Make Sure Your Business Tech is Ready in 2021: A Checklist

New Year, New You! That’s what they always say, right? But in the shuffle of New Year’s Resolutions and fresh Business Strategies, we often forget to double-check the tech-stack that runs those business strategies. If you’re in business and operate off of more than just a laptop, there’s a few things everyone should check off their list to ensure your business back-end is set up for success this year:

Remote Access and Work from Home

Especially with COVID-19 and most staff working from home, it’s extremely important to make sure your employees’ set-ups are secure:

• Is the connection being done securely through a VPN?
• Are your company computers (yes, even those off-site laptops) being monitored by a professional IT company?
• Are staff using personal or business computers? If your teams are working from personal computers at home, your business is exposed to an increased number of risks, including children or other users logging on to the computer, lack of security, potential for out-of-date or no anti-virus, etc. All of this leaves your company files and data at risk.
• Finally, check the wireless where you or your staff are working from. Is it reliable? Secure? If you need help changing to a new service provider in a specific area, let us know – we can offer some recommendations for you.

Who is Managing Your Computers?

Whether your team is working from home or in the office, it’s important that all of the business’s computers have effective IT management. Having a team monitor your computers means that problems can be solved before they actually cause problems, or shut down the user for anywhere from hours to days. If you do have a team managing your computers, ask them the following:

• Does each computer system have a monitored antivirus installed?
• Are alerts being monitored for the:
  • Battery backup?
  • Data backup?
  • Cloud Services?
  • Antivirus?

Backups and Updates

Ensuring your data is backed up and that your systems are being updated regularly are important factors in making sure your business runs smoothly.

• Is your data being backed up regularly, regardless of whether it’s on the cloud or on the server?
• Have performance upgrades been done to all of your systems?
• Have updates been done to all of your software?

Strategic Planning Ahead for 2021

Now is the time to look at those business strategies for the year and determine what kind of technology set-up you need to support the plans you have!

• Do you need to switch to VoIP?
• Is your website due for a refresh?
• Is it time to migrate your emails to Microsoft 365 or G-Suite?
• Do you require a new server?
• Are you interested in perhaps moving your data / server to the cloud?

If you’re planning to grow your business in 2021, then you need to make sure your technology is up to par and can support your plans. Book a Free Assessment with us today – a $400 value – to diagnose and determine if you’re ready! You’ll get a detailed report afterwards with all of our recommendations, with absolutely no commitment.

Happy New Year! Here’s to growth in 2021!