they will be much more relaxed and ready to approach a brand new year of business. This is the ideal time to overhaul your business technology and get your employees to adapt to newer, modern technologies.
Software updates
Let’s get the most obvious, and so often neglected technologic preparation out of the way: software updates. Cybercriminals look for loopholes in software, which is why developers are always looking to patch up and repair these: it’s a kind of cat and mouse game that’s being constantly played between developers and criminals. Before everyone heads home for Christmas, run a software update on your whole network.
To that end, it might be worth your time to invest in new hardware. If your technology isn’t capable of installing the newest software update, then you are immediately vulnerable to an online attack. Of course, hardware is expensive, but repairing the cost of a data loss could be much more expensive in the long-run.
Cloud storage
There’s nothing worse than losing a document only to be asked ‘Did you back it up?’ – full in the knowledge that you didn’t. Cloud storage makes life so much easier for businesses, as it adds an element of automation to the process. It’s also a much more secure way of looking after valuable data and keeping it protected from cybercriminals. Software resellers such as Bytes are a great option when it comes to investing in Cloud storage. You won’t be buying it directly from Microsoft (or any other provider) but instead, a much more affordable vendor.
Internet connection
Many businesses opt for cheaper WiFi on the assumption that colleagues can get by. However, a good fiber-optic-based internet connection is unbeatable when it comes to productivity. Having to wait on the WiFi to re-connect or speed up is frustrating for everyone involved, but it could also make you look somewhat unprofessional. If you have to keep your client waiting while a document downloads they could wonder why you are using such as shoddy service provider.
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Your anti-malware scanner will also need the internet to run. If your computer runs an automated system scan while you are in the middle of a process, and the WiFi can’t cope with the information overload, you may be held back.
There’s nothing quite like a new year to assess what can be improved in your business, especially when it comes to tech. More than ever, companies rely on tech to see them from the beginning to the end of a workday, and an outdated infrastructure could cause productivity issues. Refreshing your software and hardware will help you to begin the new year with a bang.
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