Technology helps businesses run more smoothly, but how much more smoothly can vary widely. How much technology actually benefits a business is a sliding scale. At best, it helps everyone at the organization deliver their best work; at worst, it impacts productivity and poses serious cybersecurity and operational risks.
Established businesses nearly always recognize the importance of treating IT as a priority. Smaller, growing businesses often make mistakes that can turn into expensive lessons later down the line.
In this post, we’re going to run through some of the most common IT-related mistakes that young and growing businesses tend to make, as well as their solutions, so that you don’t need to learn them the hard way.
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Underestimating the Importance of Backups
For many businesses, their data isn’t an incidental part of their operations; in many cases, it is their operations. Even the most non-techy businesses could face significant difficulties if they no longer had access to their all-important data.
Most people know the importance of backing up their data. Not everyone knows to actually test those backups. It’s a lot better to know that some data didn’t make it into the backup folder before it becomes a necessity.
Weak Passwords
Young businesses often use weak passwords for convenience. There are multiple different people who need to access a system, and it’s a lot easier to simply use the company’s name as the password rather than a complicated one that no one will remember.
Those weak passwords pose risk even during the earliest days of the business, but become an all-out liability once the business begins to grow. Adopting clear password protocols early on helps to avoid these dangers.
Spending Too Much Time Figuring Things Out
Many young businesses manage their IT requirements in-house because it’s cheaper and because, at that stage, their IT needs are relatively modest.
But as the business grows, so do its IT needs — and at that point, businesses can spend far too much of their time trying to figure out how to do things themselves, which takes away valuable time, energy, and resources from the genuinely value-adding tasks that would push the brand forward.
In our experience, young businesses usually wait too long before bringing in dedicated IT support. If you’re finding that you and your team are spending more than five hours per week managing IT issues, then it’s time to hand the job over to the experts.
Giving Everyone Admin Access
Young businesses are usually pretty cavalier about giving everyone at the business admin access to their systems. As with passwords, this is usually just seen as convenient — or in some cases, it’s just the default setting that’s applied to users when they’re added.
But giving everyone admin access poses significant threats. There’s the matter of trust, for one thing, but even if you know that everyone’s on the same side, it can still pose dangers. It’s more likely that there’ll be a cybersecurity issue if everyone has administrative access, for example. There’s also the risk that they’ll make accidental changes that are difficult to undo.
Rather than automatically giving all employees admin access, it’s better to take the opposite approach and only give admin privileges to those who genuinely need them. It’s a small change that might just save you a lot of headaches.
Overlooking Remote Work Cybersecurity Threats
Some 50% of the global workforce engages in some level of remote work, and it’s especially popular among young businesses.
However, while remote working has been shown to boost productivity and employee satisfaction, it also poses a cybersecurity risk if not managed correctly. Many businesses focus on the positives of remote work, not realizing that they may be putting their business at risk.
The biggest security risks from remote work come from the use of personal devices and accessing unsecured networks. Having a Mobile Device Management plan in place for both company and personal equipment is key, as is mandating that employees use a VPN if there are any questions about the security of a network.
Having a Reactive Rather than Proactive Mindset
One of the reasons why established companies are more likely to treat their IT needs as a priority is that they’ve been burned before. Young businesses are more likely to view it as an afterthought because they haven’t yet had anything go wrong.
Having a reactive mindset to your IT needs is a risky game, not to mention an expensive one. While it’s usually possible to fix things when they break, that doesn’t mean that it’s the smart approach. The expense of having to fix the issue, the downtime it produces, and the impact on employee morale can all take a toll.
A better approach is to have a proactive mindset. This will help to ensure that your systems are being proactively managed, significantly reducing the risk of experiencing expensive or time-consuming IT problems.
Ignoring Employee Feedback
The best company IT policies are those that meet the needs of its employees. After all, they’re the ones who are actually using the technology. In some cases, it’s the owner of the business that makes all of the IT-related decisions. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that approach, it does remove the benefits of having employees part of the process. Employees who are involved in selecting the tools and hardware they use will be more likely to work productively and have better morale.
Overspending On Fancy Hardware and SaaS Subscriptions
Finally, while it’s inevitable that your business will have to spend something on your IT needs, it’s also important to keep your budget in mind. Many businesses get drawn into thinking that they need fancy hardware or all the SaaS subscriptions, but this approach can quickly blitz through a budget. In many cases, it makes sense to buy refurbished laptops rather than new ones. It’s also recommended to periodically audit the company’s SaaS subscriptions to ensure that you’re not paying for something no one is using and to see if there’s a cheaper option available.
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