Lots of businesses have actually no idea what the effect of IT on their business can be. They might for example have a website but no idea how this is all managed let alone the ability to make a backup of it. Or perhaps they're using a couple of PCs but find problems getting the right information out. If anything happens they just ring that computer guy to fix it, right?
RIGHT? That is indeed the question. Did you know that quite often this computer guy has full access to all your computer systems and data? The same applies to that website guy who basically has full control over your website and emails. Of course smaller businesses can not afford a full-time IT person, so make sure you got a trustworthy IT partner. And even if you have a full-time employed IT person, make sure they are trustworthy.
IT can make or break your business. To make IT work for your business often takes a long time, but to break it can quite easily be done within a day!
Here are some ideas how to take control of IT for your business
- Be sure your IT partner is honest and open about any IT related issues with you. If there is a problem, then there is a problem, IT should never have to try and cover these. A problems needs to be fixed and that is done best in cooperation with management and/or staff.
- Your IT partner should be easy accessible without too much hassle (at least during business hours) and supply you with the best possible support.
- Especially in IT good work ethics is a must. Neither should your IT partner supply sensitive information about your company to others not should they supply you with sensitive information about other companies. Make sure you have a written statement from your IT partner regarding this.
- Do you know how secure your information is? As mentioned before, IT has access to all your information which probably includes your personal information and that of your staff (if you have any). This sounds a bit scary maybe but is often reality. Be sure that you know how to block access to your systems from anyone, even your IT partner/staff.
- You need at least a list of all passwords which give access to your systems (and websites) and the ability/knowledge to change them.
- Is there any documentation available regarding your IT systems so that another IT partner can take over?
- Don't get locked in by your IT partner, as said before IT can break down your business within a day, especially if you start relying on your IT systems more. Good documentation will allow IT to raise up your IT systems significantly quicker than without.
- Remote access is something often seen as a requirement for IT support. This brings however a greater security threat towards your IT systems, for there reasons you should only allow remote access on demand so that you have control who has access during which period.
- Constant remote access (including remote desktop), and especially using a wireless network, is often asking to get hacked. Password protection alone is far from enough nowadays, remote access must (if constant available) always done via an encrypted secure connection to prevent any 'listener' capture readable information transferred from and to your IT systems.
- Have your IT systems analysed regularly (once a year) by an independent IT party. Does this upset your current IT partner?, then you know you have done well asking for analysis.
Almost any business no matter how small is pushed to have an on-line presence with a website. For many businesses the creation and management of it has been outsourced.
Here is something to take in account -
- Web design Costs - A normal plain website with a nice easy design like these and about 5 pages should not cost you more than around NZ$ 1,500.00. A personal custom design might quickly add up to around NZ$ 3,000.00 though.
- Web hosting Costs - Web hosting does not need to be expensive, even for New Zealand hosted servers. A web hosting company with New Zealand based servers can already be available for arounf NZ$ 10.00 per month. Have a look at Domains4less who can offer you domain registration and web hosting for less than NZ$ 110 + GST per year.
Hosting servers based in the USA are often cheaper but can often cause a delay in showing your website which is a very frustrating user experience for interactive websites. A delay of 1 second per request (images, videos, text) can quickly add up to a number of seconds. So if you target New Zealand visitors, keep it local for the best performance.
- Website availability - Even though most hosting companies guarantee an uptime of 99% and more it is quite annoying when your website is not available, especially if you get revenue from your website (e.g. selling products and/or services) but also if people want to contact you (contact form on the website) or want to know something about your company.
Do you know how often your website is down? Is it up 99% or more? It is very easy to check this using an on-line service like https://www.servermojo.com/ who use several servers around the world to check your website availability. As soon as your website is unavailable you can either get an email or TXT message.
- Who is doing your website development / design and who is hosting your website? Is that the same company, then you are pretty tight up as that one company can do anything with your website and emails. You as domain and website owner should have full control over what is happening with your website. If you want a separate web developer to have a look at changing something on your website then that must be possible even without having to ask your web hosting company.
- Do you have the UDAI code of your domain? Quite often requesting the UDAI code can cause some questions from your current domain hosting company as it often indicates that you have plans to move your website. Requesting the UDAI code should be an on-line service provided by your domain registration company.
- Do you have full FTP access to your website? Websites are normally programmed/updated using FTP access to the web hosting server. If you do not have that, then you basically do not own the website.
- Do you have a backup of your website? You should always have an recent fully functional backup of your website available. This will allow you to have your website back up and running in no time might the worst happen. This backup should also include any DATA backup from databases used by your website.
- Is anyone following you and reading your emails? Or getting copies of orders placed on your website? This is normal practice when it relates to a recent development but after about one or two months there is really no need any more that the developer should get copies of these emails and/or order placements.
- Website performance - Performance of a website can easily be measured using Google analytics. However optimising your website for an ongoing performance is an ongoing task too. Be sure you are at least following trends on your website.
Sometimes there are some shocking things going on like asking NZ$ 5,000.00 for a 5-page website which has been poorly copied over from an existing website with some slight changes. But then getting access to the code reveals the master password of the web developing/hosting company giving you basically access to all websites developed and hosted by that company with full ability to change the content, orders, emails, newsletters and more.
You wonder if a web hosting company is lacking so much in their security, how sure can you be about your information being secure? Sooner or later the hosting server gets used for sending spam (after being hacked) resulting in an immediate cutting off all their internet connections, there goes the 99% guaranteed uptime.
Please contact us now for more information or assistance with your specific IT needs. We do not web hosting, a little bit of web design, a bit more web application development but above all we would like to provide reliable IT solutions (or at least assist in achieving them) to support healthy business growth.
