5 IT tips for small businesses

As a small business it's important to keep your costs down especially when you're just starting out. But a lot of small business owners underestimate the importance of budgeting for IT support costs. We first met George from B&G IT Services back in March when we featured him in a blog post after he'd recently joined the Bucks Biz community, he shares with us below his tips for small businesses to keep their systems up and running!

1 . ANTI VIRUS
Always make sure you have a good Antivirus application. Avoid using free versions if you can... Cyber attacks and breaches are more and more common in today’s IT world ,and without good protection you could become a victim of ransomware! Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only the big companies that are targets - smaller companies are often easy targets due to low security. DON’T BE THAT COMPANY! ....

2. DATA BACKUPS
Do regular data backups - it’s your data and your business needs it ..Unfortunately ,a lot of smaller companies still rely on external drives or USB drives. Sometimes it’s only done once a week or it gets forgotten one week ! And that’s usually the week that disaster strikes and everything is lost! 

3. PASSWORD MANAGEMENT 
Avoid having the same password for several sites and applications and if Two Stage Authentication is available use it. Invest in a good password manager like LastPass or Dashlane which create secure passwords and you only have to remember one!

4. EMAIL BACKUPS
Don’t assume your email hosting company backup your emails-  always ask if it’s part of your package and if not get a good cloud or local backup system in place.

5. DOCUMENT YOUR SYSTEMS 
Having good IT documentation helps you and any IT engineers solve problems quickly – think of it as your system blueprint or map – that way there is no time wasting if you have an engineer onsite to solve problems. Remember they usually charge by the hour so make sure you use that time fixing problems.

These are just a few basic steps you can put in place to maximise the efficiency and safety of your IT and business.

If you're a new business coming into the centre, expanding/moving offices or simply just looking to get your IT requirements in place - contact George at B&G Services on 01908 973 049. George offers a personal service for all of your IT needs, from email accounts and Wi-Fi to data management, ensuring that you remain connected and your data is safely and securely backed up.

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