YOUR BUSINESS SPRING 2019 - 147

IT solutions

If you keep all
your data on
your onsite
servers and
nowhere
else, you are
treading on
thin ice
contact and site visits. They should
always be available to come to you.
However, if you wish to have the
reassuring presence of professionals
at all times, you may want to consider
an onsite 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
against the cost of hiring your own
IT team - consider salaries, sick pay,
national insurance, expenses, phones,
laptops - it may be the better option.

Move your data
One of the most important factors
is how well your IT provider aligns
themselves to your individual needs.
Opt for a support company that has the
ability to tailor its 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
be proactive, so do they have good
knowledge of trends and updates
that are a year or so down the line?

Keep it close

Even if your providers are based
remotely, that doesn't mean there
should be limited face-to-face

If you keep all your data on your
onsite servers and nowhere else, you
are treading on thin ice. Backups 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 will
protect you not only from IT failures,
but also robbery, fires and floods.
You can, of course, use external
drives, but you need to make
sure these are kept on a different
site. Perhaps once a month you
can bring them into the office,
copy over the relevant data and
then take them away again.
If there is sensitive data at stake,
you may wish to store the drive in a
safety deposit box - an option that
is provided by many security firms.

Back to school

Equipping your staff with tech
know-how is crucial for growth,
says Tom O'Reilly from QA
Technology makes the running
of businesses more efficient,
introduces costs savings through
automation, allows businesses to
analyse where they're working
successfully and where there
are opportunities for growth or
expansion. This is particularly
important for SMEs, who are less
likely to have the staff capacity
to accommodate inefficiencies.
Apprenticeships provide a way
for SMEs to invest in and upskill
their workforce, particularly in
technology. Arming your workforce
with skills and training to help your
business grow is an investment
in the growth of your business.
And with the apprenticeship
levy in place, there are funds
to assist SMEs in taking part.
In 2018 at QA - a diverse
education and training body that
offers apprenticeships, degree
apprenticeships (to master's
level) and more than 850 learning
courses on management and tech
specialisms - we developed skills
for more than 285,000 individuals
and over 5,000 employers.
However, if you have many members
of staff, it isn't really feasible to ask
everyone to store external hard drives
at different locations. Therefore,
everyone should make use of the
cloud. Online backup services that
automatically save your files to the
cloud start from around £11 a month.
Smaller businesses may prefer
for staff to work on Google Drive
or Dropbox. However, while these
services are definitely cheaper - and
even free if you're not storing much
data - they don't have the stringent
security measures of an online backup
service. You'll probably want to
change the passwords every time a
member of staff leaves, for example,
which isn't the case with paid services.

147
YOUR BUSINESS SPRING 2019

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