How small businesses can avoid technical glitches

By Cutter Slagle

May 19, 2020

undefined mins

As a business leader, you are most likely well aware of the fact that we live in an era where technology is king; companies everywhere—big and small—are constantly relying on technology to assist with various aspects of their business.

However, technology is not always reliable, is it? Mistakes and glitches happen that are sometimes unpredictable and out of your control. These issues can often times be expensive, time consuming and hard to fix.

Originally provided by our sister brand Business Review Canada, we’ve put together a list of tips that can (potentially) assist you in avoiding certain errors. While some blunders can’t be prevented, there are plenty that can!

Make sure you have the right support

First things first, you need to make sure you have the right technical support for your system. Many businesses try to save money by going without a technical support team, and just simply rely on an employee or relative to handle issues.

However, in the long run, this method is not cost-effective. If you’re running a professional company, then you need to have a knowledgeable and trusted tech support group who is proficient and capable of learning your particular system. As glitches can happen randomly and at inconvenient times, your IT assistant needs to have an open and available schedule.

Make sure you know how to overcome hardware and software issues

Sounds complex, right? For example, did you know that older hardware is less efficient and can result in lost business opportunities? Follow these simple guidelines:

Always retire equipment at proper lifecycles
Standardize hardware components
Standardize software applications
Build a relationship with IT consultants to reduce and negotiate prices

Make sure you have the proper power protection

It’s important to know that a single power outage, surge and/or spike can severely damage all electronic components, resulting in the loss of data and critical information. Furthermore, these surges can shorten the lifespan of computers and other pieces of equipment.

Therefore, consider deploying quality battery backup devices for all critical pieces of equipment. Servers should also be connected to uninterruptible power suppliers and regularly tested to confirm adequate protection is in place.

Make sure your employees have adequate training

For your team, software training is very important. Insufficient training ranks as one of the most common tech mistakes that currently impacting all businesses.

In fact, it’s estimated that employees understand less than 20 per cent of the available features in the software application they use (i.e. 80 per cent of features that could assist with saving time and money remain unused).

Therefore, as the head of the company, it’s imperative to identify technology partners, training centers and other programs that can assist your staff in maximizing all software applications.

Make sure you have good security measures

It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, you must not fail to accommodate security issues. Consider these steps:

Enforce strong password security policies for all servers, networks, applications, etc.
Regularly update all operating systems
Secure all wireless networks
Disable guest accounts
Prohibit file-sharing programs

[SOURCE: Tech Republic ]

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