If you’re at a point in your business where you’re not considered a startup anymore but you’re not fully established with all debts paid, we consider you as a growing business. We can help you with the right IT solutions to continue to grow, reduce downtime and be mindful of your budget. Let’s get into the specifics.
The first most important thing is backups. You need to have regular backups done. People ask how often backups need to be done; my answer is always with another question to you. How often do your files change? if you are making changes daily then backup daily. If you are really just checking mail that is stored in the cloud and using web based apps, then there isn’t anything to backup as those apps are usually backed up by the vendor automatically. It’s a good idea to have an evaluation done of what might need backing up as many people assume things like DropBox, Google Drive, iDrive are all fine and don’t need to be backed up because they are in the cloud. Wrong! They are tied to your computer, and even though if your hard drive crashed you are fine, you are not protected if you get an encryption virus which will encrypt all of your files both on your hard drive and in your cloud drives. Backup your cloud storage.
With the backups you can use USB drives but if you prefer a more automated and monitored service, you can pay for a monthly backup subscription as long as you can fit it in your budget. You would need to see how much data needs to be backed up as these services are charged by the amount of storage. Please look at our Online backup service for more information.
Secondly, on a most basic level, just like a startup business you need a good anti-virus firewall program. We highly recommend Avast CloudCare business security for three major reasons:
- It has business grade protection
- It is managed and monitored by us regularly
- It includes a premium remote support tool which allows us to help you quickly and easily.
In our opinion the third most important thing would be to keep your most important business tool, your computer, secure, stable and performing well. You should consider getting on a monthly maintenance plan which we offer based on the number of computers you have and it’s done once a monthly remotely after hours.
A forth option we can help you with is getting proper Microsoft Office package. When you were a startup you might have been using free opensource software which you are still welcome to use, however you might be ready for something more. We are a Microsoft Cloud partner and can provide you with many different programs including Office 365. You can read more about the packages and calculation on if it’s right for you on our Microsoft Cloud Partner page. You may find it’s better to put the money up front and save in the long term depending how the numbers add up, but we have done the calculations for you. In some cases you’re saving in the short and long term and it’s extremely better on the cash flow to get on an Office 365 subscription.