In addition to disrupting lives and work around the globe, the pandemic set off a plague of cybercrime. Estimates show there were as many as 192,000 coronavirus-related cyberattacks per week in May 2020 alone, a 30 percent increase compared to April 2020 (Unisys). There has never been greater urgency to invest in preventative data security. But for many small to medium-sized businesses, providing the level of IT management required to securely support a fully hybrid workforce is simply unrealistic. Maintaining in-house IT staff is costly. And no matter how good your full-time IT person is, it’s impossible to give the level of support and security you get from an entire team working around the clock.
Predict and prevent costly IT issues before they become a liability.
The cost savings of outsourcing your business IT services means you can maximize the effectiveness of your IT dollars, and helps you standardize technology across your portfolio, regardless of location. With Techmenity’s 24/7 proactive monitoring, we’ll ensure your systems are healthy and operating efficiently — allowing you to focus on growth, not recovery.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of your IT budget, Techmenity recommends outsourcing some or all of your IT Services. Techmenity can provide added support for your existing IT team or, we can manage your businesses’ full IT suite. We help businesses big and small customize a cloud-based IT plan, select the right collaborative tools for your teams, and build an IT strategy that addresses four main concerns: security, management, flexibility, and scalability.
1. Data & Cybersecurity
Even before the pandemic, most data breaches went undiscovered for 287 days and it took another 80 days to contain the breach (IBM). The abrupt shift to remote dramatically expanded the attack surface and increased the threat landscape for every organization. Having employees logging in from different locations, on a variety of networks and devices (many of which they brought themselves) opened a pathway for cybercriminals to target both the company and the individual.
- Organizations that didn’t adapt their IT to cope with the pandemic, lost an average of $5.01 million per breach, as compared to the global overall average of $4.24 million (IBM).
- Organizations with more than 60 percent of employees working remotely had a higher average data breach cost than those without remote workers (IBM).
Ensuring secure remote access is an essential first step for every business, but it’s not enough. It is essential that your company take a comprehensive approach to hybrid work; one that focuses on minimizing human error through cybersecurity awareness training for employees, role-based access, and choosing interoperable solutions with built-in security and privacy features.
- Conduct an in-depth assessment to understand your company’s organizational roles and responsibilities in order to assign role-based access.
- Schedule regular security awareness assessments & employee training to condition smarter security behaviors. (link to human error)
- Implement procedures and compliance protocols to qualify for cyber insurance.
2. Management and Control
Many organizations use computers, operating systems, and databases from a variety of different vendors. Now faced with managing hundreds or thousands of remote workers operating in diverse environments, organizations need more standardization to ensure better management, governance, usage, and security.
Hybrid work requires technologies that offer centralized administration of software, hardware, and facilities — with real-time updates and integrated visibility into all apps and devices.
- A unified communications and collaboration (UCC) solution combines essential communication, audio, video, and collaboration technologies to bring people together in virtual and on-site workspaces.
- Select a unified communication and collaboration (UCC) solution with a robust cloud infrastructure that’s been optimized for the heavy media and bandwidth demands of virtual work.
3. Flexibility
Now that most of us have accepted and settled into our new hybrid routine, employees want to choose how, where, and when they work.
Today, only 55% of companies give frontline workers access to enterprise collaboration tools, but that is expected to increase to 92% in the coming year. In order for companies to support a true mix of workers, those working from home “must be as effective, visible, and valued as their in-office counterparts.” (Frost & Sullivan, 2021)
Enterprise Communications and Collaboration Solutions: image © 2021 Frost & Sullivan • www.frost.com
Techmenity can help you facilitate secure, efficient collaboration across locations and job roles, by leveraging solutions that offer a wide variety of integrated capabilities while prioritizing employee experience:
- Remote tech support for a range of connected devices.
- Video conferencing solutions with the ability to produce virtual events for large-audience engagement.
- Software that enables seamless workflows among processes and apps.
- Advanced AI that delivers actionable insights to improve the experience for employees and customers alike.
4. Scalability
Being underprepared for growth when building your technology infrastructure can be the single biggest hindrance to your company’s success.
As your business expands, your IT needs will change so it’s crucial that you plan for growth when designing your technology infrastructure. You can ease future growing pains by investing in an IT company that is equally invested in a long-term relationship and prepared to grow with you. Techmenity will work with you to understand your company’s growth plans so that we can build your technology systems to scale.
Understanding Your Risks
Every new IT services contract begins with an in-depth audit of your current IT ecosystem to assess and understand your organizational roles around IT, define our “starting point,” and create our project timeline.
- Audit of security + equipment + software
- Continuity of business planning review
- Understand organizational roles + responsibilities to assign role-based access
- Expose operational risks, liability, and inefficiencies
- Understand company growth plans to synchronize IT expansion in lock-step
- 24/7 Help Desk
- Seamless IT provider transitioning
Your Biggest Threat: Human Error
Techmenity’s 24/7 Managed Services team will help design & implement proper IT Security, Data Management, and WFH policies to protect business continuity — and ensure employees can work safely and efficiently no matter where they’re connecting from.
- Jumpstart security education with a 1-hour cybersecurity training for all staff
- Implement procedures and protocols required to validate compliance in order to qualify for cyber insurance.
- Regularly scheduled security awareness assessments & employee training to condition smarter security behaviors
- Incident response (IR) preparedness
Scalable Solutions That Grow With Your Business
- 24/7 endpoint, server, and network monitoring
- 24/7 remote tech support
- Anti-virus, anti-malware, and threat detection
- Scheduled updates and emergency patching
- Data protection through backups & virtualization
- Quarterly business reports and on-site surveys & reviews
- Application suite integration: Microsoft Office 365 & Google Workspace
- White glove support for C-suite executives
Contact us to schedule a discovery call or read the posts linked below to learn more about Techmenity’s IT services.
This article is part of our Hybrid Workplace series:
- Is Your Business Ready for a Hybrid Future?
- Technology Priorities for an Evolving Office Re-entry Plan
- Why human error is the greatest threat to your business