Tag Archive for: Business

Surviving the unexpected: Why SMBs need a business continuity plan

No business owner wants to think about the possibility of a crisis that could halt operations, but the truth is that disasters can strike at any time. Whether it’s a pandemic, a cyberattack, or a natural disaster, unexpected events can significantly impact a company. That’s why it’s crucial to create a business continuity plan (BCP) that will enable your small- or medium-sized business (SMB) to survive and thrive during challenging times.

What is a BCP?

A BCP is a document that outlines the procedures and protocols your SMB must follow to continue operating during a crisis. It includes a comprehensive set of instructions and guidelines that are designed to minimize the impact of various unexpected events and ensure that essential business functions continue with minimal disruption.

The BCP should cover all critical aspects of your business, including IT systems, communications, employee safety, and more. It should also define the roles and responsibilities of your employees during a crisis and provide guidance on how to communicate with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. By having a BCP in place, your business can quickly adapt to changing circumstances and continue to provide essential services and products.

What are the key threats to business continuity?

Some of the most common threats to business continuity include natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, earthquakes, floods), cyberattacks (e.g., malware, phishing, ransomware), power outages, supply chain disruptions, and pandemics. Any of these events can cause significant disruptions to your operations and financial stability.

How to develop an effective BCP

If your business doesn’t have a BCP, now is the perfect time to create one. By following these steps, you can develop a comprehensive BCP that will help your SMB keep running even during a major crisis.

  1. Conduct a risk assessment – The first step in developing an effective BCP is to conduct a thorough risk assessment. This involves identifying potential threats and hazards to your business, evaluating their likelihood and impact, and determining how you can mitigate these risks.
  2. Perform a business impact analysis (BIA) – A BIA will help you determine how a disruption can affect your company’s current functions, processes, personnel, equipment, technology, and physical infrastructure.
  3. Identify recovery options – To be able to restore your business to minimum operational levels, it’s important to identify different recovery options. These may include utilizing data backups, implementing remote work for employees, or operating from a secondary location.
  4. Document the plan – After gathering all the necessary information, make a record of the BCP. It should be stored in a secure location, but it should also be easily accessible to all employees and stakeholders. Don’t forget to update it regularly to reflect any changes in your business or environment.
  5. Test the plan and train employees – Testing the plan will help identify any gaps or areas that need improvement, ensuring that the plan is effective and can be executed efficiently during a crisis. Training your employees on the plan will ensure that everyone is aware of their roles and responsibilities during a crisis, and that they can act promptly and decisively to keep operations running smoothly.

Developing a BCP may seem like a daunting task for SMBs, but it doesn’t have to be. Give us a call today and our team of experts can guide you through the process.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Essential tips for making an effective disaster recovery plan

As a business owner, you know that data security is paramount. It’s therefore essential to ensure you have taken all necessary steps to protect yourself against potential data loss events, such as data breaches and natural disasters. In this essential guide, we will outline the key steps you should take in creating a disaster recovery plan (DRP). Following these can save your business from an incredibly costly catastrophe.

A DRP is a documented set of processes and strategies that an organization puts in place to be able to recover and restore its critical data and systems in case of a disaster or an unexpected event. The plan outlines the steps to be taken before, during, and after a disaster to minimize the impacts on the organization’s operations and ensure business continuity.

To create an effective DRP, follow these steps:

Conduct a risk assessment

A risk assessment is a critical component of any DRP, as it helps identify potential hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks that could impact an organization’s operations in the event of a disaster. By conducting a risk assessment, you can identify and prioritize the risks your organization faces and develop appropriate strategies and actions to mitigate those risks.

Develop a recovery strategy

Design a strategy to address each risk identified in the assessment phase. This could include developing backups of data or systems, investing in cloud-based services, using redundant hardware, or establishing alternative physical locations for your business operations.

Establish availability requirements

Availability refers to the ability of an organization’s systems, applications, and data to be accessible and functional in the event of a disaster or an outage. To determine your company’s availability requirements, identify the resources (e.g., servers, databases, etc.) and services (email, customer service) that are critical for your business operations and determine how quickly they need to be restored following an incident.

Set up backups

Select the most appropriate backup strategy (i.e., full or incremental) for your needs and devise the best plan for storing your backups safely off site so that you can access them when needed.

Without backups, important data and information can be lost permanently, resulting in significant financial and reputational damage to your organization. Backups are also used to restore systems and data to a state before the disaster occurred, helping ensure business continuity while minimizing the impact of the disaster on your business operations.

Test your plan

Test your DRP periodically to make sure it will work as planned when an incident occurs. A DRP is only useful if it can be executed properly, and testing helps identify and address any gaps in the plan.

Testing a DRP also provides an opportunity to identify weaknesses that could be improved or procedures that need adjustments. It allows you to verify that the plan is complete, up to date, and relevant.

Train your employees

Your employees are often your first line of defense when a disaster strikes, and their actions can significantly affect the outcome of a recovery effort.

Training employees on the DRP helps ensure they understand exactly what they need to do during an emergency. It also provides them with the knowledge and skills needed to carry out their duties effectively, minimizing the risk of errors or delays in the recovery process.

Are you concerned about data safety? Don’t leave it to chance — call us for all your DRP needs! With our cutting-edge technology, dedicated team, and industry-leading expertise, you can rest assured that your data and systems are in expert hands.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Don’t let disasters ruin your business

Disasters can happen to anyone, and when they do, it can be difficult for small- or medium-sized businesses (SMB) to get back on their feet. Your business could be at risk if you’re not prepared for a natural disaster or an unexpected emergency. Here are a few tips to help keep your business afloat during tough times.

What is a business continuity plan?

A business continuity plan, or BCP, is a document that provides detailed instructions on how to respond in the event of unexpected disruptions to normal operations. These operational disruptions can include anything from natural disasters like earthquakes and floods, to human-caused events like reputation crises and security breaches.

A comprehensive BCP will address all aspects of a business, including IT, communications, facilities, and more, enabling the company to continue providing quality products or services to its customers, even in the face of difficult circumstances

Potential risks to business continuity

SMBs face a variety of threats that could potentially disrupt operations and cause significant losses. These include:

  • Natural catastrophes – storms, floods, wildfires, and earthquakes
  • Man-made disasters – intentional sabotage, human negligence, and cyberattacks
  • Device and utility failures – power outages, internet disruptions, and communication service issues

Creating an effective BCP

A good BCP should not only be comprehensive, but it should also account for every possible emergency scenario your company could face. To ensure your plan is effective and covers all the bases, follow these steps:

1. Assess the risks
Identify the hazards or potential threats that could affect your operations. Consider the likelihood that these threats could lead to actual harm, and assess any potential consequences. This will help you determine the level of risk associated with each hazard and prioritize when deciding on ways to mitigate those risks. Make sure to collaborate with all departments within your company to get a well-rounded view of the risks.

2. Conduct a business impact analysis (BIA)
A BIA involves determining the critical functions and processes that are necessary to keep your business running smoothly. By analyzing which aspects of your operations are most important, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about how to best protect those functions in the event of a disaster.

3. Determine your recovery options
Ascertain what it would take to get your critical functions and processes up and running again after an unexpected event. This might include restoring data from backups, implementing workarounds for damaged equipment, or allowing employees to work from home. These recovery options should be feasible and achievable, so that your business can quickly resume normal operations.

4. Outline the plan
With all of the information gathered in the previous steps, you can now start putting together your BCP. Document the steps that need to be taken in the event of a disaster, and assign specific roles and responsibilities to employees. Be sure to include contact information for key personnel, as well as any vendors or partners that might be needed to assist with recovery efforts.

Keep a copy of the plan in a safe location, and make sure that all employees are aware of its existence and know how to access it.

5. Test, train, repeat
It’s not enough to just have a BCP — you need to test it frequently too. By doing so, you and your team can identify any weaknesses or gaps in the plan, and make necessary adjustments. This will ensure that your plan will work when you need it most. Additionally, you should regularly train your employees on the contents of the BCP so that everyone is aware of their responsibilities and knows how to execute the plan successfully.

If your business doesn’t have a BCP, now is the time to start thinking about creating one. Our team of experts can help you develop an effective plan that will ensure your business can quickly recover from a major incident. Give us a call today.

If you’re concerned about any natural disasters putting you out of business, call us today. We offer comprehensive business continuity services that every company should have.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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5 Tips to work smarter in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook comes with a raft of features that make managing your busy schedule and boosting your productivity easier. If you find Outlook’s myriad capabilities a little overwhelming, don’t worry — these tips and tricks will have you using Outlook like a pro in no time.

Organize your inbox

Is your Outlook inbox getting a little too cluttered for your liking? Use the Clean Up feature to tidy up your inbox.

From your inbox, click the Home tab and choose from one of three Clean Up options:

  • Clean Up Conversation – reviews an email thread or a conversation and deletes redundant messages
  • Clean Up Folder – reviews conversations in a selected folder and deletes redundant messages
  • Clean Up Folder & Subfolders – reviews all messages in a selected folder and any subfolders, and deletes redundant messages in all of them

Ignore conversations

Besides redundant messages, group conversations that aren’t relevant to you can clutter up your inbox. The Ignore button helps you organize your inbox and focus on relevant emails.

To activate this feature, select a message, then click Home > Ignore > Ignore Conversation. Alternatively, you can open a message in a new window and click Ignore under the Delete function. You can easily revert this action by going to the Deleted Items folder and clicking Ignore > Stop Ignoring Conversation.

Send links to files

This function is especially useful when you need to send large files to your coworkers or clients. You can send a link to the file instead of the file itself as well as set permissions to allow recipients to edit and collaborate on linked files in real time.

To do this, upload the file you wish to send to OneDrive. Then from the message box, click Attach File > Browse web locations > OneDrive.

Tag contacts

To get the attention of a specific person in a group email or meeting invite, use the @Mention function. This works particularly well for emails sent to multiple recipients or if you want to convey the urgency of your message.

In the body of your email or invite message, type the @ symbol followed by the name of the person you want to tag (e.g., @johndoe). Doing so will highlight the name in the message and automatically add it to the To line of your message.

You can also search for messages you’re tagged in by selecting Filter Email from the Home tab, and then clicking Mentioned.

Add notes to emails

With Outlook, you can add sticky notes to specific parts of an email. To add a sticky note, simply drag your cursor to highlight your chosen text in the email, and then release the mouse button to trigger a pop-up object menu. On that object menu, select Add Note. This will open a OneNote feed within Outlook, where you can add text or images to your sticky note.

Schedule a Teams meeting

Teams is Microsoft’s unified communication and collaboration platform, and it includes the Outlook add-in. This feature allows you to set up Teams meetings directly from Outlook. It also lets you view, accept, or join meetings while in either app.

To schedule a Teams meeting on Outlook, follow these steps:

  1. Switch to the calendar view on Outlook. Click the New Teams Meeting tab.
  2. Add individual participants or entire contact groups to the Required or Optional fields.
  3. Type in the topic, start time, and end time of the meeting. There’s no need to add the dial-in phone numbers and conferencing IDs to the invite, as Outlook does this automatically for you.
  4. Create a message inviting the recipients to the meeting, then click Send.

Share emails to Teams

With Outlook, you can easily share an email from your inbox directly to a specific Teams channel. To do that, follow these steps:

  1. Select the email you want to share.
  2. Click the Share to Teams button.
  3. On the Share to Microsoft Teams pop-up menu, type the name of the person or channel you want to share to. Check the “Include attachments” tickbox if you want to include the email’s attachments.

These are just some of the things you can do to improve your Outlook experience. For more on how to get the most out of Outlook and other Microsoft products, drop us a line today.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Why is it important to have a business continuity plan?

Many small- to medium-sized business (SMB) owners fail to prepare for major crises like flood and ransomware attacks. Disaster events can cause downtime, which can result in lost revenue and lower profits. In addition, SMBs that fail to recover quickly from disruption face the risk of losing their customers to their competitors. To prevent this from happening to you, it’s important to have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place.

What is a BCP?

A BCP is a predefined set of protocols on how your business should respond in case of an emergency or natural disaster. It contains contingency plans for every aspect of your organization, including human resources, assets, and business processes.

Key threats to business continuity

Various types of threats can affect SMBs such as:

  • Natural disasters: These are natural phenomena such as floods, storms, earthquakes, and wildfires.
  • Man-made disasters: These include cyberattacks, intentional sabotage, and human negligence.
  • Equipment and utility failures: These include unexpected power failures, internet downtime, and disruption of communication services.

How to build an effective BCP

If your company does not have a BCP in place, now is a good time to create one. These steps will help you formulate an effective BCP that will ensure your company keeps running even during a major crisis.

  1. Perform a risk assessment
    To create an effective BCP, it’s important to identify the risks to prioritize. Start by identifying potential threats that may impact your daily operations. List down as well industry risks, geographical area, rising trends, and issues that your stakeholders may encounter. Next, categorize the risks based on the level of impact, likelihood of occurrence, or other criteria.Once risks have been identified and a plan has been developed, carefully identify any possible gaps. Collaborate with your team to identify any weak points in the plan, and make changes as necessary.
  2. Perform a business impact analysis (BIA)
    A BIA will help you determine how a disruption can affect your company’s current functions, processes, personnel, equipment, technology, and physical infrastructure. IT will also help you calculate the potential financial and operational loss from each function and process affected.
  3. Identify your recovery options
    Identify key resources for restoring your business to minimum operational levels. Some recovery options you can take include using data backups, allowing employees to work from home or operating from a secondary location.
  4. Document the plan
    Make a record of the BCP and store the document in a secure location, preferably an off-site one to reduce the risks of loss or damage in case of a disaster.
  5. Test and train
    Once your BCP is in place, your continuity team needs to perform tests regularly to identify gaps and make necessary changes to ensure the plan’s effectiveness. They also need to conduct regular employee training so that everyone knows their respective roles should a disaster strike.

Having an effective BCP is a great way to ensure your business can quickly recover after a major disaster. If you’re thinking about creating a BCP for your company but don’t know where to start, give us a call today.

To learn more about how to safeguard your business, or if you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment.

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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3 Questions to ask before replacing your servers

Your company’s servers will eventually need to be replaced. To conserve and maximize your resources, you need to anticipate the best time to do this, as well as consider alternatives that offer the same — if not better — outcomes for your business.

When do my servers need to be replaced?

This is a difficult question, but there are two factors you will want to consider: age and performance. The useful life of a server is around three years. While it’s not unheard of for servers to function properly beyond year three, relying on them past this point can be risky, as hardware problems may occur more often. This means you will have to deal with costly repairs and possible sudden downtime.

In terms of performance, it doesn’t make sense to keep your servers around until year three if they are slow and too costly to maintain. It’s important to compare how much money you will lose in repairs and downtime versus the cost of buying new hardware.

Do I have an alternative to buying new servers?

Believe it or not, the answer to your server problems might not necessarily be purchasing more physical servers. One solution is to embrace server virtualization. This process allows your servers to be stored and maintained off-site, with all your resources being delivered to your office via the internet.

There are two notable benefits of virtualizing your servers. First, you don’t have to spend a ton of money on new equipment. Second, virtualization is a scalable technology, meaning you only pay for the data capacity you use. For instance, you can have just two and a half servers, if that’s all your business needs. This is in contrast to having physical equipment, which would require your business to either make do with two servers or splurge and buy a third one even if you didn’t need all of that space.

Of course, there are a few things you need to consider before making the switch to server virtualization. One of the biggest issues is security. Ask yourself if you feel comfortable keeping all of your data off-site. While this isn’t a concern for some companies, others may not see this as palatable. There are several workarounds to this issue, including the hybrid option where you keep sensitive data on-site and everything else off-site.

Can I do anything to prevent a full-scale server replacement?

Yes. It’s certainly possible for you to buy some time and give your current servers additional life, but these are short-term fixes, not long-term solutions. Server upgrades are a good place to start if your servers are less than three years old but are performing poorly. Installing additional CPUs or memory may increase server performance at a fraction of the cost of buying new servers.

It’s also possible to extend the life of servers that may have four or five years of wear-and-tear on them via repurposing. Instead of swapping out all of your servers, use the old ones for non-critical processes and purchase new ones to handle critical workloads. This will help you get a better ROI on your technology while avoiding a wholesale hardware purchase, which could cripple your budget.

If you have any questions about your servers and how you can increase their performance, get in touch with us today. We can help you procure new hardware or explore other alternatives such as server virtualization.

To learn more about how to safeguard your business, or if you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment.

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Windows 10 features
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Improve your Windows 10 experience with these features

Windows is the most popular operating system in history, but despite its popularity, many users still do not know about all of its functionalities. Here are some Windows 10 features from the latest update that you might have missed.

Night light

This feature lets you reduce the amount of blue light emitted from your screen, which helps reduce eye strain and boost sleep efficiency. Night Light is disabled by default, so you need to enable it by following these steps:

  1. Click the Start Menu.
  2. Open the Settings app (or press the Windows key + I to quickly open Settings).
  3. Select the System icon followed by the Display option in the left-hand pane.
  4. Set Night light to “On” or “Off.”

Taskbar pin

Opening browsers and typing in web addresses are simple tasks as they were, but Windows 10’s taskbar pin feature makes it even easier than before. This is an essential shortcut for anyone who relies on specific web-based apps such as email or company intranets. Simply right click on the app or document you wish to gain easy access to and choose “Pin to Taskbar”.

Organize your open windows

Do you struggle to organize a screen cluttered with open windows? Holding the Windows key and pressing an arrow should solve most of your problems:

  1. Windows key + Left – Resize the current window’s width to half the size of the screen and align it to the left
  2. Windows key + Right – Resize the current window’s width to half the size of the screen and align it to the right
  3. Windows key + Up – Maximize the current window to fit the entire screen
  4. Windows key + Down – Downsize the current window

When none of those keys are enough to set you straight, holding the Windows key and pressing the Tab button will show you all the apps you currently have open.

Focus Assist

Notifications are frustratingly distracting. Windows 10’s Focus Assist feature helps you tackle this issue by customizing which contacts and applications can interrupt you during predetermined periods of time. Try it out by:

  1. Opening the Settings window
  2. Clicking the System icon
  3. Selecting Focus Assist from the left-hand pane
  4. Adjusting the notifications settings based on your preference

If you wish to disable Focus Assist and receive all notifications, simply click Off.

These are just a few of our favorites. For more software and productivity recommendations, give our experts a call today.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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