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We all know the importance of practicing good hygiene, and your IT is no exception. Just like in your personal life, implementing proactive cyber security measures helps bolster your London business’s barricade against bugs, viruses, and all sorts of other threats that could grind you to a halt. In this blog, we’ll give you five basic but powerful best practices to help you master the fundamentals of cyber hygiene and build a more resilient digital environment. Let’s get you protected!
1. Use Strong, Unique Passwords to Boost Cyber Safety
First on the list, and we’re starting off nice and easy. Setting strong, unique passwords for all access points to your business’s digital environment is a super simple but incredibly effective defence, and it can be done in a matter of minutes. Strong passwords typically consist of a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters, and are at least 8-12 characters long.
Why It’s Important: Passwords are the first line of defence against unauthorised access to your systems. Weak passwords can be easily guessed or cracked by cyber attackers using entirely unsophisticated methods, leading to potential data breaches and system compromises. It’s not worth your business losing valuable revenue and reputation over an easily avoidable cyber safety blunder like ‘password123’.
How It Helps Secure Your SMB: Fortifying your passwords reduces the likelihood of outsider access, ensuring that confidential business data and critical systems remain safe and beyond cyber criminals’ reach. And, to address any concerns your team may have regarding complicated login details, using password managers can keep them complex and original enough without the risk of being forgotten.
2. Employ Threat Management Tools Like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication adds an additional layer of security by requiring two or more verification methods to gain access to your systems. These methods usually consist of something you know (a password), something you have (a smartphone or security token), and something you are (biometric verification). In practice, this might look like your team being required to enter their password and verify the login attempt with a code sent to their mobile before they can access their email account on a new device.
Why It’s Important: Even if a hacker were to obtain one of your (now far stronger) passwords, MFA means that it’s not enough to get them into your systems. When one authentication factor is compromised, the presence of an additional layer can still keep unauthorised access at bay and eradicate it for good if it’s paired with ongoing monitoring by an IT support team who will be alerted to the threat. MFA acts as a second line of defence, and layering up your cyber security measures in this way is the key to conquering cyber hygiene.
How It Helps Secure Your Business: By implementing multi-factor authentication, SMBs can drastically reduce the chances of security breaches resulting from compromised credentials. In the era of widespread phishing attacks, which made up 84% of all cyber attacks on British businesses last year, installing threat management tools like MFA is an essential component of contemporary cyber safety.
3. Add Regular Software Updates to Your Cyber Security Practices
Security threats don’t just come from beyond your business’s walls; slacking on system maintenance could leave you just as culpable. Regular software updates involve periodically updating all operating systems, applications, and network tools used by your business with the latest security patches and bug fixes released by their vendors. Usually, these can be set to occur automatically outside of business hours, so you don’t have to sacrifice productivity waiting for your IT to get back online.
Why It’s Important: Software updates often include patches for security vulnerabilities that have been discovered since the last version of the software was released. Cyber attackers actively exploit these vulnerabilities, so failing to update your software can leave your business open to attacks. Even when updates aren’t security-specific, they often include patches that optimise the way a software runs, meaning your team never miss out on peak IT performance.
How It Helps Secure Your Business: Since digital threats are always evolving, all the perks of your current software could turn into weak spots over time. Implementing regular updates ensures that the software running on all your team’s devices is protected against new vulnerabilities as they become known. This practice is a cornerstone of effective threat management because it proactively prevents attackers from exploiting outdated software rather than waiting for them to strike before resolving the problem.
4. Opt for Frequent Backups and Data Encryption
While we’re on the topic of regular steps to introduce to your cyber hygiene routine, let’s talk backups. It’s not enough to only back up your data to on-premises servers. These days, a hybrid approach that involves in-person and cloud-based storage offers SMBs a significant advantage, especially in London, where physical space is a scarce. Adding robust encryption protocols to all your data also ensures it’s secure no matter where it’s located. In non-techie terms, encryption essentially scrambles your data into a format that’s unreadable to anyone without a specific key (i.e., anyone outside your business). It won’t disrupt internal operations, and it keeps out prying eyes rather effectively.
Why It’s Important: Regular backups act as a shield against data loss due to system failures, cyber attacks, or even office accidents (like a coffee spillage taking out your servers). Enhancing your cyber safety further with encryption means that even if they manage to gain access to it, individuals without a decryption key won’t be able to read your data, rendering it useless to them.
How It Helps Secure Your Business: Backups ensure that in the event of data loss, you can quickly restore your data and get your team back up and running with minimal downtime. Encryption, on the other hand, acts as a strong deterrent against data theft, enhancing your company’s data security and adding an essential layer to your threat management framework.
5. Employee Training and Awareness Programs
All these cyber hygiene tips mean nothing if your team don’t understand why they’re expected to follow them. Conducting regular training sessions to educate employees on common cyber threats such as email phishing and social engineering attacks provides them with up-to-date knowledge and renewed confidence in their ability to handle company data responsibly.
Why It’s Important: Believe it or not, employees are often the weakest link in a business’s cyber defence strategies, with as many as 9 in 10 data breach incidents being caused by internal mistakes. Empowering them with knowledge about cyber threats and how your company’s security protocols are designed to address them significantly reduces the risk of accidental breaches resulting from ignorance.
How It Helps Secure Your Business: Well-informed employees are less likely to fall victim to cyber attacks, making your business’s network safer and more secure at every level of operations. Annual or semi-annual awareness sessions ensure that cyber safety remains a top priority for every member of your team, fostering a culture of security and vigilance that reassures both them and your customers.
Step Up Your Business’s Cyber Hygiene
Congratulations, you’re now well on your way to becoming a cyber safety master! Ensuring that these practices are part of your regular operational procedures can transform your company’s approach to cyber security, putting you in an optimal position to manage and mitigate digital threats effectively. By implementing these fundamental cyber hygiene practices, you can significantly enhance your SMB’s resilience against cyber threats. Remember, a commitment to good cyber hygiene not only protects your business assets but also reinforces your reputation as a secure and reliable partner for customers.
Elevate Your Cyber Security with 4TC: Managed IT Support for London Businesses
At 4TC, we strive to help businesses across London and the Southeast realise their untapped potential using technology. From IT management that reduces downtime to custom cyber security solutions that address persistent threat management challenges, we can help you harness technology to deliver improved outcomes for your customers. To find out how we could help you elevate your cyber hygiene, reach out to our expert team today.
In an era where the call for environmental stewardship is louder than ever, businesses across the globe are seeking better ways to lessen their carbon footprint. Integrating green tech solutions and eco-friendly IT practices not only contributes to a healthier planet but also enhances brand reputation and can lower your costs, a win-win for the planet and your business.
Here are eight actionable strategies for leveraging sustainability technology to make your business more environmentally friendly.
1. Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has revolutionised the way businesses operate, offering a greener alternative to traditional on-premise servers. By migrating to cloud services, companies can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions significantly. Cloud providers invest in efficient, state-of-the-art data centres that use less energy and are often powered by renewable energy sources. This shift not only decreases the carbon footprint but also optimises operational efficiency and reduces costs.
2. Virtual Meetings and Remote Work
The pandemic has already shown us the feasibility and benefits of remote work and virtual meetings. Embracing these practices long-term can drastically reduce the carbon emissions associated with business travel and commuting. Utilising video conferencing tools and promoting a remote or hybrid work model not only supports sustainability but also offers employees flexibility, potentially boosting morale and productivity. An IT support provider can help you make the transition to remote working and cloud computing a simpler and secure process for your business.
3. Implement Energy-Efficient Hardware
Investing in energy-efficient hardware is a straightforward yet effective eco-friendly IT practice. Modern hardware, designed with sustainability in mind, often features energy-saving modes that reduce power consumption without compromising performance. Look for products with energy efficiency certifications as proof of their green credentials. This approach not only lowers your carbon footprint but also can result in savings on energy bills.
4. Eco-Friendly Web Hosting
The internet’s carbon footprint is growing, and how you host your website can make a difference. Opting for a green web hosting provider, one that uses renewable energy sources or participates in carbon offsetting programmes, is a simple switch with significant impact. This choice supports the green tech industry and lowers your own digital carbon footprint.
5. Green Data Storage Solutions
Businesses can significantly reduce their environmental impact by adopting green data storage solutions. This strategy involves using energy-efficient storage technologies and practices.
Examples include solid-state drives (SSDs), which consume less power than traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), data deduplication to eliminate redundant data and reduce storage needs, and archiving inactive data to more energy-efficient storage mediums. By optimising data storage strategies, companies can decrease their energy consumption, reduce the need for physical hardware, and ultimately lessen their carbon footprint.
6. Recycling and Proper Disposal of IT Equipment
Electronic waste is a significant environmental issue. Businesses can play a part in addressing this by implementing recycling schemes for their IT equipment. When upgrading hardware, consider donating old but still functional equipment to schools or charities. For equipment that’s beyond use, ensure it’s disposed of properly through certified e-waste recycling services. This approach not only minimises environmental harm but also supports the circular economy.
7. Energy Management Systems
Implementing an energy management system (EMS) can help businesses monitor, control, and optimise their use of energy within IT operations. Such systems can identify energy wastage and improve efficiency, leading to reduced carbon emissions and cost savings. By adopting smart energy solutions, businesses can significantly enhance their sustainability credentials.
8. Encourage Green IT Practices Among Employees
Cultivating a culture of sustainability within your organisation is crucial. Encourage employees to adopt green IT environment practices, such as shutting down computers when not in use, utilising power-saving modes, and thinking digitally to reduce paper use. Educating staff on the importance of sustainability and how their actions make a difference can lead to widespread positive environmental impact.
By incorporating these eight strategies, businesses can harness IT to begin their journey to a lower carbon footprint. Embracing green tech solutions and eco-friendly IT practices is not only a step towards sustainability but also a smart business move that can lead to long-term savings and enhanced corporate reputation.
As the world moves towards a more sustainable future, ensuring your business contributes positively to this shift is more important than ever; here’s to a sustainable future!
Passionate IT Providers Helping London’s SMEs to Thrive Sustainably and Securely
We’re on a mission to help London’s businesses to thrive with better IT that empowers them to do their best work, delight their customers, and remain sustainable and secure.
Always offered with a core ethos of putting people and proactive service first, we connect technology with your goals and needs, helping you, your customers, and your team to thrive. Curious to see what 4TC can do for your business? Get in touch today and we’ll be glad to help you!
In an era where the wellbeing of our planet is a collective responsibility, it’s essential for companies to champion sustainability, and a great way to do this is through their IT. If you’re thinking about how to make your business more green, this piece will help you take some steps in the right direction. Using technology, it’s possible to measure, improve, and scale your eco-friendly practices with your business.
Let’s get into it!
Green Tech Solutions: Using More Sustainable Technology
Green technology solutions are technologies that use energy and resources more sustainably. If you can get more from less while using tech, your business will be able to operate more sustainably. One of the key solutions helping businesses use energy more sustainably is cloud computing, which offers big improvements to the energy efficiency of computing hardware.
Adopting Eco-Friendly IT Practices
By embracing green practices in your business as an operational philosophy, you’ll be able to systematically drive a range of small but meaningful improvements to your business’s carbon footprint. For example, by making small changes like switching to more digital record-keeping, procuring energy-efficient hardware, or recycling old IT products where possible, your business can reduce its carbon footprint while continuing to grow.
Win-Wins: Improving Efficiency and Working Sustainably
Sustainable technology is not just about environmental preservation; it aligns with a leaner and more efficient way of doing business. Utilising software to monitor and optimise energy consumption can reveal unexpected cost-saving measures. Such tools provide detailed insights into energy use patterns, enabling more balanced consumption and contributing to both fiscal and environmental sustainability across your IT environment.
Discover how to Get Your Business Green With Technology
Want to drive a greener and more sustainable business, but not sure how? We can help! Book a no-consultation insights session with us today and we’ll be glad to help you find actionable ways to make your business greener and more efficient.
Embracing Remote Work as a Sustainable Strategy
The shift towards remote work has stuck beyond its emergence as a necessity during the pandemic and is now a pivotal component of sustainability strategies. By reducing commuting times and opening up other operationally and environmentally friendly changes such as embracing cloud computing, offering remote work can also bolster your efforts to be a greener business, while offering additional flexibility and convenience for your team.
The Path Forward: Your Green IT Journey
Every small difference adds up to the difference when it comes to working and living sustainably on our planet. From adopting greener technologies to pursuing sustainable IT practices across your business, each step will make a difference. Stay tuned for our next blog which offers 8 specific ways you can improve your carbon footprint using IT.
Passionate IT Providers Helping London’s SMEs to Thrive Sustainably and Securely
We’re on a mission to help London’s businesses to thrive with better IT that empowers them to do their best work, delight their customers, and remain sustainable and secure.
Always offered with a core ethos of putting people and proactive service first, we connect technology with your goals and needs, helping you, your customers, and your team to thrive. Curious to see what 4TC can do for your business? Get in touch today and we’ll be glad to help you!
As our businesses move further and further into the online realm, delivering a smooth, digitised customer experience (CX) has never been more vital. Modern customers have come to expect convenient, meaningful, and consistent interactions with the businesses they engage with, and they increasingly expect these interactions to be supported by intelligent digital solutions.
By integrating technology tactically into your customer journey, you can ensure that customers come away satisfied, bolstering your business’s reputation, and fostering higher customer retention rates. You’ll also help to maximise conversions, by removing the obstacles and frustrations that might otherwise see prospects taking their business elsewhere.
In our previous blog, we looked at the benefits of a digitised customer experience (CX) from the customer’s perspective, and discussed the role of technology in facilitating the best possible customer journeys. Now, let’s consider the operational benefits that a digitised CX can provide for your business, before looking at 7 essential technologies you should consider for your customer experience framework.
Here are some operational and business benefits that you can gain by digitising your customer experience:
Operational Efficiency
Drive improvements in operational efficiency by introducing automation to customer support, onboarding, and marketing processes. By automating menial processes you’ll give staff more time to focus on strategically valuable activities, and deliver better outcomes for customers by minimising processing errors.
Scalable Resources
Digital solutions can more easily scale to meet demand fluctuations than staffed customer service and support functions. Benefit from flexible solutions that adjust quickly to changing needs without the cost implications that come with staffing a helpline.
Valuable Data Insights
Digitisation supports the increased collection and analysis of customer data, much of which can provide valuable insights into behaviours, preferences, and trends. This information can be harnessed to drive operational improvements and provide a guide for more effective marketing and outreach efforts.
Consistent Interactions
Digital solutions can help to ensure that customers experience consistent and predictable service no matter which channel or touchpoint they’re using. By achieving greater consistency, you’ll foster better customer satisfaction scores and improve retention.
Gain a Competitive Advantage
A polished, streamlined customer experience underpinned by leading technologies will help you differentiate yourself from the competition, giving your business a distinct competitive edge in the crowded digital marketplace.
Increased Revenue
A high-quality, tech-infused customer experience can translate to increased revenue through increased conversions, greater company loyalty, and a greater number of referrals. Studies show that investments in the customer experience can significantly improve customer lifetime value.
While there are countless ways to digitise the customer experience, a number of technologies stand out when it comes to delivering value, both for businesses and their customers. Here are seven essential technologies you should consider to revolutionise your customer experience:
AI Chatbots
Web-based chatbots used to be frustrating to use and limited in their functionality. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, chatbots can autonomously handle organic customer enquiries and provide recommendations and guidance based on preferences, prompts, and browsing histories. Moreover, chatbots operate 24/7 to provide the immediacy of service that’s come to be expected in our modern world.
The Cloud
Cloud solutions have arguably played a greater part in the customer experience revolution than any other technology domain. The cloud has become a customer experience mainstay by supporting and streamlining backend processes and enabling companies to quickly scale customer service resources in response to changing demands. Thanks to failover systems and redundancy, the cloud supports a resilient and secure customer experience. With platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings, businesses of all sizes are empowered to explore new technologies and develop bespoke CX solutions.
Data Analytics
Data has become one of the most valuable commodities in business, providing the insights necessary to increase sales, optimise processes, and make accurate financial predictions. A data-driven, digitised customer experience allows you to identify bottlenecks and issues within your customer journeys. Cloud-based analytics tools can be used to gather and analyse data across multiple touchpoints, allowing you to optimise processes, tackle pinch points, and track behavioural trends to drive better sales and marketing outcomes.
CRM Software
Customer relationship management systems act as a centralised repository for customer information and data on past interactions. CRMs make it easy to search for and retrieve customer data, facilitating seamless and professional interactions should a customer have to reach out for support. Modern CRM systems feature automated sales and marketing capabilities, enabling businesses to streamline and automate campaigns and yield maximum value from their sales pipelines by leveraging data insights.
Self-Service Portals
Self-service portals fulfil a critical function within a customer experience framework. They provide a convenient and accessible source of information and allow customers to perform account management functions or access support with no (or limited) intervention from customer service agents. Knowledge bases, chatbots, and account management web applications are just some of the ways businesses support self-service functionality in their customer experiences.
Marketing Automation Solutions
Marketing automation software can help businesses launch more effective marketing plans based on data aggregated across multiple digital touchpoints. Software can gather and track a range of customer data metrics, including purchase histories, preferences, browsing behaviours, and demographics. By analysing this data, businesses can better tailor, schedule, and coordinate marketing campaigns, ensuring outreach efforts achieve maximum return on investment.
Virtual/Augmented Reality (VR and AR)
VR and AR are set to make waves in terms of how customers interact with vendors and service providers. These emerging technologies enable businesses to provide a visually immersive virtual experience that conveys the benefits and qualities of a product or service, ensuring the customer can fully grasp what’s on offer before committing. VR and AR can be useful for removing doubt and uncertainty from the customer experience and help to drive sales through more valuable customer engagements.
With a backdrop of a competitive digital marketplace and evolving customer expectations, strategic use of digital technology in the customer experience context has never been more important. We hope this short blog series has served as a useful introduction to customer experience technologies, and inspired you to consider how digital solutions could enhance your business’s service and support functions.
Secure, reliable, and tailored IT is a pre-requisite for success in our digital age. Here at 4TC, our mission is to help businesses across London and the Southeast realise their untapped potential using technology. From IT management that minimises downtime, to custom solutions that address persistent operational challenges, we can help you harness technology to grow and deliver the best possible outcomes for your customers.
To find out more, get in touch with 4TC today. We’d love to hear from you, and help you overcome your IT challenges.
Email: support@4tc.co.uk
Tel: 020 7250 3840
5th Floor, 167‑169 Great Portland Street
London
W1W 5PF
Dew Gates The Street
High Roding
Essex
CM6 1NT