YourBusinessWithJamesCaan2016 - 139

TECH HELP

your IT infrastructure and resolving
any issues. You can choose whether
you'd like them to manage the whole
infrastructure or only part of it. Either
way, it removes the ﬁnancial burden
from your business - some companies
oﬀer prices starting at £10.95 per user,
per month - but there are things to bear
in mind when looking for a provider.
One of the most important factors
is how well they align themselves
to your individual needs. Go for a
support company that has the ability
to tailor their oﬀering to you - and not
just at the start of the relationship. As
your business evolves, they should be
able to tweak their services as well.
On a related note, gauge how in tune
they are with the latest technology
developments. Like you, they should
also be proactive, so do they have good
knowledge of trends and updates that
are a year or so down the line?

WORDS: NILESH PANDEY | PHOTOGRAPHY: SHUTTERSTOCK

ON-SITE HELP DESK

Although your providers are based
remotely, this does not mean there
should be limited face-to-face contact
and site visits. They should always
be available to physically ﬁx any issues
on-site. However, you may wish
to have the reassuring presence of
professionals at all times, so consider
an on-site IT team. A lot of companies
who provide remote services also
give you the option of having their
engineers based at your oﬃces. This
may be expensive, but when weighed
up against the cost of hiring your own
IT team (consider salaries, sick pay,
National Insurance, expenses, phones,
laptops), it may be the better option.

OFF-SITE BACK-UP

If all of your data is held purely on
your on-site servers, then you are
treading on thin ice. Back-ups
are crucial, but this doesn't just
mean copying things to external
hard drives - you need your
ﬁles to be stored in diﬀerent
physical locations. This not
only protects you from IT
failures, but also things like
robbery, ﬁres and ﬂoods.
You can, of course, use
external drives, but you should

JAMES SAYS
I don't employ any
IT personnel, even
with a business of my
size - I always use
companies that can
dial in remotely to
my system. Because
they don't have to
be here and as it's
generally a software
issue, they can repair
the problem
remotely, so you
don't have to pay a
huge amount for it

ensure these are kept somewhere else.
Perhaps once a month you can bring it
into the oﬃce, copy over the relevant
data and then take it back. If there is
sensitive data at stake, you may wish
to store the drive in a safety deposit
box. There are many independent
security ﬁrms who provide this option.
However, if you have multiple staﬀ
then it simply isn't feasible to ask
everyone to store things at diﬀerent
locations. Therefore, everybody
should make use of the cloud.
Purchase an online back-up service
that automatically saves your ﬁles to a
cloud location - prices start at £11 a
month. Smaller businesses may prefer
for all staﬀ to work solely on Google
Drive or Dropbox - these are cheaper
and often free services, yet they won't
have the stringent security measures
an online back-up service does. Each
time a member of staﬀ leaves, you'll
need to change the passwords, which
isn't required with the paid services.

DISASTER RECOVERY

A big part of your business continuity
strategy should be a disaster recovery
plan, providing a breakdown of what
steps you will take in response to any
unplanned events that threaten your
hardware, software, networks or data.
The key is to minimise any disruption
to your business - how quickly will
you be able to get back to normal?
Identify which elements are the
most important to the business and
the impact of any issues to these
elements. Then provide a guide
that all key personnel can use - this
should cover actions to take and how
data can be protected or recovered.
There are service providers
available who not only help you to
produce a plan, but also carry out
the actions for you. Many will
give you a Recovery Time
Objective - how quickly they
aim to get services working
normally. Ensure this is written
into any contract you sign with
them. Some providers oﬀer a
cost eﬀective pay-as-you-go
option, which means you pay a
minimum monthly fee based on
the number of servers covered.

139
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