3 Ways to Safeguard Your Business
by Kate Smith, Director, Sales & Marketing
SMB organizations today face a constantly evolving set of potential threats, from data security breaches to downtime from unexpected events. Business owners and decision makers are asking questions like:
- With our growing dependence on the cloud, how do I keep my data protected?
- As my data grows, how can I make sure it’s being backed up in a cost-effective manner?
- If an unexpected event occurs, like a fire or flood, how long would it take to get our business back up and running? What would downtime cost our business?
- How do we keep up with ever changing technology landscape?
It’s important to get modern protection for evolving threats that help protect your business data and minimize disruptions caused by unexpected events. Utilizing solutions built on a Microsoft platform, let’s examine 3 ways to address the concerns above while safeguarding your business.
Loss of Theft of Laptop or Mobile Device
One of the biggest business challenges for SMBs is how to handle the business risks associated with the potential exposure of sensitive data in the event a device is lost, stolen or compromised. By leveraging Microsoft solutions, SMB organizations can benefit from enterprise-class technologies to safeguard their data.
Microsoft has included some pretty cool functionality in Windows 10 including built-in data encryption (through the use of facial and fingerprint recognition) that helps protect data accessed and stored on laptops and mobile workstations. This means that the users – and the user alone – can lock and unlock the device.
Microsoft Intune provides mobile device management, mobile application management, and PC management capabilities from the cloud. Through Intune, organizations can provide their employees with access to corporate applications, data, and resources from virtually anywhere on almost any device, while helping to keep corporate information secure. Intune is incredibly helpful in that it can provide MDM across company owned and employee owned devices effortlessly. Manage company data and applications while leaving personal items untouched. Additionally, Intune can provide remote wipe of confidential data for devices that are lost, stolen or compromised.
Files are Accidentally Deleted
When working with SMB customers and discussing backup solutions, we often uncover inadequate backup design which has the potential to result in loss of files, loss of productivity, and an increase of expenses.
Cloud-based data storage and backup has grown in popularity with SMB organizations as it has proven to be reliable, affordable and secure. SecurElement, in partnership with Barracuda and Microsoft, offers scalable, cost-effective backup in the cloud with the ability to restore quickly, as well as data retention policies for legal compliance. Cloud-based storage and backup on high-availability platforms with secondary redundancy options for geographical diversification provide guaranteed Service Availability. With virtual click and restore capabilities, your data is easily recoverable. Additionally, advanced functionality such as deduplication and compression ensures you only pay for the space you need.
Leveraging Microsoft OneDrive for Business enables users to keep files synchronized across devices and access them anywhere, anytime, both online and offline.
Experience a Fire, Flood or Natural Disaster
Unexpected events can bring business to a halt and create a risk to the business in terms of lost customers. When an SMB organization decides to utilize a cloud-based infrastructure (or even a hybrid of on-premises and cloud-based) it is that much more diversified as compared to traditional on-premises. The old adage is true, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Virtualizing your infrastructure (or parts of it) and utilizing cloud storage and backup solutions, enables your business to leverage disaster recovery functionality inherent to cloud-based computing. For example, what if your office is forced to close because of a natural disaster? With Office 365 and OneDrive for Business, employees can resume work from any device with an internet connection OR from any device in which OneDrive for business syncs with.
It is hard for SMB organization to keep pace with an ever changing technology landscape. Working with a trusted outsourced IT provider and Microsoft Partner can be incredibly beneficial as they are well versed across Microsoft’s offerings and have the experience of best-practices to ensure your IT investment is spent wisely.
About the Author
Kate Smith, SecurElement’s Director, Sales & Marketing is responsible for SecurElement’s overall sales and marketing strategy as well as ongoing partner relationships with organizations such as Microsoft, Cisco, Barracuda and many others.
