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Gaining Momentum before the Recovery: Preparing for a Safe Return to Work
/in Blog, ERP Software /by lindsayThe last few months have been, for lack of a better term, a wild ride. This isn’t to discount the challenges that you, your family, your employees, and your business have faced, but when you look at things like the stock market, retail spending, and confidence reports, there is optimism for the post-lockdown world. But you didn’t get this far in your career through blind faith in macroeconomic trends or surveys. You know that success is built on pragmatism, planning, and performance.
Your Journey Back to Business as “Usual”
Understandably, the same goes for your business’s recovery plan. There are many steps you’ll need to take to combine planning with action, optimism with caution, and the safety of your workers with the sustainability of your business.
Rather than thinking about the speed with which you get back to full capacity, you need to think about the steps involved and explore how to efficiently take such steps. Can you afford to take the step today or will you have to wait another month? Can you readjust your office to fit ten more people, or will that put them at risk? Should you go so far as to change your business model, pricing strategy, or vendor relationships? All valuable questions you need to ask.
That said, there’s not exactly a lot of time to ask them. Lockdowns could have lasted for months longer than they did, which would have put you in a different position than you are today. But with even slow-to-recover states jumping on board with the recovery, it’s safe to assume that you can start opening your doors to a few more employees, customers, and dollars.
So, as phases go from two to three or three to four, how can you build up your momentum while keeping a wary eye on your business to avoid any backsliding? Today, we explore a few tips for making that a reality.
Technical Challenges That May Emerge During Phased Reentry
The last thing anyone needs right now is a second lockdown. With articles coming out predicting that to be the case, your number one priority should be to avoid letting your workplace become ground zero for a new outbreak. From cleaning to distancing, you will need to take steps to prevent this.
This starts with the adoption of new practices focused on a combination of cleaning (removes dirt and germs), disinfecting (kills the germs), and sanitizing (lowers the number of germs). Develop a regimen that involves each. Learn more about some of the practices from the CDC.
Whether it’s a change in work schedule, a new floor plan, or temporary closure of common areas, communicate with your staff how their lives will change. No more water cooler (literally or figuratively), no more coffeepot, and maybe even a reimagined break process.
Technical Challenge: Hybrid Work-From-Home and a Single Source of Truth
The most likely scenario will be a phased recovery plan that allows for some employees to work from the office and others to work from home. In turn, for those companies using desktop software or who relied on limited access to software over the last few months may face challenges when half the office is back at the office. This may result in delayed decisions or slower processing—as those at the office have the instantaneous processing and those still at home might be minutes (or more) behind.
Technical Challenge: Easier to Call in Sick—But What About the Hardware?
When the first symptom is a dry cough, it’s better to be cautious. Luckily, we’ve gotten accustomed to working from home, so for most businesses, it’s okay to be overly cautious and allow sick days. Ensure you’ve communicated explicitly about how employees should report to human resources if they become sick or start experiencing any symptoms.
Unfortunately, for those legacy companies who had to buy new laptops or take hardware home to access on-premises software, this makes for a challenging time. Employees probably had to bring back the devices they used—and now those whose cough might have simply been the result of cold are left out of the loop. Luckily, for those companies in the cloud, it’s simply log in and go.
Learn More: Five Companies Who Kept Their Business Running Smoothly
Despite the move from lockdown to reality looking less like flipping the switch and more like accelerating, resilient businesses who turned to the cloud either before or during the lockdown have been reaping the rewards. A recent Acumatica blog discussed how some of the companies who did embrace the cloud made it work.
For example, C&O Nursery improved customer relationships without missing a beat.
“Before, if we were out in the field and a grower said, ‘By the way, do we have XYZ variety?’, we would call into the office. Now that we’re cloud based, we can actually log in, look at our inventory, and answer that person within about three minutes with an accurate answer,” says CEO and President Todd Snyder in the company’s customer success story.
Ready to learn more about empowering your employees no matter where they stand? Read How 5 Acumatica Customers Keep Business Running Smoothly from Anywhere, download the free IDC report discussing how the cloud enables business resiliency, and contact us for more information.
Additional Acumatica Resources
What is the Total Economic Impact of Your ERP?
ERP Evaluation Checklist: 5 Important Things to Consider
Why Every IT Executive Needs Cloud ERP Software
Summer Storms Shouldn’t Take Down Your Servers
/in Blog, Business Continuity /by lindsaySummer means power outages. That can mean a data center outage; but it shouldn’t. All businesses should have appropriate disaster recovery plans to keep them functioning through power outages and other incidents that take down systems.
A disaster recovery plan includes the steps needed to bring information systems back online, but it isn’t just a copy of the daily runbook. The plan needs to document:
Once the recovery plan is developed, it needs to be tested to ensure that it works. It’s surprising how easy it is to leave important systems and important steps out of the plan! Only testing can provide the reassurance that the plan will be effective. Tests can be as simple as a tabletop read-through, but full-scale disaster simulations that execute the documented processes are the most robust way to test a disaster recovery plan.
Finally, the plan needs to be kept up to date to reflect changes in IT resources and business processes. It’s a good idea to update the plan as part of your change management process whenever a new system or device is deployed in production. Annual reviews, coordinated with an annual test, are also effective.
For more guidance on developing an effective disaster recovery strategy, contact CCS Technology Group.
Additional Disaster Recovery Resources
5 Disaster Recovery Disasters to Avoid
Make Sure Your Disaster Recovery Plan Isn’t Just Words on Paper
Craft An Effective Disaster Recovery Plan
Searching the Dark Web Should be Part of Your Information Security Strategy
/in Blog, Security /by lindsayPeering into dark corners can be scary, especially when it’s the dark corners of the web. If you’re concerned about whether company data has been exposed on the dark web, you have to go looking for it, but you need to do it carefully. There won’t be blinking signs lighting the way to your stolen info, and if you aren’t careful, you can even draw unwanted attention. Nevertheless, there’s more risk in ignoring the shadows than in checking to see what they’re hiding. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Checking the dark web lets you know if you’ve been victimized
Every business is vulnerable to attack, but it isn’t always obvious that an attack was successful. Because hackers often post stolen data on the dark web, finding it there confirms that you’ve been attacked and lets you know what sensitive data was taken. You can then focus your security efforts to change those stolen passwords and increase security where you were vulnerable. While some of that new security is reactive, knowing what’s on the dark web can identify new threats and let you be proactive in adding security measures, too.
It isn’t easy to find your data
There’s all kinds of stolen data available on the dark web, but it isn’t easy to access or to identify where it came from. In addition, there may be data about your business on the dark web that wasn’t stolen but can still make you more vulnerable to attack. Some data on the dark web may even be completely innocuous. You can easily waste a lot of time trying to find data and then figure out whether what you found is significant.
You can make yourself more vulnerable when you explore the dark web
The queries you do when you search the dark web can leave a trail the bad guys can analyze to learn more about your IT resources. It’s important to be smart about exploring the dark web to make sure you learn more than you reveal.
What are the kinds of things you should look for on the dark web? You’ll want to search for data that reveals the inner workings of your business, plus sensitive information about customers. This includes data about your executives, including their personal information and information about their activity outside of work. Customer data, including personal data and account information, is also online. In addition to data about people, there may be data about systems, including helpful hints on how to set up fraudulent accounts or bypass security measures.
You may want to look for more than lists including name, address, account number; there’s code on the dark web, so it’s worth looking for proprietary source code along with other intellectual property.
Protect Your Business With CCS Technology Group
Protecting your business requires knowing what data has made its way onto the dark web. CCS Technology Group’s dark web scan provides a safe way to peer into dangerous places on the web and gather the insights you need to protect yourself from further damage. Contact us to learn more about why exploring the dark web should be part of your cybersecurity strategy.
Additional Dark Web Resources
Is the Dark Web All Bad?
Discover the Dangers of the Dark Web
What is the Dark Web and Why Should We Care?