Is your business at risk? A guide to check
By: Mikhail Danilchyk
Tags: Information Technology, Risk Management, QA, Business, Business Risk Analysis

At times, IT and business leaders are disconnected. The managers see the bigger picture, but sometimes they don’t work with IT to make sure they can accomplish their goals without technology getting in the way.

These are the 6 most common IT problems that business owners can be unaware of

1. POOR NETWORK SECURITY

The size of your business doesn’t matter. In 43% of cases, cybercriminals aim at small businesses because they might not have a robust security policy or one that can easily be breached. Moreover, your employees can be the source of a data leak, according to CoxBlue, it is so in 48% of all data breaches. The most common reasons being Phishing attacks, Weak passwords, Unauthorized access to information.

The research indicates that only 14% of small businesses are confident of the ability to mitigate the risks. What’s more, over half of startups go out of business within six months after a cyber attack.

To prevent that, ensure that your employees are well-trained, the company’s firewall enabled, data backed up, the upkeep of passwords maintained.

3. DOWNFALL OF OLD TECHNOLOGY

All the systems might be working alright for a while, but sooner or later issues will arise. In that case, you need to be sure resources can be found to fix them.

Moreover, you can experience issues setting up various integrations with newer systems. Therefore it is important to have regular maintenance done on your current devices and to use support services whenever necessary. Still, it could be more reasonable to transfer your software to modern technology, one that can easily be maintained. If you don’t know if it is more profitable to redesign your system or invest in maintenance, and, if yes, how, consult professionals.

4. SOFTWARE ISSUES

Too many system failure or error messages? The reason might be poor Quality Assurance of the software. In fact, this issue may arise even if your system is brand new. Moreover, software is a very complex thing, there can be issues that will come up later and result in unexpected behaviour of the system.

Have you heard of the failures caused by malfunctioning systems?

Reebok sold trainers for free, Tesco priced iPads 13 times less, Amazon costs became 1p, New York Stock exchange stopped trading — all because of unstable software. And the most resounding example is the Airbus bug that caused the death of 4 crew members.

A poorly tested system may cause inconveniences as well as result in money loss.

To prevent any issues, consult an agency that knows all ins and outs of QA.

4. LACK OF QUALIFIED EXPERIENCE

All the problems mentioned above happen due to low qualifications of the workers, whether they are unaware of the latest technologies or just not experienced enough.

Your in-house team doesn’t have to be coping with all the complex technical issues, it is better to outsource. And it doesn’t mean that you now have to get rid of your IT department. If you are sure of your staff’s skills, try auditing your processes and hire experienced specialists who will ensure deliveries are timely, communication between the teams is established and the workflow is smooth.

5. NO IT PLAN

Planning your business goals is crucial, but your software is a tool to achieve them and therefore needs to be minded. What if at some point your system will not scale up to the 101st worker or will not allow registration of the 1001st customer? In our experience we had a case of a bus service provider, whose mobile app did not give the possibility to add a new route.

An IT plan comes in handy if you want the workflow to be faster, deliveries timely and communication between teams established.