We all know that running a small business is a challenge. Often, its challenge after challenge.

An area we all want to ensure works is our IT and technology. This isn’t an area where we want to experience a challenge. If IT stops working it can mean everything else grinds to a halt too.

This week we’re exploring some common IT challenges that small businesses face and the action you can take to make sure they don’t happen to you.

An increasingly common challenge for small businesses is having the right systems and processes in place to ensure that they are keeping data safe and secure. This means both data held about customers, or even customers data if a business is engaged to work with that data.

Previously, legislation like GDPR has placed an additional stricter burden on how businesses use data. Having these requirements in place mean that its more important than ever to make sure that small businesses are treating data seriously.

What this boils down to includes making sure that the right types of antivirus, passwords and other security measures are used. If you’re in any doubt as to what should be considered, check here.

In tandem with keeping information safe and secure is ensuring that you have the right backup in place. As we’ve written before on this blog, data is now the life blood of a business and if you aren’t looking after the data you’re responsible for then there will be problems.

Backup doesn’t have to be as complicated as setting up your own server to hold all of your information – really this would be unreasonable for most small businesses. However, many software tools are now designed with cloud storage in mind (Sharepoint and Google Drive being examples). This means that the documents you’re working on every day are saved somewhere other than your computer. If you’re machine breaks you don’t lose the data.

Making sure you use one of these types of solutions means that your backup is built in.

As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, setting up an entire IT department can be a really expensive endeavour. Like any specialism in business there are times when it makes sense to bring it in house and there are times it doesn’t.

For the vast majority of small businesses, it doesn’t make sense to have an IT department in house. A much more cost effective approach is to look at managed IT as a way to get the benefits of an IT department without the overheads.

Rather than spending money on recruiting someone to run your IT, build up a relationship with a quality IT provider that you can outsource your needs to. This relationship can then grow and you grow, and will be a lot more cost effsaective.