Types of Compliance Small Businesses Should Know About

Implementing measures to meet your regulatory obligations may seem like a management no-brainer. Yet, with so many business critical tasks demanding your attention, it can be easy for small business owners and decision-makers to overlook this critical responsibility. Being aware of your compliance obligations reduces legal problems, improves operational safety, and enhances public relations. Non-compliance, on the other hand, can lead to hefty penalties and missed business opportunities. Keep reading for everything you need to know about compliance for small and medium-sized businesses. 

What are the Different Types of Compliance? 

Compliance awareness is essential as your business grows and becomes exposed to new audits and challenges. For nearly all business activities, there are corresponding compliance regulations and standards that must be met. These regulations pertain to data privacy, security, environmental concerns, finance, and more. 

There are two main types of compliance; corporate and regulatory. Both types of compliance involve a framework of regulations, practices, and rules to follow. 

Corporate Compliance 

Also known as internal compliance, corporate compliance refers to the protocols, rules, and codes of conduct that a business implements. A corporate compliance framework helps your small business to maintain high operating standards and avoid internal conflicts. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies are an excellent example of corporate compliance. 

Some of the steps you can take to enforce corporate compliance include:

• Keeping track of workplace industry standards

• Scheduling regular internal audits

• Conducting regular employee training

Regulatory Compliance 

Also known as external compliance, regulatory compliance refers to a set of practices and regulations your organization must adhere to. These rules are set by law and implemented by a regulatory agency. For instance, registering your business is an act of external compliance. 

Regulartory compliance may also include:

• Data and privacy compliance regulations (HIPAA, COPPA, GDPR, etc.)

• Quality management regulations such as ISO 9001

• Employment regulations such as FMLA and OSHA

Corporate compliance and regulatory compliance are similar, with the only difference being where they originate from. Both outline regulations, rules, and practices you need to follow in your business. 

Types of Compliance Certifications 

Today’s evolving corporate landscape means small businesses should always be trained and certified in the latest regulatory obligations. The essential types of compliance certifications that small businesses should pursue include: 

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) 

Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting small and medium businesses because they know they are less likely to have robust security measures in place. For this reason, you should have access to someone who holds the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification – whether within your IT department or through an external service provider. 

Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) 

Data privacy is a critical concern for any modern business. It’s also a type of compliance that grows in significance by the day. For instance, operating in the EU requires compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This law is particularly concerned with how websites collect and process personal data. 

Businesses must inform customers why they collect their data, when their data gets processed, and for how long they’ll store it. As such, every business should have a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) in their ranks. This type of compliance certification is accredited and recognized by the American National Standards Institute, and having this resource shows your commitment to data privacy compliance. 

Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM) 

Financial institutions such as banks must adhere to a unique set of compliance requirements. These include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) and the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). With so many regulatory standards to adhere to, it’s best to have an individual certified to oversee the organization’s regulatory and risk management requirements. 

The Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM) is the most recognized and respected compliance certification in the banking industry. It makes it easier for financial institutions to implement the full range of core compliance risk functions. 

Types of Compliance Training 

Maintaining compliance is only possible if all of your employees are informed of their individual obligations. Below are some of the types of compliance training you should consider performing regularly.

Health and Safety Compliance Training 

Most workplace injuries can be avoided through health and safety compliance training. This training covers standards and procedures for ensuring a healthy working environment, and safety and accident prevention procedures. 

Data and Cybersecurity Compliance Training 

You can only comply with regulatory standards such as the GDPR if employees undergo data and cybersecurity training regularly. This helps them to understand laws around handling sensitive data, how to prevent possible breaches, and actions to take when a breach occurs. 

Ethics Compliance Training 

Every company should foster a professional and ethical workplace. An easy way to do so is by undertaking ethics training. This teaches your employees how to handle ethical dilemmas and avoid conflict. 

Diversity and Inclusion Compliance Training 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a top priority for most HR departments. It helps to create a thriving and inclusive environment by eliminating biases. Diversity and inclusion training helps employees to learn about the impact of equity and fairness in the workplace and how to recognize and eliminate stereotypes and biases. 

Types of Compliance Issues 

Failing to adhere to regulations can lead to a number of serious compliance issues, including:

• Penalties and legal issues, such as lawsuits and work stoppages

• Data breaches and irretrievable loss of digital assets

• Damaged business reputation and lost customers

• Human Resource issues and high employee turnover

Improve Your Business Compliance 

Running a small business comes with a lot of uncertainty. Compliance can seem like a difficult area to navigate, but the issues associated with non-compliance make adherence essential. Being aware of the types of regulations that apply to your industry goes a long way in fortifying your compliance. If you’re looking for a managed IT solution that helps your small business scale while maintaining compliance with data security regulations, look no further than Toniolo. Our solutions support your organization’s IT to meet and exceed compliance standards. Contact us to learn more.

Digital Onboarding Guide for Small Businesses

In a competitive market for talent, effectively onboarding new employees is more important than ever before. However, with the recent shift toward remote and hybrid work, it can also be more challenging to welcome new hires to your team. Onboarding processes that rely heavily on in-person interactions and paper-based forms are quickly becoming obsolete. This is where digital onboarding comes in. 

Digital onboarding delivers a consistent experience for all new hires, and streamlines the work involved for People Teams. Despite the many benefits of digital onboarding, many businesses still use manual processes and legacy systems when inducting new hires. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about implementing a more efficient digital onboarding process. 

What is Digital Employee Onboarding? 

Digital employee onboarding refers to the process of leveraging digital solutions and technology to introduce new hires to your organization and its processes. It enables organizations to deliver efficient, cost-effective employee onboarding through clear organizational workflows and centralized access to all information. 

The 8 Steps of a Digital Onboarding Process

After finding the perfect candidate to join your team, your digital onboarding process should encompass the following steps to set them up for success.

1. Pre-boarding Welcome 

Your digital onboarding should begin with a welcome email confirming the new employee’s start date, time, and location. This should also include an automated request for all paperwork and details that the new hire should submit in advance of their first day. 

2. Ship All Pre-onboarding Resources and Employee Swag 

Before a new employee’s first day, introduce them to your organizational culture by sending company swag, helpful videos, and other necessary resources. This will ease any new job jitters, and make them feel confident before beginning their new role. As part of an established digital onboarding process, this step can be easily automated. 

3. Send a Remote Welcome Package 

For remote employees, send a virtual welcome package that includes a lunch delivery gift card to enjoy with their new team. By including this in your remote digital onboarding, you’ll help to replicate the in-office welcome experience. 

4. Set Up Employee Access 

For remote workers, your digital onboarding should include VPN access to your network. You should also provide access to their email account, collaboration tools, video-conferencing, user logins, and other resources on day one. Digital onboarding allows for streamlined configuration of these profiles.  

5. Schedule Virtual Introductions 

Set up introductory calls between the new hire, department heads, and other team members. Your digital onboarding process should also include a step for announcing new hires to existing employees so they are aware of any team changes. 

6. Schedule Training 

Set up virtual or in-office training sessions that enlighten employees on what is expected of them in their new role, and educate them on company policies that they should heed when undertaking their tasks. This training should also cover usage policies for all technology, devices, and systems. 

7. Schedule Team-Building Sessions 

Relationships matter. Scheduling team-building sessions that engage both new hires and existing employees deepens the bonds between team members. In a digital environment, these sessions can be even more important to help new hires get comfortable and ensure they hit the ground running. 

8. Create a 30/60/90 Day Onboarding Plan 

Coordinate with relevant managers to create a 30/60/90-day plan with frequent check-ins over video calls where applicable. Given that digital onboarding is a relatively new concept, your business should encourage two-way feedback and incorporate any employee suggestions into future onboarding changes. 

How to Create the Best Digital Onboarding Experience 

To ensure new employees have the best possible digital onboarding experience, make sure to keep the following points in mind. 

1. Include Pre-Boarding in your Digital Onboarding Process 

The first step on your onboarding checklist should be pre-boarding. Pre-boarding can help ease any worries that new hires may have as their first day of work approaches. Pre-boarding may involve sending a welcome email or message, offering company swag, or reaching out to the new hires via Zoom. It may also involve sending the new hires important documents such as culture decks, employee handbooks, and your organization’s mission statement. 

2. Ensure That New Hires Have Necessary Equipment 

Identifying the relevant equipment for each new hire and provisioning it accordingly is critical to your digital onboarding process. Failing to provide adequate equipment and system access on a new employee’s first day can make a poor first impression, and prevents them from completing many other aspects of the onboarding process.  

3. Establish a Clear Training Plan 

Create a solid training plan that can help your new employees stay on target and develop the skills they’ll need to be successful in their new roles. This means that the training program should be job-specific. What’s more, you should set clear expectations for progress at the start of the training process. When employees have a clear roadmap of what is expected of them, they will be better positioned to gauge their progress and make adjustments where necessary. 

4. Assign the New Employees a “Buddy” 

New employees benefit greatly from having a dedicated resource to help them navigate their first days and weeks. You should assign a more experienced employee to mentor and guide the new hire through the onboarding process, and schedule regular virtual check-ins if the employees involved are working remotely. 

5. Manage Change 

Ensure that you communicate with the rest of your team about your hiring updates. When you keep your existing team informed of new roles, responsibilities, and hierarchies, they are more likely to embrace change and create a positive environment for new team members. 

6. Make Use of Automation 

When onboarding relies on manual processes, crucial steps can be easily forgotten. Whether it’s skipping a training module or missing a document, mistakes during the onboarding process can have a significant impact on the employee. The beauty of digital onboarding is that it automates many of these important tasks and ensures all pertinent information is stored securely.  

7. Schedule Regular Feedback Sessions 

Whether the new hire will be working from the office or remotely, it’s essential to check in with them regularly. Schedule sessions between them and their team members, supervisors, and other key players in their development. Additionally, you should encourage them to ask questions and provide feedback during these sessions. 

Benefits of Digital Onboarding Solutions 

If you’re on the lookout for a digital onboarding solution, keep an eye out for features that will make your job easier. At Toniolo, we offer an easy-to-use onboarding solution that includes all of the key benefits, including:

• Simplified requests: With Toniolo, you can initiate the onboarding process through standardized forms that ensure consistency across all requests. Settings are customized to your organization’s unique needs, all you need to do is select the appropriate employee profile and we’ll take care of the rest.

• Device procurement and provisioning: One of the digital onboarding benefits of using Toniolo is getting rid of the manual procuring and provisioning process for devices. Toniolo ensures every new hire can access the business systems they need, and sets them up with a device delivered directly to them, wherever they are.

• Centralized tracking and management: Manually tracking the progress of all employees in various stages of your onboarding process can lead to confusion and errors. Toniolo’s digital onboarding benefits provide a centralized view of the history and status of all onboarding requests.
  

Are you ready to modernize your digital onboarding process? Toniolo can help streamline your workload and improve the new employee experience. Contact us today to learn more.

Cloud Migration: The Consulting Services and Solutions You Should Know About

Cloud migration can dramatically enhance the efficiency and productivity of your organization. That said, migrating to the cloud for the first time – or migrating from one cloud provider to another – is still a significant undertaking. Cost, stability, and, most importantly, security concerns all have to be taken into account.

While the benefits are many, it’s important to perform cloud migration efficiently to avoid business downtime and undue strain on internal resources. In this post, we’ll cover everything you should know about cloud migration, including what it is, the common strategies for cloud migration, and why you may need cloud consulting services to support you along the way. 

What is Cloud Migration? 

Cloud migration is the process of moving data, applications, or other business resources to a cloud environment. For businesses getting started with the cloud, this usually involves transferring data and applications from a local on-premise data center to the cloud. 

For organizations that have already undergone this process, they may be considering a further cloud migration from one cloud provider or platform to another. The third, less common type of cloud migration involves moving data and applications off the cloud and back to on-premise servers – this is also referred to as reverse cloud migration. 

4 Reasons to Consider Cloud Data Migration 

Organizations that decide to migrate to the cloud experience numerous benefits, including: 

1. Reduction in costs

With on-premise infrastructure, you have to pay for all the software, hardware, and maintenance fees. With cloud migration, you only pay for what you use.

2. Increased scalability

The cloud allows you to increase or decrease resources based on your needs. As such, it offers great scalability. 

3. Improved performance

Since cloud infrastructure is designed to be scalable, you can handle an increase in traffic and demand without experiencing downtime.

4. Digital experience

Migrating to the cloud enhances your digital experiences and creates new capabilities and efficiencies that aren’t possible with on-premise infrastructure. 

5 Types of Cloud Migration Strategies 

A successful cloud migration strategy includes prioritizing workloads for migration, determining the right migration plan for each workload, and developing, testing, piloting, and adjusting the strategy based on the results. 

Given that every organization is unique, a cloud migration strategy should be designed to meet their particular needs and help them attain their desired outcomes. That said, there are generally five types of cloud migration strategies to choose from.

1. Re-hosting

This cloud migration strategy involves redeploying applications to cloud-based hardware and making the necessary adjustments to the application’s host configuration. 

2. Re-platforming

Re-platforming involves running applications on the cloud provider’s infrastructure. While you may be able to make some cloud-related optimizations, you won’t be spending the developers’ cycle altering the core architecture of an application. 

3. Repurchasing

This cloud migration strategy entails getting rid of a legacy application and then installing commercially available software delivered as a service. 

4. Refactoring

This strategy involves re-thinking an application’s architecture and development by leveraging PaaS cloud native features. It is usually driven by the need to scale or add new features. 

5. Retiring

Every application eventually becomes obsolete or redundant due to the availability of better options, which is when retiring is needed. 

What to Look for in Cloud Migration Tools 

Most cloud providers offer cloud migration tools. Your choice will depend on what your goals are and the expected outcomes. When choosing a cloud migration tool, ensure that it:

• Helps you at every stage of the migration process

• Is compatible with your cloud environment

• Facilitates data or application migration

• Has analytics to monitor real-time cloud performance

• Can identify and fix user experience issues

How to Choose Cloud Migration Consulting Services 

Here are the things to look for when selecting a cloud migration consulting service for your business: 

1 . Track Record 

Try to find a cloud consultant that has worked with clients with similar cloud needs as yours. Many cloud consultants have testimonials of previous clients on their websites. Pay attention to the trend of the overall reviews. If you’d like further information, don’t be afraid to ask if you can speak directly to a past client for their feedback.. 

2. Business Fit

When selecting a cloud migration consultant, you should put your business’s needs first. Ensure that you choose consultants who understand your industry and your needs. Such a consultant will give you sound advice on what applications you should migrate to the cloud and how to do so in a way that attains maximum efficiency. 

3. Security and Governance 

While cloud environments are generally very secure, cloud migration still raises some security and compliance issues. As such, you should look at the security practices of a cloud consultant before deciding to partner with them. 

4. Cloud Provider Partnerships

Service companies that are partners with major cloud providers are better positioned to help you seamlessly migrate to key platforms such as Azure, AWS, and GCP through certified developers. They can also help you automate tools and technologies that are predominantly used in the cloud-first world. 

5 Benefits of Cloud Migration Services 

Here are some of the reasons why you should outsource cloud migration and management services: 

1. Expertise 

An experienced cloud migration consultant can help you implement a customized cloud migration and support solution that ensures your business attains its goals while maintaining security and compliance. In short, an experienced cloud service provider will offer guidance and expertise throughout your cloud journey, including planning, data migration, and maintenance. 

2. Increased Security 

Given the increase in remote work, cloud vulnerabilities have caught the attention of cybercriminals.To maintain security and compliance, you need the right access control, active cloud monitoring, and regular vulnerability management. Cloud service providers often use sophisticated tools which enable them to attain better visibility into your existing infrastructure. As such, they can put in place security measures both during the migration and the implementation process. 

3. Reduced Costs 

Migration to the cloud enables businesses to shift costs from capital to operational expenditures. When implemented properly, the cloud can reduce overall IT costs and allow organizations to focus on strategy instead of hardware. Cloud service companies can help you properly implement your cloud strategy to realize this benefit. What’s more, cloud service companies provide predictable billing, making budgeting easier. 

4. Better Performance 

Cloud service companies can ensure that you experience better cloud performance since they have more experience architecting and managing cloud infrastructures. Also, cloud migration and management service companies tend to have larger teams. As such, they can dedicate technicians to monitor your cloud infrastructure, enabling them to fix problems in real-time. 

5. Support In-house IT Personnel 

In-house IT teams are often busy undertaking day-to-day helpdesk and support tasks. This prevents them from focusing their efforts on cloud security and optimization. Cloud service companies have access to more robust solutions and can dedicate a team of technicians to your organization’s cloud infrastructure. When you partner with a cloud consulting company, your in-house IT team can focus their attention on projects that directly affect your business. 

Application and Cloud Management 

Are you looking for cloud management services? Cloud migration can give rise to a significant amount of administrative work, particularly when it comes to user management and permission requests. At Toniolo, we can handle your cloud management tasks so that you can focus on actually using your software and cloud drives to grow your business. Contact us today to learn more about our cloud management services.

The Three Best Ways To GUARANTEE People Don’t Do What You Want

Hey all! 

I just finished reading High Output Management by Andrew Grove, former Chairman and CEO of Intel.  There were a bunch of good take aways from the book – it gets a little advanced; but I thought I’d simplify some of my takeaway's into a simple mental model for managing anyone.

For a bit of fun, I’ve written this article in the inverse. In other words, DO THESE THINGS if you DON’T WANT PEOPLE DOING WHAT YOU WANT.  It’s super simple, obvious, and a little bit fun. Hope you find some nuggets! 

The Three Best Ways To GUARANTEE People Don’t Do What You Want 

1. Don’t tell them. 

It sounds so simple, but if you absolutely want to guarantee people don’t do what you want, then the absolute first thing you should do is NOT tell them what you want done.  Make sure you never communicate any EXPECTATIONS.  And if you do by chance mention what you want done, make sure you: 

• Say it in passing, 

• Don’t write it down, 

• Don’t repeat it, 

• Don’t ask them about it frequently. 

Just make sure it’s only mentioned as a line item on a quarterly catchup or something. One line item on an annual report would be better if you can – think about how effective this would be at getting them to not do what you want. I mean, versus asking them about the thing twice a day, every day – that would for sure be communicating expectations clearly. Make sure it’s just a line item on the annual report.  In fact, don’t even give them the metric to track – that’d be great. 

2. Make sure they don’t know how to do it. 

 Again, simple obvious stuff!  Make sure they don’t know how to do the thing! 

• Don’t train them around what you want done in general, 

• Don’t tell them how they should prioritize their time so they can get it done given their workload, 

• Don’t specifically tell them how you like it done, ya know? Because everyone has preferences. It’d be great they don’t know how YOU want it done! 

3. Make sure they’re as unmotivated as humanly possible! 

Ideally, it would be great if you could motivate and incentivise them to NOT do it! But for sure here’s a helpful list of things to ensure you’re not doing. 

• Don’t pay them, 

• Make it as meaningless as possible, 

• Don’t praise them, 

• Don’t tell them WHY they’re doing it and WHY it’s important, 

• Definitely don’t tell them how benefits others, 

• And for god’s sake… DO NOT TELL THEM HOW IT HELPS THEMSELVES! 

There you have it! What do you think? I think with these three simple questions to ask yourself next time reviewing someone’s amazing performance, you’ll definitely be able to change behaviour and get them doing a terrible job as soon as possible! 

And if by some chance you ARE doing all these things, and they’re still performing their tasks excellently, then perhaps we should start performance managing them out of the business as soon as possible.  It doesn’t seem like a good fit! 

Cheat Sheet 

Ok ok – for the lazy, here’s a quick cheat sheet for next time. Ask yourself these questions next time when someone’s not doing what you want it. 

Knowledge 

• Do they know what I want them to do? 

• Have I recorded/written it down somewhere? 

• Do I tell them about it frequently enough? 

Expectations 

• Have I trained them on the task? 

• Have I taught them how to prioritise this task in with the rest of their workload? 

• Have I told them specifically how I need it done? 

Motivation 

• Are they incentivized to do this task? 

• Am I praising them for doing the task day-in-day-out? 

• Note** A lot of jobs/tasks eventually feel like digging a hole and then filling it in at the end of the day just to come back in and do it all over again tomorrow. They haven’t seen that after they were done digging the hole, customer service, management, finance, customer success, etc all played a role to install new electrical tunnels and filled the whole in overnight. All they see is that same damn hole in need of digging again. Acknowledge their good work! 

• Have I communicated why their doing the thing and why it’s important? 

• Eg. Do they know that by filling in customer notes, it saves Bec from Accounting 30minutes when it’d only take them 2min to do at the end of a call? 

• Are they aware doing this task HELPS THEM IN SOME WAY? 

• Is it linked to praise? Better lead allocation? A bonus (individual or team)? Aligns with their personal values in doing good work and helping others…  

In all sincerity, before we come to pass judgement on an employees performance, it’s only fair and just (never mind good for the bottom line), that we ask ourselves these questions – ensure we’ve answered them, and reinforced adequately.  

Business is a doing thing, it’s constant and iterative. And as Einstein said, “Never memorize what you can look up in books.” So it stands to reason that keeping mental models like this in your toolbox to refer to time and again is helpful.

What Should A Company Do After a Data Breach?

Amid all the craziness in the world, the news that data breaches are on the rise probably isn’t the best news for your business. Data breaches only continue to increase. Most recently, it happened in major companies like Colonial Pipeline, and JBS, a major meatpacker.

These were just two of numerous throughout this year, so far. And it’s not just big companies experiencing data breaches. Mid-sized and smaller companies also face the same issue every year.

What if it happens to you? We’ve compiled 7 steps to take after a data breach on what you should do after discovering your company’s sensitive data became compromised.

What Should A Company Do After a Data Breach: 7 Steps To Take

1. Let Your Company’s Employees & Clients Know About the Data Breach

Never keep the information about a data breach secret. After all, your business is all about serving customers or clients. When their data gets breached, they need to know about it to protect themselves.

The same can be said for your internal employees. Their personal information may have also been breached, leading to possible identity theft and other criminal activity.

Always make an effort to let everyone in your company and your clients know exactly what happened. Letting customers know the details allows them to take action with the credit bureaus in the event someone tries to use their financial information. Your employees would take the same actions to protect themselves, unless you already have data security back in place.

Keeping this data breach information private could end up haunting your company after the fact. It could lead to lawsuits for allowing private data to get into the wrong hands. You could also lose many of your valued employees (and customers) due to a lack of trust.

2. Secure Your Systems

Where did the data breach occur in your IT systems? Get to work fixing where the breach happened without delays. More than one breach might have occurred, leaving you wide open to further breaches if you don’t stop them now.

After a data breach your company should attempt to change your access codes/passwords for a while until you get everything sorted out. Whoever it was that did the breach has those codes and can do whatever they want until you block them. Also, it’s a good idea to temporarily shut down all remote access to your systems out of precaution.

It’s also smart to put together a mobile breach team to respond as soon as possible. What that team looks like may entail more than just your on-site IT experts. This may involve lawyers, human resources, your communications department, and management as just a few.

3. Determine What Was Breached

What kind of data was breached in your business? Was it the financial information of your customers? Or did the hackers steal other information that could still give them the ability to steal identities? These are important questions for a company to ask after a data breach.

Merely stealing something as insignificant as birthday information is enough for a criminal to find personal information on someone. Even mailing addresses being compromised can bring a domino effect of personal data being stolen.

Email accounts can also be easily breached if passwords become hacked. Worst of all is the credit card information of your customers or employees being taken.

Despite being easy to have credit bureaus put up red flags on stolen cards, you need to find out exactly how many credit card numbers were stolen. You need to get your IT team on that now to pinpoint every detail and not place ambiguous statements in calls or letters.

4. Test to Make Sure Your New Cybersecurity Defenses Work

Once your company has addressed what happened in your data breach, it’s time to make sure any cybersecurity patches or procedures you put in place really work. A rush job on getting your IT security back in shape could mean missing a few things.

Most important is to do a test and make sure the method the hacker used to gain access to your data can’t happen the same way all over again. Without doing a thorough test, it definitely could happen again hours or days later.

This is why you need to trust your IT team to find out the source of the breach and exactly how it happened. A reliable security team can weed this out immediately.

Make sure all your servers and virtual machines are tested as well as part of your penetration testing process. These are usually the most vulnerable tech areas where data breaches happen. Your prior vulnerability should be thoroughly patched, including any other security vulnerabilities found during an inspection.

5. Update All Data Breach Protocols

It might be time to update the protocols you used to alert your staff about data breaches. How well-educated are they on what to do when it happens? Perhaps you found out your staff was caught off-guard on how to handle it since it never happened before.

Complacency is a major problem with many businesses that have no prior security breach experience. Take time to set up new procedures and educate your staff on the realities of what’s going on in the world.

Outsourcing a reliable IT team is also a good idea after a data breach so they can place new security technologies in place. They can teach you and your staff about the importance of watching out for phishing emails, including creating unique passwords not easily compromised.

Education and acute awareness are the best deterrents against data breaches today. The less you know, the more hackers win in finding gateways toward infiltrating your data.

6. Consider Getting Cyber Liability Insurance

To protect yourself further, it’s a good idea to look into cyber liability insurance policies that can protect any data losses. Losing data may mean big money losses over time, not including maybe paying settlements to those with compromised information.

Fully protecting your company now after a data breach should become an essential activity. If you went through a data breach recently, it might not be your last one during the life of your business.

7. Get Expert IT Help

As the world continues to navigate the complexities of a distributed workforce, Toniolo is here to support your organization. Toniolo can work closely to help you push security policies and configurations that adhere to industry best practices across your entire company to help prevent a data breach.

Our commitment to architecting IT infrastructure security starts at the core of your business. That’s why we unify security at the device, application, and network levels.

What is Identity Access Management? Solutions & Benefits to Know

Identity management may sound like the process of simply recording employee details and credentials. However, if performed correctly, it facilitates so much more than that. Identity access management allows for centralized control over who can access which company resources at any given time. In the context of today’s increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, it is an invaluable tool for minimizing and containing potential threats. This article walks through the features of identity management solutions, and outlines the benefits of implementing such a tool.  

What is Identity Management?

Identity management is the practice of creating a unique digital identity for each employee, which is then used to identify, authenticate, and authorize their access to the organization’s IT resources. The digital attributes of an employee’s identity are stored in a central database, making it easier to instantly and securely verify their access and activities. 

Identity management is most useful when used in tandem with access management, which we’ll dive into below. It is particularly valuable for maintaining security in remote or hybrid work environments, where employees may be accessing company assets from a variety of locations and devices.  

What is Identity Access Management?

Identity Access Management (IAM) is the practice of providing employees with access to company resources based on their digital identity profile. Identity management and identity access management are two terms that are often used interchangeably. However, the main difference between the two is that identity management focuses on the user’s identity, while identity access management determines what resources each identity has access to. Rather than giving all employees access to all areas, this allows for a more secure approach of only granting access to what each individual needs. 

The identity access management framework is comprised of two access components. The first part is authentication, which deals with issues like managing active sessions, sign-on options, and providing strong authentication through biometrics or token-based algorithms.

The second component is authorization, which involves a user record that defines attributes, roles, and rules to ensure a particular user, application, or device has the necessary permissions to access a resource. 

Top 3 Identity Access Management Solutions

The following are the top 3 types of user authentication that identity access management solutions rely on:

1. Single Sign On (SSO): These identity access management solutions help improve productivity and reduce friction for employees. The user has one set of credentials for authentication and only uses the username and password once in order to access several platforms, making it easy to switch between different systems seamlessly.

2. Multi Factor Authentication: Popularly known as MFA, multi factor authentication creates an additional layer of security, requiring employees to present additional identifying credentials on top of their login before accessing information. For example, the system sends a code to your email or phone after entering your login credentials.    

3. Risk-based Authentication: Also known as adaptive authentication, this identity access management solution requests additional multi factor authentication when it detects suspicious users trying to access the organization’s information. For instance, when the employee’s IP reads from a different location than usual, it requests the user to provide further authentication. 

Why Do You Need Identity Access Management?

Most employees alternate between two and four passwords to access over 100 platforms and applications. This means IT administrators in small and medium-sized businesses have their hands full managing employee credentials in a secure way.

It is widely acknowledged that a significant proportion of cybersecurity breaches are caused by identity access issues such as hacked or stolen credentials. Adopting an identity management system reduces this risk and ensures identity access is centralized and automated to reduce errors. 

Using identity management solutions also helps your IT team to control, track, and monitor users that have access to the organization’s sensitive data while maintaining highly secure authentication protocols. As well as adding a layer of protection, this process improves collaboration and efficiency at your organization.  

4 Benefits of Identity Management Systems and Solutions

Security, productivity, and regulatory compliance are among the main reasons most businesses adopt identity management systems. However, these identity access management solutions can sometimes be complex to implement and manage in-house, particularly if your organization is operating with limited resources. By outsourcing to a managed IT solution, you can realize the following additional benefits of identity management:

1. Simplified user experience

Managed IT providers are well versed in the various approaches to setting up a successful identity management solution. Leveraging their experience will benefit your organization and employees through easy-to-use identity management processes. They can also create a custom solution that will meet the requirements of any employee while consolidating logins and making the sign-in process easy and fast. 

2. Saves costs and time

Developing and maintaining an identity management system for your company can be a time-consuming and expensive process. Outsourcing this service to experts who have access to the latest technologies is typically more cost-effective, plus they will be able to guide you on the most appropriate solution and service levels for your needs.   

3. Uphold regulatory compliance

In a world where data security standards are updated regularly, you need to ensure your business upholds the required measures. This can be challenging for small and medium-sized companies that don’t have a dedicated IT team to focus on compliance issues. Third-party identity management specialists can alleviate this stress, as they are more likely to be up to date with the latest regulatory compliance requirements.  

4. Reports and historical data

Without an identity access management solution, it is almost impossible for business owners to keep track of the devices and users accessing their organization’s data at specific times. Third-party solution providers generate reports based on historical data, which are highly critical when assessing data breaches or cyberattacks.

Optimize Your Identity Access Management 

At Toniolo, we can handle the administrative work involved in application and cloud management for your employees. From monitoring user permissions and fulfilling employee file-sharing policy requests, to providing full visibility into access configurations, you’ll enjoy streamlined identity management and a lighter internal workload. Contact us today to learn more.

Cybersecurity Incident Response: How to Make a Plan

Cyber attacks are an ever-growing threat for businesses of all sizes. While attempted attacks are almost inevitable, there are steps that organizations can take to prevent and mitigate damage as a result. Being prepared is crucial in order to successfully respond to a potential cyber breach, and that means having a documented cybersecurity incident response plan. This article covers the resources, people, and steps that all businesses should include in their cybersecurity incident response planning. 

What is a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan?

A cybersecurity incident response plan (CIRP) is a written document that outlines the steps a company should take when a cyber attack, data leak, breach, or other security incident occurs. Your incident response plan should include guidelines on how to handle specific attack scenarios, minimize the recovery time needed, protect key infrastructure against further damage, and mitigate the cybersecurity risk. 

All of a business’s employees should be familiar with the cybersecurity incident response plan so they are informed of what to do if they detect a suspected attack. Without a defined CIRP in place, your organization is unlikely to respond quickly and effectively to such attacks, and could suffer a wide range of financial, reputational, and legal consequences as a result.

4 Benefits of a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan

1. Organized Approach to Threat Management

Incident planning enables your organization to take a structured approach to the handling of cyber attacks, data leaks, data breaches, and other security incidents. A CIRP enables you to minimize the recovery time needed, protect key infrastructure against further damages, and mitigate any cybersecurity risk.

2. Trust Building

When stakeholders know that your organization maintains an updated response plan, they will have higher levels of confidence in the company. The planning process helps you to develop best practices for managing future threats and create relevant communication plans to improve stakeholder trust. 

3. Compliance Improvement

Cybersecurity incident response planning also helps your business to align with regulatory requirements. Industries such as finance and healthcare are particularly strict on issues like data protection, and incident response planning can help you meet your obligations in this area. Examples of such regulations are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Healthcare Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

4. Quicker Mitigation

The final benefit of cybersecurity incident response planning is that your company can greatly reduce operational downtime in the event of an attack. When you maintain a formal approach to the handling of security incidents, you minimize the time it takes to get your systems back online.

What is a Cybersecurity Incident Response Team?

Although technology plays a vital role in your cybersecurity incident response, it shouldn’t be relied on to take care of everything. Ideally, you should also bring together knowledgeable professionals who can form an incident response team.

So, who are the people involved in incident planning, and what are their roles? A good cybersecurity incident response team should have a team leader, a lead investigator, a communications lead, a legal representative, and a documentation and timeline lead.

• Team leader: Tasked with driving and coordinating all activities involved in incident response. The team leader also maintains team members’ focus to enhance recovery and reduce overall damage.

• Lead investigator: Responsible for collecting and analyzing evidence. The lead investigator also determines the causes of cyber attacks, manages company security analysts, and spearheads service and rapid system recovery.

• Communications lead: Tasked with sending regular updates and communications to all stakeholders.

• Legal representative: This team member helps your business to align with the relevant regulatory guidelines and deal with any legal implications post-attack.

• Documentation and timeline lead: Tasked with documenting all processes, tasks, and findings, and ensuring all documentation is always up to date.

6 Things You Need in a Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan

There are six phases involved in a CIRP: preparation, identification, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. These phases form the foundation of a continuous incident response cycle.

Let’s cover each phase in depth to help build your cybersecurity incident response policy:

1. Preparation: The first phase of the CIRP takes place before an attack ever arises. The main activities in this stage of your plan are employee training on cybersecurity best practices, performing a risk assessment, and developing drill scenarios. Having a business cyber security checklist would be useful.

2. Identification: If an attack or attempted attack occurs, employees should be in a position to identify the threat quickly. The issue should then be rapidly escalated through the appropriate channels so your response team can clarify where the attack happened, the stakeholders involved in its discovery, the scope, areas that have been affected, and the point of entry.

3. Containment: The third step is utilizing your predetermined containment strategies. At this stage, you should take steps to isolate any affected systems or devices while investigations are ongoing. In the medium to long term, this can also involve temporary fixes to allow work to continue as normal elsewhere.

4. Eradication: The next phase involves purging the root cause of an attack. A key issue to consider is the extent of the damage caused by the breach, as this will inform whether you need to enlist additional or external resources for assistance. You should also patch and update any identified cybersecurity vulnerabilities at this stage.

5. Recovery: The fifth step is recovery. Here, you should restore the affected systems to their usual environments. You should also aim to return to normal operations while assessing the need for any ongoing monitoring.

6. Lessons learned: In the final phase, you should assemble all of the cybersecurity incident response team members and discuss lessons learned. The aim is to ensure that vulnerabilities have been recorded and that your systems are now better placed to prevent and contain future security incidents. It’s also helpful to identify any next steps that may be needed, such as refreshed employee training or additional security software.

Get Expert Help with your Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan

Maintaining an updated cybersecurity incident response plan within your company is the first step toward dealing with a cyber attack. If you wait for a breach to occur before thinking about your response, it’s already too late. Toniolo offers businesses robust cybersecurity at the device, application, and network levels. Get in touch to learn more about protecting your business. 

Everything You Need to Know About Cybersecurity Insurance

As the cyber threats faced by small businesses continue to grow, taking out cybersecurity insurance is a worthwhile investment. Many small business owners mistakenly assume that their company is too small to be at risk of cyber attack. However, almost all organizations are now susceptible, and the costs of recovery can be significant enough to put you out of business. 

Cybersecurity insurance provides a safety net to help you deal with the financial repercussions of an attack, and return to normal operations as quickly as possible. Keep reading for everything you need to know about cybersecurity insurance, including what it covers and who needs it.

What Is Cybersecurity Insurance?

Also known as cyber insurance or cyber liability insurance, cybersecurity insurance is a policy that protects organizations in the event of high cost data breaches and cyber-related crimes. 

With cybersecurity insurance coverage, you can reduce business disruption during and after cyber attacks, and cover some or all of the financial implications of an attack. With the evolution in cyber threats, this coverage is vital for small businesses that record their employees’ and customers’ personally identifiable information (PII).  

Who Needs Cybersecurity Insurance?

Any business that stores or processes confidential data should have cybersecurity insurance in place. If you handle data such as names, addresses, financial information, medical records, social security numbers, etc., cybersecurity coverage is essential. 

Regardless of your company size, you will find value in cybersecurity insurance. When it comes to coverage, you have two different options: first-party coverage and third-party coverage. A business that stores financial and customer data should at least have first-party coverage. In the case of a ransomware attack, for example, the insurer can step in to cover some or all of the ransom payment.  

Businesses that store more sensitive customer data like social security numbers should also consider third-party coverage. This kind of information has more significant consequences for your customers if it is stolen, since it can lead to identity theft. Third-party insurance covers the legal fees and judgments if you are sued for damages resulting from a cyber attack. This is also a viable option for small businesses that work with the data of other companies.

What is Covered by Cybersecurity Insurance Policies?

It is worth noting that a cybersecurity insurance policy does not cover every potential eventuality related to cyber threats. However, good cybersecurity insurance should support the recovery basics from cyber attacks. The following are the key elements to look out for when seeking cybersecurity coverage for your business. 

Legal Expenses

Legal representation is vital in the event of a significant breach, especially if a suit is filed against your organization. Check that your cybersecurity insurance policy covers the applicable legal costs in this scenario. 

Cyber Extortions

Cyber insurance will sometimes cover financial payments and response costs associated with ransom demands. Currently, network-based extortion demands are on the rise following the proliferation of ransomware and anonymous currencies. Cyber extortion coverage is crucial if you experience an attack that threatens to divulge sensitive information or shut down a system if a ransom is not paid. 

Forensic Expenses

In the event that you discover sensitive data has been compromised, you will need to dig deeper into what information was accessed and how it happened. Cyber insurance should cover the expenses of hiring a forensic team from outside your organization to carry out the investigation.

Business Interruption

Businesses that rely heavily on technology for their day-to-day operations should seek a policy with a business interruption provision. Such a policy protects your business when a cyber attack affects daily operations through tech failures, viruses, hacking, and more.  

Public Relations Expenses

The way in which a data breach is reported to the media is critical for reputational restoration for your company. You will also need to focus on maintaining relationships with your business associates, vendors, clients, and partners. To achieve this in a cost-effective manner, look for a policy that will cover public relations expenses following an attack.

Data Recovery

Cyber insurance should cover the replacement, restoration, and repair costs for any damaged data or software. It may also cover the cost of defending and resolving claims regarding the handling of confidential personal and corporate data. 

Digital Media

Cybersecurity insurance should cover any costs for defending and resolving claims related to online content such as trademark or copyright infringement, defamation, privacy invasion, unfair practices, etc. Any cost of settling claims made against you in your media activities, including in social media, will ideally be covered. 

Cybersecurity Business Insurance Requirements

Cybersecurity insurance providers will typically require you to have certain security measures in place in order to be eligible for coverage. These requirements vary from provider to provider, but the steps outlined below are a good place to start when seeking cybersecurity insurance:

• Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for employees who access email through web apps or non-corporate devices.

• Implement an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) product throughout your enterprise.

• Implement business-wide Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) software.

• Encrypt your company’s backups.

• Enforce MFA for protection of privileged user accounts.

• Ensure your backups are detached from your network (offline) or in a cloud service

For more in-depth preparation, download Toniolo’s Cybersecurity Checklist!

Protect your Business from Cyber Attack

The process of taking out cybersecurity insurance that adequately protects your business starts with analysing your needs and risks. At Toniolo, we provide small businesses with the support and solutions you need to reduce the risk of data breaches and cyber attacks. Contact us today to learn more about implementing a robust cybersecurity strategy in your organization.

Digital Workspace Solutions & Benefits

Faced with limited resources, small businesses must work harder than their larger counterparts to remain competitive. One way of doing this is to seek out opportunities to become more efficient in day-to-day operations. Technological advancements have made it possible for business owners to streamline many management tasks that previously demanded manual time and effort. The digital workspace is just one example of where small businesses can find greater efficiencies. This blog post will explore what a digital workspace is, and discuss tips and strategies for optimization to help your business thrive.

What is a Digital Workspace?

A digital workspace refers to a framework of technologies that allow businesses to centrally manage, secure, and optimize all of their IT assets. This includes applications, data, and endpoints such as laptops and mobile devices. Establishing a digital workspace makes it easier for management to maintain visibility of all technology in use within an organization, and ensures employees can access the resources they need at any time, in any location.

Examples of Digital Workspace Technology

Common tools used in digital workspaces include network management platforms, Mobile Device Management (MDM), endpoint protection software, and cloud-based collaboration tools. These technologies provide comprehensive visibility, control, and security across the entire IT infrastructure. Let’s examine each in more detail:

Network Management 

While traditional network management tools provide some visibility into the network, they don’t offer the comprehensive visibility and control that businesses need to manage their digital workspace effectively. A next-generation network management platform provides granular visibility into all network activity, helping businesses identify and resolve performance issues quickly.

Mobile Device Management

Another key component of a digital workspace is Mobile Device Management. This provides real-time visibility into the status and health of all devices, applications, and users in your IT infrastructure, making it easier to identify potential security risks or compliance issues. By implementing an MDM solution, you can also automatically deploy updates to all employee devices as needed. 

Endpoint Protection 

In addition to network and device management, it is also crucial to have robust endpoint protection in place. This includes antivirus and anti-malware software, secure web gateways, vulnerability scanners, data loss prevention tools, and encryption systems. With a comprehensive endpoint protection solution, businesses can effectively protect their digital workspace from various cyber threats and ensure compliance with industry regulations.

Cloud-based Collaboration

In today’s digital workplace, it is also essential to have strong cloud-based collaboration tools that enable employees to communicate with one another, and to access documents and applications from anywhere, easily. 

Benefits of Digital Workspace Management

There are many benefits of implementing a digital workspace at your organization, including:

Enhanced security and data breach protection 

Having full visibility of all IT assets and devices can help to simplify an organization’s cybersecurity, making it easier to detect and respond to threats, protect your business from costly data breaches, and mitigate user errors. This is particularly important in a remote or hybrid working environment, where employees may be accessing your network from multiple locations and devices. 

Improved operational efficiency 

By improving visibility and control over IT assets, digital workspace solutions can help to streamline operations and reduce complexity. Automation reduces the time it takes to perform routine tasks like software updates and patch management, freeing employees to focus on higher-value activities.

Enhanced employee experience

With a centralized digital workspace solution, small businesses can provide employees with a consistent working experience across all devices and applications. This can help to boost productivity and engagement by making it easier for employees to access the resources they need from any location or device.

Flexible technology options

Digital workspace solutions are available as on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid deployments. This allows businesses to select the deployment option that best fits their needs. Whether you choose a virtual, SaaS, web, cloud, or on-premises digital workspace, you can be sure that your business will have the flexibility to scale its IT infrastructure.

How to Optimize Your Digital Workspace

There are a few key things to keep in mind when optimizing your digital workspace:

1. Define your business goals 

The first step is to define your business goals. What are you trying to achieve with your digital workspace? Do you want to improve security? Increase operational efficiency? Enhance the employee experience? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can start to design and implement solutions that will help you reach them.

2. Choose the right digital workspace solution 

Next, it is important to select the right digital workspace solution for your needs. Consider deployment type, pricing model, and integration capabilities when choosing a solution. It is also important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in digital workspace management, as this can help you stay ahead of the competition.

3. Implement a strong governance plan 

A strong governance plan that outlines roles and responsibilities for managing IT assets is a critical component of your digital workspace, as are regular system audits. This will help you ensure that your digital workspace runs smoothly and effectively meets your business needs.

4. Monitor and adjust as needed 

Finally, it is important to continuously monitor your digital workspace for performance issues and potential security threats. If you identify any problems, be sure to take steps to correct them as quickly as possible. Regularly review your digital workspace solution to ensure that it is still meeting your business needs and makes progress towards your goals.

Implement a Digital Workspace Solution at Your Organization

Getting started with a digital workspace can seem overwhelming, but the long term benefits make it a worthwhile investment. If you’re still unsure of the next steps to take for your business’s digital workspace, don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team at Toniolo specializes in helping small and medium-sized businesses to boost productivity and efficiency through IT, and can guide you through the solutions you need.

The Top 12 IT Issues for Businesses

Technology is one of the most powerful drivers of success for small and medium-sized businesses. Effective use of IT is associated with increased agility, greater productivity, better data security practices, and enhanced employee collaboration. 

However, the management of IT can be challenging, particularly as businesses scale. Without the right infrastructure in place, IT can quickly become a burden, rather than a facilitator of growth. This article shares some of the most common IT issues faced by businesses and how you can overcome them.

The Top 12 IT Issues for Businesses

Businesses can face an exponential number of IT issues, but the twelve challenges listed below are some of the most common – and some of the most problematic if left unaddressed. 

Common IT Issues

In today’s workplace, the following IT issues can create significant problems for your business, and are becoming increasingly widespread.  

1. Data Backup and Disaster Recovery 

Having a data backup plan enables your business to protect critical files from loss or attack. However, the main challenge emerges when deciding what data needs to be backed up, how frequently, and for how long. In the event of a breach, companies also need to have an official disaster recovery plan to mitigate damage and recover lost data. Unfortunately, many small and medium-sized businesses overlook this need, which can lead to catastrophic IT issues in the long term.

2. IT Cybersecurity Risks 

Cybersecurity is another critical IT consideration for SMBs. Modern-day hackers are ruthless and sophisticated, leaving businesses increasingly vulnerable. Cyber attacks can lead your organization to expose intellectual property, customer information and data, confidential communications, employee records, and more. In many businesses, the IT department is held responsible for cybersecurity, but limited resources and expertise can mean this issue doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Unfortunately, this approach can leave you exposed to costly breaches and extensive downtime.  

3. Password Management

Many organizations are guilty of recycling passwords or using weak passwords to protect their critical assets. Forgotten passwords and downtime due to password recovery are also commonplace among employees. This IT issue is one of the leading causes of cybersecurity breaches and associated data losses. Better password management and the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) can dramatically reduce your vulnerability to attack.

4. Onboarding and Offboarding

Effective onboarding and offboarding of employees relies heavily on IT, from gathering and storing paperwork, to setting new hires up with access to company resources. Such processes are time-consuming if your HR department doesn’t have access to adequate resources, especially if they experience IT issues with existing systems.  

5. IT Compliance 

Research indicates that over 40% of small and medium-sized businesses lack the technical know-how to understand ever-changing IT compliance regulations. The same survey shows that 25% of SMBs have outsourced IT compliance work at some point. Navigating regulatory compliance can be complicated, but ignoring your obligations can have costly consequences.  

6. Data Sprawl 

Most modern businesses are grappling with data sprawl, which compromises the quality of data generated, and impacts the ability to extract value from this data. As companies produce and collect more and more data, the management of this vital resource becomes an even more pressing IT issue. 

7. Device Procurement and Management

Having full visibility of all devices being used within your organization is crucial to maintain security and employee productivity. With the right solutions in place, IT teams should also be able to monitor the health of these devices, and remotely roll out patches and upgrades as needed. When IT issues arise in this area, it can seriously impact the output of remote teams.  

IT Strategy and Management Issues

A fundamental point to note is that small and medium-sized businesses don’t just experience difficulties with the technical aspects of IT. In fact, IT strategy and management issues can cause even more problems than technical glitches. Some of the most common IT management challenges include: 

8. Limited IT Budgets

As businesses scale, budgets can be tight. Often, leadership will opt to invest in product development, marketing, or other growth initiatives rather than vital IT infrastructure. While this may seem sensible in the short term, it can mean seemingly small IT issues worsen over time and generate greater challenges in the long run.  

9. Competition for IT Talent

The competition for talent has never been higher, especially when it comes to experienced IT professionals. An inability to recruit or retain qualified IT workers can impact almost every aspect of your business, from ensuring employees have the devices and resources they need, to protecting sensitive data from cyber attack.

10. A Lack of Expertise

Even if you are lucky enough to have a number of IT professionals working for your company, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee they will have the specific expertise you need to scale and grow. If highly complex IT issues arise, you may find that your internal resources are unable to remedy the problem.  

11. Competing Priorities for IT Teams

Another challenge for in-house IT personnel is that they typically have many competing priorities that pull them in multiple directions. This all-too-common problem can put pressure on existing resources and result in errors or incomplete work.   

12. Out-of-Hours Support

Finally, most small businesses with limited in-house resources will struggle to deal with serious IT issues such as cyber attacks if they occur outside of business hours. Likewise, if a specific employee is sick or on vacation, your company can be left vulnerable while they are offline. 

5 Benefits of Outsourcing to Overcome IT Issues

Many of the most common IT issues faced by businesses can be resolved by outsourcing to external experts. A managed IT solution can take care of a wide range of IT support services, including device and inventory management, security and compliance, network and server management, applications and cloud management, and real-time support. By outsourcing, your business can realize the following benefits:

1. Cost control

With the right partner, you will only pay for services you actually need and use. This makes budgeting easier, and spending more efficient.

2. Reduced labor costs

Outsourcing allows you to streamline labor costs that would otherwise be spent on hiring and training additional internal employees. 

3. Enhanced efficiency

External specialists can enhance your business efficiency by ensuring you get the most out of your IT solutions and reducing downtime. 

4. Reduced risks

Having access to dedicated cybersecurity professionals significantly reduces your risk of cyber attack and data breaches. 

5. Enhanced compliance and security

Partnering with an external specialist ensures you have access to the latest knowledge on industry regulations. 

Don’t Let IT Issues Impact Business Growth

While technology undeniably contributes to innovation and growth, managing IT in-house can be an overwhelming task for small and medium-sized businesses. To learn more about how you can overcome common IT issues and streamline your organization’s IT, contact Toniolo today. Our IT Solution supports your business at the network, application, and device levels, and features IT capabilities that are proactive, comprehensive, and customized to your needs.

Outsourced IT: The Complete Guide for 2022

What is outsourced IT support? Simply put, Outsourced IT Support is a technical service designed to help with computer technology that’s not owned by an internal member of your company. It includes the day-to-day IT support requests any business faces—systems administration requests, tech support and troubleshooting, installing and configuring computer hardware, software, systems, networks, printers and scanners, etc.

It’s also a critical function of every business.

Any time you have IT problems, your business can suffer. Issues that go unresolved are all but guaranteed to slow productivity, frustrate staff and cost your organization time and money, both precious commodities for any business. Working with an outsourced IT service provider, however, can eliminate the everyday stresses of IT support, allowing you and your teams to keep your focus where it’s needed. Having a outsourced IT service provider with a dedicated IT help desk will ensure you receive the efficient and effective support needed to keep your daily work on track, improve your bottom line and take your business to the next level.

Outsourced IT Support Statistics

• 53% of SMB owners believe they are at a competitive disadvantage as compared to larger companies in terms of IT costs. However, small-to medium-sized businesses can offset those costs by outsourcing IT support to an IT managed service provider (MSP).

• 43% of cyber attacks happen to small businesses, but only 14% of SMBs are able to combat cyber attacks by reducing their vulnerabilities and limiting risks. Fortunately, an MSP can help with that.

• The cost of IT downtime can mean losing up to $300k per hour. Ouch. Having an MSP and dedicated IT support can help reduce unpredictable downtime.

• 59% of small business leaders express difficulty implementing and rolling out new technologies. Doesn’t have to be the case for you if you — say it with us now — outsource IT support.

So, what benefits come with using an outsourced IT support provider like Toniolo?

8 Benefits of Outsourced IT Support

There are plenty of reasons to invest in outsourced IT, but here are the top 8 benefits of letting an outside team manage your IT support.

1. More time to focus on your business: When you have Outsourced It Support, you can focus your time and attention where it’s needed instead of trying to handle IT situations. There’s no need to occupy someone’s precious time with trying to keep your networks functioning. An MSP handles that so you can handle your business.

2. Access to Professional Expertise: Outsourced IT Support provides access to knowledgeable IT pros who are ready and able to answer questions and provide solutions when needed.

3. Get IT Support Questions Answered Quickly : Experts provide real-time remote support in short order. No delay, no problem.

4. Reduce security risks: Outsourced IT providers know compliance standards and regulations, and can implement security strategies to minimize risks associated with data and sensitive information.

5. Improve employee performance: Using Outsourced It Support and dedicated IT help desk services equates to less downtime and fewer errors. An MSP can keep an eye on issues, prevent them from getting worse and resolve them quickly. That leads to better overall performance.

6. Keep technology up-to-date: Things change quickly with IT. An MSP can keep on top of things, saving you money and time.

7. Reduce IT Operational Costs: One of the most attractive benefits of working with Outsourced IT Support is the savings it provides. MSPs help minimize the chance of costly network problems and IT-related downtime. You also know exactly what services you’re receiving and what you’ll be spending per user/per month. Find out how much you could be saving with Toniolo’s IT Cost Calculator.

8. Maintain A Competitive Edge: Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean you can’t compete with the big guys. A larger company may have access to in-house resources small-to medium-sized business may not enjoy. However, an Outsourced IT Support can provide the same level of expertise a larger company benefits from at a more digestible price-point.

What does Outsourced IT Support do?

There are a number of services that outsourced IT can provide. And while not all companies will cover all of these elements, here are 12 things Outsourced IT can do for your business.

1. Device and Inventory Management

A business is only as healthy and secure as the devices it relies on. And since only 14% of SMBs consider their security as highly effective, working with an outsourced IT provider can really make a difference. A managed service provider can manage detailed software and hardware information to help with determining purchases and how devices are/will be used, which can lower costs. This way, you’re not over-purchasing or losing track of assets.

How a Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Hardware procurement

• Device provisioning

• Custom security configurations

• Real-time visibility into device health

• Access to world-class Mobile device management (MDM) software, which allows for mass remote management of users and devices as well as there their configurations and settings

2. Security and Compliance

Security is always at the forefront of any good approach to IT management. Both are essential to reducing risks and mitigating threats.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Enforce organization-wide security policies, including routine password resets and BYOD management, which is hugely important considering 90% of companies allow BYOD

• Improve auditing practices

• Establish and manage multi-factor authentication (MFA) and firewalls

• Roll out configurations that follow cybersecurity best practices

3. Network Management and Server Management

There are any number of problems and threats you may face—system failures and viruses spring to mind—so it’s important to monitor hardware and software in order to stay up-to-date and protected. For that you need a reliable and secure network.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Manage entire networks remotely

• Mitigate outage-related downtime, which can cost your business about $5600 per minute

• Provide proactive network monitoring

• Offer hardware recommendations and implementation support

• Keep business operations running smoothly

• Reduce the complexity and costs an on-site network failure may cause

4. Applications and Cloud Management

Organizations need ways to keep their Cloud environments and applications under control so they can move forward without compromising security. Fun fact! Cloud computing can have financial benefits: shifting from onsite to cloud can help lower up-front costs.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Automate and orchestrate software deployments

• Secure your SaaS apps

• Set up and manage file-sharing privileges

• Manage single sign-on (SSO) so you and your team can use one ID and password to access related systems

5. Backup and Disaster Recovery

Whether it’s from a security breach or ransomware attack, human error or natural disaster, lost data can have massive impacts on your business. It can take hours to recover lost data and that can cause permanent damage to your reputation and your business/bottom line. Your company can’t afford the downtime—on average, an employee’s cognition will decrease 20% after a work stoppage—that comes from neglecting backup or disaster recovery.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Take care of backups (copying data for the purpose of protecting it in case of accidental deletion, corruption, etc.)

• Manage disaster recovery, making plans for quickly reconnecting/re-establishing access to IT resources, data and applications after an outage

• Develop effective strategies for a solid recovery plan

6. Storage

Consider this: 20% of SMBs will suffer a failure of some sort every five years that will cause them to lose critical data. Strong storage technologies can make a big difference on how successfully you manage your business, drive productivity, reduce costs and enhance security. This is important whether you’re using the Cloud, onsite servers or a combination of both.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Provide product expertise and integrated hardware and software services

• Support infrastructure

• Assess current storage setup to ensure that it is optimized for maximum efficiency

7. Virtualization

Virtualization—creating a virtual, i.e., software-based, computer system that simulates hardware functionality, like networks, servers, etc.—can help your business reduce expenses and boost efficiency. SMBs are on trend for a higher virtualization spend this year, which is helpful considering it can increase a company’s productivity, agility and scalability.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Increased performance and availability of resources

• Automated operations, which will reduce operating costs

• Make it easier and more affordable to manage business

8. Data Monitoring and Insights

Get full visibility into the volume and types of support issues your team is facing. You can identify trends and vulnerabilities in your organization that will help you make proactive decisions to enhance your organization’s security and operational efficiency.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Provide full access to reporting dashboard that highlights relevant information

• Give real-time visibility into end-user requests

• Identify trends and vulnerabilities within your organization

9. Telecommunication and Phone Systems

Telecommunication is hugely important for a business to thrive. Improving your systems, unifying and integrating communications — phone lines and computers, software, storage and internet, etc.— will assist your team in delivering the kind of service your customers need.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Make sure you are compliant to regulations

• Save you time and resources

• Provide expertise with testing, certification, audits, etc.

• Help select the most appropriate service provider

• Keep all remote employees (a trend which has increased by over 100% since 2005) connected

10. Surveillance Systems

We all hope to never be the victim of theft or cyber attack. Unfortunately, it can happen. But an effective security system can help prevent theft (Note: Businesses that employ IT monitoring can see a 22% decrease in theft) and is important for any business that wants to protect its assets.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Create a more efficient way of managing, recording and storage

• Depending on your needs, can provide either a widespread system covering multiple locations, or just a few cameras

11. Employee On/Off Boarding

Onboarding a new employee should be an easy and pleasant experience for both you and your new hire. And, of course, offboarding one should be as stress-free as possible. Whether it’s getting hardware and all necessary credentials set up on day one, or updating security and access permissions upon departure, an MSP can change something complicated and time-consuming into a quick and easy process.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Increase employee productivity from the first day—a good onboarding experience means a 69% increase in employee retention

• Manage hardware and equipment needs

• Give and revoke user access instantaneously

• Customize settings and access at the department level

12. Real-Time Support

Since it’s your go-to resource for IT service questions and needs, the help desk is an essential part of the technology system of any company and, therefore, a key element of any smart business plan.

How Outsourced IT Support can help:

• Provides a centralized resource to troubleshoot problems and facilitate solutions

• Manages and monitors user requests and incidents, answering questions and handling communications for day-to-day activities

• Handles service outages and planned service changes

• Saves you trouble and time and keeps your business in good working order—using a help desk can save up to 600 working hours each year!

Toniolo Powers Outsourced IT Support

Don’t wait until you already have an issue before engaging an MSP, get in touch with the best-in-class Outsourced IT Support. Having the right outsourced IT support team on your side saves you time and resources and helps to keep things running smoothly. Toniolo is the new standard in IT, delivering world-class IT support. We are a fully integrated IT platform, which makes access to support effortless and lightning fast. IT powers business, and Toniolo powers IT.

Why MFA is Important

Passwords can be a tricky thing. Nowadays, the requirements for a secure password are becoming more and more complex. But no matter how complicated your password is, many websites still ask users to take that extra step of multi-factor authentication (MFA), often in the form of an SMS verification code. Not only do they want to know that you are who you say you are, but they also want you to prove it—and employers are following suit.

What is Multi-Factor Authentication?

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security system that requires multiple credentials to verify a user’s identity. Instead of the standard credentials of username and password, MFA requires credentials from at least two of three categories:

• User-generated data such as a PIN or password

• User-owned property such as a smartphone or smart card

• User-identifiable characteristics such as fingerprints or voice recognition

If two categories of authentication are used, the process is called two-factor authentication (2FA). If three are used, the method is referred to as 3FA or three-factor authentication. Both 2FA and 3FA are subsets of MFA.

MFA can be implemented to resemble the single sign-on (SSO) authentication that many users enjoy. With SSO, users are authenticated and then given access to all applications associated with their account. It eliminates the need for multiple passwords, but it has a higher security risk. Configuring MFA to allow for a similar option not only provides convenience, but it also ensures better security.

Why MFA is Important

When hackers steal usernames and passwords, they can gain unauthorized access to a company’s network. MFA is important because it adds an extra layer of authentication that hackers will not be able to acquire when trying to log into your system . For example, when users enter their usernames and passwords, a unique code is sent to each smartphone. That code must be entered into the system before access can be granted, and often times hackers will have your password but not your actual phone.

Even if bad actors have stolen usernames and passwords, they are unlikely to have access to the smartphone connected to the user account. Without access to the verification code, hackers cannot access the system. Given that 63% of data breaches can be traced to weak or reused passwords, adding the additional authentication factor of MFA is one way to strengthen security.

Why MFA is Important in Distributed Workforces

In the initial shift to remote and distributed workforces, many companies were ill-prepared. Their infrastructure was not designed to support remote employees. Policies and procedures for remote workers were incomplete or nonexistent. IT departments or service providers scrambled to get employees online. In the rush to become operational, organizations failed to consider the implications of remote workers on cybersecurity.

The number of cyber crimes reported to the FBI quadrupled across all sectors during the pandemic. Part of that increase can be attributed to the rise in the number of employees working from home. For example, user credentials for logging into the company’s network while in the office may lack the robust security required for a remote workforce.

Since many remote workers may be using unsecured home or public networks, MFA can safeguard user credentials. It can minimize the opportunities for hackers to gain unauthorized access through phishing or social engineering tactics. MFA can also alleviate some of the burden on remote IT personnel as they work to secure a company’s infrastructure and address the demands of a distributed workforce.

How Does MFA Strengthen Cybersecurity?

With MFA, user identities are checked every time they log in from a different device. That means an authorization check, such as a passcode, is sent to an email account or a smartphone associated with a user. The passcode must be entered before access is granted. With more people working from home and potentially using different devices, MFA can ensure that a bad actor is not gaining access.

MFA can also block bot attacks. Bots can’t intercept codes, and manual attempts to bypass MFA prompts have failed. Only highly sophisticated techniques or brute force attacks have the potential to compromise MFA-activated accounts. Because a bad actor needs a second factor to gain access, a stolen password or PIN can be rendered useless with MFA.

Why is it Important to Use MFA?

Preventing cybercriminals from acquiring user credentials through MFA can significantly reduce the chance of a successful data breach. Did you know that:

• 81% of breaches are caused by credential theft?

• 73% of passwords are duplicates?

• 50% of employees use unapproved apps?

Adding MFA can prevent over 95% of bulk phishing attempts and over 75% of targeted attacks, according to Google.

Once hackers have access to a system, they can install malware, steal sensitive information, or disrupt operations. Restoring service can be costly. An IBM study found that recovery costs were spread over three years, with the majority of the costs occurring in the first year. If the breach occurred in a regulated industry such as healthcare, utilities, or finance, costs in the second year could be as much as 25% of the total costs. On average, it takes an organization over 275 days to contain a data breach. That’s nine months in which resources are not available for business growth.

How to Choose an MFA Solution

Multi or two factor authentication (MFA and 2FA, respectively) solutions are designed to protect data from unauthorized users. However, not all solutions are created equal. As you shop around for the best MFA vendor for your company, keep in mind the needs of your company, such as:

• Are you looking at multi-factor authentication solutions for your employees or your customers?

• Which endpoints and accounts are you looking to protect?

• How much security do you need?

• How many users are you looking to cover in the short term and long term?

• Do you have any compliance requirements that need to be met?

It’s important to have a clear vision of how you want multi-factor authentication to work for your company. It will help you to narrow down the list of vendors that will be the right fit for you. Here are additional questions you may want to consider:

• What options are provided to generate one-time passwords?

• What contingency plans are in place if a user gets locked out, loses their phone or token, etc?

• Who has control over user access?

• How quickly can access be revoked (for offboarding, vendors, clients, etc.)?

• How often do tokens expire or need to be repurchased?

Although two factor authentication solutions are designed to enhance the security of your business, it’s also important to consider the user experience so that the rest of your team will be on board, too!

Our Picks for Multi-Factor Authentication Solutions

Duo Security: Duo MFA is a cloud-based solution that offers a variety of authentication methods, including U2F, security tokens, SMS passcodes, phone callbacks, and HOTP for application integrations. They also have bypass codes for temporary access, or if one of your employees loses their phone. Duo offers four different plans based on your needs, ranging from a free plan (for basic credential protection) to their most secure plan at $9 per user, per month. It’s also worth mentioning that they were acquired by Cisco—a worldwide leader in cybersecurity solutions.

Okta: Okta offers an adaptive multi-factor authentication solution, which provides a little bit more flexibility to decide when authentication policies need to be enforced. This allows companies to designate specific authentication factors for different types of users. For example, you may want to apply stronger authentication methods for users that have access to more sensitive data. This is particularly useful for companies that are looking to implement cloud-based security.

SecurAccess: SecurAccess offers token-less two factor authentication solutions for remote access, which is helpful if your business works with remote teams. You can authenticate your identity on any device through a variety of methods, including passcodes through secure emails, soft token apps, real time SMS passcodes, and one-time passcodes.

Trusona: Trusona understands what it feels like to hate passwords, and they are actually trying to eliminate the use of passwords for identity authentication. In fact, they have a #NoPasswords Manifesto on their website. So how does their two factor authentication actually work? Right through one’s phone on the Trusona app, which utilizes touch IDs, QR codes, and even ID scanning. They offer both multi and two factor authentication solutions, depending on the level of security your business is looking for.

Get Help with MFA for Your Organization

Still unsure about which MFA solution is right for your business or if MFA makes sense at all? When your business partners with Electric, you will not only receive comprehensive IT support, but we can also provide you with expert recommendations on MFA solutions and implement them at your company. Get in touch to learn more!

Why is Encryption Important? Every Reason It’s Necessary

As a business leader, you know the importance of protecting sensitive information from hackers, identity thieves, and other threat actors. These criminals target unsuspecting businesses every day, compromising or stealing sensitive data such as customer details, financial records, intellectual property, and more. 

Data is the world’s most valuable (and vulnerable) resource. It can either make or break your business, depending on how well you manage and use it. To combat the associated threats, organizations must encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit. But what exactly is encryption, and why is it important to your business? 

What is Encryption?

Encryption is the process of converting data into an unreadable format using mathematical algorithms. In simple terms, this means that when someone tries to read encrypted data, they won’t be able to interpret what it says. The only way to decrypt the data is through a key – a secret number used to convert the encrypted data back into its original form. 

Encryption occurs between two parties: the sender and the recipient. When sending sensitive data over public networks, such as the internet, both parties must ensure the data remains secure. For example, the sender and receiver can share a unique code called an asymmetric key. Once the sender generates the key, they send it to the receiver, who uses it to decrypt the data. 

Why is Encryption Important?

Without encryption, your sensitive data could be vulnerable to attack. For instance, if you store credit card numbers on a server, anyone with physical access to the server could potentially steal those numbers. If your website gets hacked, malicious software could capture the credit card numbers stored in your database. 

To further understand the need to implement strong encryption practices across your organization, we’ve listed the various types of encryption, and why they matter, below.

Why File Encryption is Important

File encryption ensures that your files remain safe while in storage or transit. Here is why file encryption software is important:

• Data stored on servers and computers is often exposed to hacking attacks, so file encryption protects your data from unauthorized users.

• When you create a new document or spreadsheet, you might include personal information, including your name, address, phone number, social security number, etc. You never want to leave this information unprotected, especially if you plan to give it to third parties.

• When you transfer files between devices, you may not always know where the files will end up. For example, you might copy a file from one computer to another, but you’re unsure whether the destination device will be connected to the network. If that happens, you’ll need to encrypt the files before transferring them. This prevents others from accessing the files even if they get intercepted during transmission.

Why Encryption is Important in Data Security

As mentioned above, encryption helps prevent unauthorized access to data. But it also protects against other threats. For example:

• Encryption makes it harder for cybercriminals to intercept your data. They would need to break into your system first, then crack your encryption algorithm, which makes you a less appealing target.

• If someone accesses your system unlawfully, they won’t be able to see anything substantial unless they employ brute force methods. Brute force methods involve guessing passwords until the correct one is found. However, these methods take a lot longer than breaking the encryption algorithm.

• Encryption helps protect your business reputation. When you store sensitive data in an encrypted format, no one can read it unless they have the proper decryption key, making disruption to your customers much less likely.

Why Email Encryption is Important

Email encryption helps ensure that your sensitive email messages stay private. Here are some reasons why you should consider using email encryption:

• Your email messages contain valuable information. For example, you may send an employee a file containing sensitive financial details. Or, you may share a document with a client that has proprietary information. Email encryption helps keep this information safe.

• Spam emails are more than an inconvenience in your inbox, hackers can use sophisticated spamming techniques to install malware on your system. With email encryption, you can authenticate email senders, eliminating the likelihood that an employee will click on a malicious link.

• You may want to forward an email to multiple recipients. To do this securely, you must ensure that each recipient receives a unique copy of the original message. Otherwise, all copies will become encrypted and unusable.

Why End-to-End Encryption is Important

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a feature that ensures that no one besides the sender and receiver have access to your messages. E2EE uses public-key cryptography, which involves two keys. One key belongs to you, and the other to the person you want to communicate with. Once you’re done sending the message, you destroy the key used to encrypt the message. This prevents anyone else from reading the message except for the intended recipient.

Here are a few reasons why you should consider end-to-end encryption:

• It keeps your personal information secure. With end-to-end encrypted messaging, you know that no one but the intended recipient can read your messages. And because the messages are in the cloud, they’re not left unsecured on your computer.

• It makes it harder for hackers to steal your data. Hackers often target small businesses because they don’t have strong cybersecurity protections in place. But if your company sends sensitive data via end-to-end protected messaging, then hackers have less opportunity to steal it.

• Identity thieves can intercept your unencrypted messages to impersonate you and make purchases in your name. However, when you use end-to-end secured messaging, only the intended recipient can view your messages.

Ensure Your Business is Using Encryption Effectively

Protecting sensitive company data is key to your business’s success. Using encryption ensures you remain compliant with consumer protection laws, prevents costly cyber attacks, and protects your brand reputation. At Toniolo, we’re proud to offer unparalleled cybersecurity support. Contact us today to learn more about protecting your business. 

Business Cybersecurity Checklist

Protecting your business from the ever-growing threat of cyber attack requires a multi-faceted approach. From developing and implementing cybersecurity policies and training programs, to ensuring device, application, and network security, there are a number of different factors to incorporate in your strategy. Overlooking even one component could leave your organization vulnerable.

This Business Cybersecurity Checklist provides you with a step-by-step guide to securing your business and its most valuable assets. Download a copy here, or keep reading for more!

Toniolo Cybersecurity Checlist

Policies and Compliance

• Document company cybersecurity and BYOD policies

• Schedule regular employee training to ensure cybersecurity best practices are followed

• Identify industry-specific and regulatory compliance requirements for your business

• Perform regular risk assessments and proactively address cybersecurity gaps

• Ensure comprehensive cyber insurance coverage is in place

• Audit third party vendors that have access to your systems to ensure they are compliant with your cybersecurity policies

• Develop a response for security breaches and create a disaster recovery plan

Device Security

• Install Mobile Device Management software on all company devices

• Ensure standardized device configuration is in place

• Install antivirus software on all company devices

• Actively monitor device inventory and health

• Proactively roll out patches, upgrades, and policies to all devices

• Enable Full Disk Encryption (FDE) on company devices

• Automate screen locks and ensure devices can be remotely locked and wiped in the event of loss or theft

Application Security

• Implement an Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution for app permissions

• Enforce a policy of least privilege for app access

• Monitor file-sharing privileges and data protection compliance

• Deploy a password management solution

• Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for users who access email through a web app on a non-corporate device

• Enforce MFA to protect privileged user accounts

Network Security

• Deploy an enterprise-wide Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solution

• Deploy an enterprise-wide Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) product

• Implement a firewall to protect the company network

• Use a VPN for secure remote access to company networks

• Implement email encryption and spam filters

• Perform regular backups and ensure all data is encrypted

• Keep your backups separate from your network (offline), or in a dedicated cloud service

Need Help Implementing a Business Cybersecurity Checklist?

Applying each step of the business cybersecurity checklist can be a challenge, especially if you’re working with limited IT resources in-house. Toniolo’s team of cybersecurity experts are on hand to provide you with the guidance and solutions you need to defend your business from cyber attacks. Get in touch to learn more about enhancing cybersecurity at your organization.  

Everything You Need to Know About Employee Management

Employee management is more than just an HR task. Today, with the help of technology, it encompasses a broad range of activities and solutions that help businesses manage their employees more effectively. From onboarding and device provisioning, to IT support and cybersecurity, there are a number of software solutions that can make employee management easier for small businesses. Outsourcing these solutions can be beneficial in a number of ways – let’s take a closer look at some tools and software that can help small businesses to streamline employee management for an efficient workflow.

What is Employee Management?

Employee management is a broad term that includes all aspects of developing and interacting with your employees. The aim is to help them perform at their best so they can drive your business to achieve its goals.

 Employee management encompasses the following key areas:

• Recruitment: hiring the right candidates for the job.

• Performance management: measuring employee performance, including how well they meet their goals and what resources or support they may need.

• Interaction: having effective communication with your employees to understand their experience.

• Discipline: when necessary, encouraging employees to maintain appropriate behavior and follow company policies.

• Reward: appreciating employees and rewarding them for excellent performance.
  
  

A solid employee management system helps leaders to connect with their employees and contributes to the overall success of a business. When employees feel acknowledged and appreciated in their workplace, they become more productive. Effective employee management also ensures a smooth workflow since it puts the right people and the right processes in place.

Overall, successful employee management solutions ensure a happier and more engaged team that is motivated in their work and more likely to remain in their workplace for a long time.

6 Types of Employee Management Software 

The technology market is filled with numerous employee management solutions, and choosing the best can be overwhelming. Before deciding which employee management software to use, HR and People teams should clearly define their goals. The following types of employee management solutions will help you achieve operational efficiency in your business.

1. Onboarding 

Onboarding supports are necessary for a business looking to implement effective employee management. Planning a new hire orientation and the tasks involved are stressful. Luckily, there are tools available to help employees get up to speed and working at their full potential as quickly as possible after starting a new role. With Toniolo, for example, it takes only a few minutes to submit a new onboarding request. After submitting your request, you leave the rest of the work to our team, from device provisioning to credential management.

2. Centralized Tracking and Management

Once a new onboarding (or offboarding) request has been set in motion, it’s helpful for HR and People teams to be able to quickly check on their status and progress. With so many tasks involved in onboarding new employees, it can be difficult to keep track of what has been completed and what still requires attention. Centralized tracking software simplifies this aspect of employee management, providing clarity on onboarding and offboarding processes.  

3. Device Procurement and Provisioning 

To support employees to do their best work, it’s essential that they are provided with the equipment they need to do their job. Procuring devices and provisioning them to meet new employees’ needs can be a full time job in itself. By outsourcing this work to a managed IT solution, you can let someone else handle the purchasing of devices, the shipment of devices to remote employees, and the implementation of provisioning profiles on new or repurposed devices. 

4. Mobile Device Management

Once devices have been provided to employees, it’s important for businesses to incorporate Mobile Device Management (MDM) into their employee management processes. MDM software enables remote IT specialists to control all devices that are used in the workplace with the aim of optimizing their functionality and security. With MDM, HR and People teams can also monitor device inventory, ensure individual devices are configured correctly, and keep an eye on device health so that employees can remain productive. 

5. Cybersecurity

Training workers in cybersecurity best practices is becoming an increasingly important aspect of employee management. Likewise, employees should feel secure in the course of carrying out their duties because cybersecurity and data protection is being adequately taken care of by the business. Outsourcing your device, application, and network security means both employer and employee can be confident that workers aren’t leaving your business vulnerable to attacks. What’s more, outsourced cybersecurity removes the need for employees to waste valuable time attempting to carry out their own updates. 

6. IT Support

Equipping employees with effective IT support is crucial to ensure they can carry out their job efficiently. Forcing employees who are experiencing technical difficulties to navigate complex ticketing systems and then wait for extended periods for assistance is a sure way to cause frustration. By outsourcing your IT support to a solution such as Toniolo, your employees can quickly access the help they need to get back to work. 

Finding the Best Employee Management Services

With limited resources and budget, it can be difficult for small businesses to achieve effective employee management. As a solution, many turn to experienced outsourced services to help with critical responsibilities like onboarding, device provisioning, mobile device management, IT support, and more. However, it’s important to do your research when choosing a partner in this space to ensure you will receive the specific technology and support you require. 

At Toniolo, we’re here to support your employee management efforts and make the work involved easier for your HR and People teams. Our support model delivers IT capabilities that are comprehensive, proactive, and customized to your business needs. To learn how we elevate employee management in small businesses, get in touch today.

Top 5 High-Profile Company Data Breaches 2022

The rate at which companies – large and small alike – are experiencing cybersecurity breaches is alarming. With recent high-profile attacks targeting healthcare, finance, retail, government, manufacturing, and energy, it’s clear that the threat landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years. 

According to projections, cybercrime is forecast to cost the global economy $10.5 trillion by 2025, reflecting a 15% increase year on year. Businesses have never been more vulnerable, and even large enterprises with substantial cybersecurity defenses can fall victim. For smaller businesses, lessons learned from these attacks can help you prepare your security strategy for any eventuality. 

This article discusses some of the most notable company data breaches from recent months, their causes, impacts, and what you should do to remain protected. 

Top 5 Recent High-Profile Company Data Breaches in 2022 

1. GiveSendGo Breach: February 2022

The recent hijacking of a Christian fundraising site, GiveSendGo, took place in response to the Ottawa truckers’ protests, and resulted in the personal details of those who donated to their funds being compromised.

The hackers redirected the fundraising site to a page that condemned the Freedom Convoy protests – a case of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. They then published the personal information of the 90,000 donors who had contributed to the initiative via the GiveSendGo website.

This incident highlights how important it is to ensure your business uses secure payment methods and platforms. If not, your customer data could easily end up being compromised. Be sure that after your company experiences a data breach, you take the correct steps to resolve the cause of the breach.

2. Crypto.com Breach: January 2022

The blockchain model has long been regarded as one of the most secure forms of transaction processing. However, this hasn’t stopped hackers from trying to compromise crypto-based transactions. This is evident in the January 17, 2022 attack that targeted 483 users’ wallets on Crypto.com. 

As part of this hack, the perpetrators stole approximately $18 million worth of bitcoin and $15 million worth of Ethereum, plus other cryptocurrencies. This was primarily possible thanks to the hackers’ ability to bypass two-factor authentication and access users’ wallets. Another example of why using a password manager is so important.

Initially dismissing it as a mere ‘incident,’ Crypto.com later retracted their statement, confirming that money had been stolen and that affected users had been reimbursed. The company also stated that they had audited their systems and worked to improve their security posture.

Businesses must be aware of the risks associated with cryptocurrency theft. The best way to protect against this type of fraud is to ensure that all sensitive data is encrypted. 

3. FlexBooker Breach: December 2021

FlexBooker, an appointment scheduling service, was another high-profile victim of a massive data breach affecting roughly 3 million users just before the holidays. The threat actors unlawfully accessed sensitive data such as drivers’ licenses, photos, and other ID information, posting them on various hacker forums.

The group managed to compromise FlexBooker’s data by exploiting its AWS configuration. Once inside, they installed malware onto the servers, which allowed them to gain full control over the system. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, various professionals, including lawyers, accountants, and consultants, left the platform after the incident, affecting the company into 2022.

4. Robinhood Breach: November 2021

On November 16, 2021, Robinhood announced that an attacker had breached its internal systems using social engineering. According to the firm, the intruder gained access to the email addresses of 5 million users, the full names of 2 million users, and other personally identifiable information. 

Once inside, the intruder demanded an unspecified ransom in exchange for not releasing any user details. Robinhood contacted local law enforcement agencies and worked with a security consultant to investigate the incident. The company also informed all affected customers about the breach and made the announcement public. 

Social engineering attacks can be very difficult to detect, especially spear-phishing or impersonation. Thus, companies must take extra precautions to protect their networks. 

5. Twitch Breach: October 2021

In October 2021, Twitch announced that an unknown actor had infiltrated its source code and compromised data sets, including creator payout data. The motive? The intruder claimed they wanted to foster competition in the streaming space and cause an upset with the leak. The leak contained three years of data about Twitch’s creator payouts, twitch.tv’s entire scope, clients’ source code, details on an unreleased Steam competitor, proprietary code, and more.

However, Twitch reassured its users that their password, login, credit card, and bank details were secure and that only a handful of users were impacted. The company further revealed that a server configuration error could have been responsible for the breach. Thus, it reconfigured all stream keys and closely monitored the situation. 

Companies with the Most Data Breaches in 2022

Some of the most high-profile company data breaches are notorious for their frequency as well as the damage caused. 

Facebook is one of the most popular websites in the world today. However, the company has faced numerous privacy issues over the years. Their most recent attack occurred in 2021, affecting 533 million users. Before that, Facebook was also hacked in 2018 and 2014, leaving 2.2 billion and 50 million people impacted, respectively. 

Yahoo is another infamous victim of back-to-back cybersecurity incidents. The company was hacked in 2013 and 2014, leaving 1 billion and 500 million people affected, respectively. Their most recent attack in 2017 impacted 32 million users. 

Other companies that have experienced repeat data breaches in the recent past include Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft, Uber, AOL, Dropbox, eBay, and more. But why do these companies experience repeat attacks? Here’s a quick overview of three common reasons:

• Old vulnerabilities: It’s not uncommon for a hacker to leave a secret window that they can use to access a company’s systems again after a successful first attempt. Failing to patch these vulnerabilities can lead to a second attack.

• Human error: Employees using weak passwords may expose a company’s systems to subsequent attacks. Other common human errors include employees clicking on malicious links and visiting phishing sites. Unless you perform follow-up security training following an initial breach, employees can repeat previous mistakes that leave your business vulnerable.

• Malware: Hackers use malicious software such as viruses, ransomware, Trojans, spyware, adware, etc., to steal confidential information from an organization’s network system. If a company fails to step up monitoring protocols after its first breach, there is nothing to stop repeat attacks from occurring.

Don’t Fall Victim to Company Data Breaches

It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business or a large corporation; every modern company is at heightened risk of cyber attack. To keep your data secure, you need a comprehensive cybersecurity solution. At Electric, we help businesses protect their most valuable asset from threat actors. Get in touch to learn more about our unified IT security at the device, application, and network levels.

Tech Support for Startups: The Importance and Benefits

In today’s digital era, technology has significantly shaped and influenced businesses in ways most of us couldn’t imagine just a few years ago. It has redefined how businesses operate, from the management of employees through to the delivery of customer service. Even better, high-performing IT teams and efficient tech support for startups have directly impacted the trajectory of business growth and innovation. 

However, building, optimizing, and enhancing an in-house technical support team can be stressful and expensive for most startups and mid-sized businesses, especially with limited resources. But, did you know that outsourcing your IT operations can help you reshape your business landscape in less time, while simultaneously saving you money? Read on as we dive into the details of how and why tech support for startups and small businesses is a must-have.

What is Tech Support for Startups?

Technical support, or tech support, refers to a range of IT assistance provided by an enterprise to its employees in the course of their work, whether it is related to software or hardware devices. Ideally, for startups, it should be available 24/7 for business-critical tasks, and easily accessible for employees who request help. 

The idea behind tech support is to aid staff in overcoming real or perceived problems while carrying out their work. In return, it helps employees perform to the best of their ability, and ultimately achieve your business objectives without encountering needless obstacles. 

However, technical support and strategies may vary from one business to another. For instance, interaction through real-time support allows employees to reach out to technicians  for a near-immediate response, whether it be in relation to internet speed, network connectivity, or access to files and applications.

Tech support for startups also generally covers responsibilities such as the set-up and configuration of equipment for employees, fixing technical problems, optimizing your business network, and securing your company against cyberattacks. 

Why is Tech Support for Startups so Important?

Effective tech support allows employees to focus on the job they were hired to do, rather than being slowed down by technical problems or hurdles. It is of critical importance for startup businesses because it achieves:

Improved Productivity

No business can afford to lose out on employee productivity because of technical issues, least of all startups. Through tech support services, employees enjoy continuous access to the devices, networks, and software they need to perform. In the event that something goes wrong, reliable tech support will minimize downtime and get employees back to work with the least possible disruption. For startup businesses, outsourcing tech support improves your access to rapid responses and IT expertise, even if you don’t have the resources to develop an IT support team in house. Tech support services are crucial for guaranteeing business continuity and maintaining growth.   

Protection Against Viruses

Any business can fall victim to viruses and malware. Access to tech support for your startup will ensure proper security and safety procedures are in place to protect your data and internal systems. Managed service providers (MSPs) in this space have the expertise to apply and enhance protection measures required to mitigate online threats. The majority of startup businesses tend to neglect this aspect of IT support, and with the rise in cyberattacks, it is vital to have a technical team in place to help protect your startup business. 

Data Storage Management

Data storage, protection, and management are crucial for any business. Choosing reliable tech support for a startup business will ensure data management is well assessed for business needs and enhanced for proper business operations. Tech support is responsible for establishing a backup system for important documents and software that helps boost security in case of data breach attempts. A knowledgeable and skilled IT team will help manage and protect confidential records from hacking, and prevent the leak of valuable information from your business. 

Benefits of Outsourcing Tech Support for Startups

Outsourcing technical support is a popular business solution, not only for startups but also for mature businesses. Whether it is in terms of quality, costs, productivity, or timely services, outsourcing is a beneficial option to consider. Three of the benefits you can expect when outsourcing tech support for startups include:

1. Improved Real-Time Responses

Responsive tech support provides the end-user with timely answers and solutions to maintain productivity and eliminate employee frustrations. Usually, tech support teams will utilize triage systems designed to prioritize, route, and escalate tickets. This ensures that employees get timely answers from the right specialist with relevant skill sets. Automated services also play a significant role in delivering timely responses, such as verifying log-ins and password resets.

2. Helps Increase Help Desk’s Flexibility

The main goal of any startup business is to grow and lead in their respective industry. Therefore, outsourcing technical support helps scale your limited resources according to need, and guarantees flexibility as you ensure your business receives quality IT support in whatever situation that may arise. Outsourcing is also often more cost-effective because it minimizes the investment involved in hiring and training internal IT staff. 

3. Leverage Professionals for Efficient Technical Support

Tech support providers are committed to providing top-quality experts who are fully qualified to resolve your IT challenges. Therefore, outsourcing tech support ensures your business constantly receives quality support on new technologies, strategies, and specialized tools. Even better, an outsourced team will be well experienced and knowledgeable about troubleshooting and developing quick solutions that end-users may encounter.

Get the Best Tech Support for Startups

Technology is at the core of any successful business operation. No startup can reach its full potential without adequate tech support for its systems and employees. Tech support teams are also critical in identifying potential threats and protecting business information from being breached or leaked. At Toniolo, we power your business’s IT through expert, lightning-fast tech support. Get in touch today to learn more about our technical support services, and how they can benefit your startup.

What is Operational Efficiency?

Operational efficiency is an important metric in any business setting. The success of your business depends on its ability to realize high outputs while minimizing the required inputs – all while maintaining quality. To achieve this, you should focus on efficient operations. Efficiency helps reduce the wastage of money, time, and resources.

Efficiency may not seem like an easy concept to measure, but you can do so by comparing the inputs and the outcomes in your business. Let’s look at what operational efficiency entails and how you can evaluate and improve it in your business.

What is Operational Efficiency in Business?

Operational efficiency is a metric that focuses on the relationship between a business’ output and input by measuring the efficiency of a business’s profits as a function of the operating costs incurred. When the operational efficiency is high, your business is generating higher income while cutting down on the costs involved. 

What is the Difference Between Operational Efficiency and Effectiveness?

Operational efficiency refers to the ability of a business to reduce the wastage of resources like time and materials, while still managing to produce high-quality products and services. On the other hand, operational effectiveness entails doing the right things to help your business maximize the use of its inputs.

This means that operational efficiency helps you to complete tasks in the least time possible, using the least amount of resources possible, while operational effectiveness makes it possible for your business to produce high-quality products.

The Operational Efficiency Ratio

The operational efficiency ratio shows how efficient your business is at minimizing costs while generating income. It shows the impact of your management by comparing the total expenses incurred with the net sales or revenue.

What is a Good Operational Efficiency Ratio?

If the operational efficiency ratio of your business decreases, then the operating costs have significantly reduced. The smaller the operational cost, the more efficient your business is at generating profit. Typically, an operational efficiency ratio of 50% and below is good.

The operational efficiency ratio formula is:

(Operational expenses + Cost of goods sold) ÷ Net sales

Operational expenses vary depending on your business. They include the interest paid, taxes, and other expenditures, including:

• Property taxes

• Office supplies

• Rents

The cost of goods sold refers to the overheads that are incurred during production. They can include:

• Labor costs

• Repairs

• Maintenance costs

• Wages

• Cost of materials

Operational Efficiency Ratio Example

Let’s take an example of a company with $12 million in net sales per annum. Operational expenses for the year amount to $1.5 million, while costs of goods sold (COGS) is $6 million. Using the formula outlined above, the operational efficiency ratio for this organization works out as follows:

(1,500,000 + 6,000,000) ÷ 12,000,000 = .625 or 62.5%

Essentially, this result means that 62.5% of the company’s net sales are absorbed by operating costs, which is significantly higher than the desired ratio of 50% or lower. Keep reading for the steps a business in this position should take to improve operational efficiency. 

7 Ways to Improve Operational Efficiency

Businesses should always strive to enhance and improve their operational efficiency. If your efficiency ratio keeps increasing, your business expenses are absorbing a big chunk of revenue generated. 

To prevent this from happening, it’s crucial to analyse and find ways to control your costs. This will help optimize your business operational efficiency, and increase your profit margins. Here are seven ways to improve your business’s operational efficiency:

1. Understand and review your business operations

You should adopt routine operation evaluations to help identify inefficient processes. Streamlining your operational strategy will improve the operational efficiency of your business. You should also perform metric analysis and regular audits to evaluate your operations effectively.

2. Provide regular training

You can only improve or maintain operational efficiency if your employees follow company policies and best practices. Regularly training your employees on systems and processes is beneficial for your company’s operations. You can also adopt various training practices, including posting public cheat sheets, implementing a coaching or mentoring program, and documenting SOPs and methodology reports.

3. Simplify communication and access to information

Ensure that all your employees have consistent access to essential and accurate information. This can be implemented by adopting a secure and reliable network in your business and ensuring that employees have access to the systems, apps and resources they need to do their jobs. Inadequate access to resources leads to confusion and lost time, which seriously impacts productivity.

4. Focus on order fulfillment

As your business grows and order volumes increase, ensure you have the right tools in place to meet the high demand. Automate wherever possible to reduce the risk of human error, and create an environment where the relevant workers are supported to perform at their best. 

5. Prioritize your employees

Prioritize your employees through incentives and wellbeing programs, and develop KPIs that reward top performers. This will increase employee retention and satisfaction, which subsequently has a positive impact on productivity. Employees are the driving force behind your operational efficiency, and should be treated accordingly. 

6. Set higher standards and goals

Progress can only be made if an organization regularly assesses current standards and sets new goals to make improvements. You should also regularly assess the relevance of your systems to ensure that you only retain functionalities and services that help you to reach your goals. 

7. Review and refine processes

Refining the processes of your business’s daily activities can help improve efficiency significantly, particularly if you can automate repetitive work that takes up your employees’ time. Automation, regular reviews, and updating your processes are all vital to improving operational efficiency.

The Role of IT in Operational Efficiency

Leveraging technology in your business is key to achieving operational efficiency. With technology, you can effortlessly automate various aspects of your business, including onboarding and offboarding, device provisioning, security updates, and more.  

IT also helps in ensuring effective communication and information sharing, which enhances inter-departmental collaboration and productivity.  However, for IT to effectively contribute to your operational efficiency, it’s important to keep the associated costs to a minimum. Building an in-house IT team can be surprisingly expensive when you factor in the costs of software, hardware, IT tools, and personnel. 

Outsource Your IT Support

The high cost of managing an in-house IT team can be overcome by outsourcing to a managed IT solution, like Toniolo. Outsourcing your IT needs means enjoying the benefits of technology in your business without investing in an in-house IT team. You will not only reduce your infrastructure expenses, but also access professional and consistent IT support. Get in touch today to learn how our team of experts can help your business grow and maximize its profits by reducing IT costs.

The Top 7 MDM Features Your Business Needs

Mobile devices and their role in supporting employees to work remotely are critical to the everyday operation and success of small businesses across all industries. However, the ever-growing dependence on mobile devices comes with its fair share of risks. As such, businesses should implement solid mobile device management (MDM) strategies or risk falling victim to productivity losses and costly security breaches.

What Is Mobile Device Management (MDM)?

Mobile device management entails leveraging software to secure, control, and enforce your organization’s device usage policies. By giving you control over employees’ usage of mobile devices, the software fortifies your cybersecurity posture while minimizing device downtime. 

The Top 7 MDM Features Your Business Needs

With MDM controls installed on employee devices, an IT team can configure and adjust policies and settings remotely through a central portal. Here is a list of the MDM features your software needs to be effective.

1. All-Inclusive Device and OS Support 

Businesses are leveraging an increasing variety of mobile devices and technologies to streamline processes. Likewise, bring your own device (BYOD) policies have become more and more popular. As a result, the MDM features you choose for your company should offer all-encompassing support for different devices and operating systems. 

The devices and operating systems that an organization needs to manage will vary, hence the need to know beforehand what devices are deployed in your network infrastructure. A good MDM solution should support both Android and iOS operating systems. Nonetheless, when undertaking an MDM features comparison, it’s best to remember that older devices or OS versions may not be compatible with some MDM solutions. 

2. MDM Security Capabilities 

One of the primary reasons to invest in an MDM solution is to protect and secure your company’s mobile devices and IT resources. Therefore, MDM security features should be a key consideration when choosing a solution. When carrying out their attacks, hackers often target data stored on remote devices. As such, proper security management will help you protect sensitive data that is accessed from a variety of locations.

MDM security features go a long way in keeping cybercriminals at bay. With the growth of remote working, the MDM solution you choose for your company should protect mobile devices remotely from one management system. Some of the critical security features that determine the suitability of an MDM solution include security configuration, access monitoring, and data encryption. With these in place, it will be easy to keep track of how employees are using their devices and how data is collected, stored, and transmitted within your network.

3. Mobile Device Inventory Management

Depending on your business’s size and scope of operations, a large number of devices could be in use concurrently. If hackers manage to access any one of these devices, they could be able to intrude into your network unhindered. Device inventory management is among the most simple yet most overlooked MDM features. As the name suggests, inventory management catalogues all the devices connected to your company’s network, their owners, and their usage.

MDM that has the device inventory management feature will provide a broad outlook of the devices your employees use, thus helping you implement the most appropriate BYOD policy for your business. This MDM feature is helpful when dealing with a remote team where it’s difficult to gather in-person data. 

4. Access Control 

Another essential point to look out for as part of your MDM feature comparison is access control. It’s not that employees shouldn’t be trusted, but because they access crucial company information, they can expose it to hackers inadvertently. An easy way to secure sensitive data is by ensuring only authorized users and devices access it. 

An excellent MDM solution should come equipped with an access control feature. As such, when access to sensitive company or customer data via mobile device is requested, you’ll have the authentication and identity measures required to confirm that the user is authorized to access the data. 

5. Mobile Device Content Management 

When shopping for an MDM solution for your company, device content management is among the critical MDM features to look out for. With a content management system in place, it will be easier to create portals that allow remote file distribution and content sharing across your network from a central administration point. 

Device content management also negates the need to send emails to employees and ascertain that the content has been downloaded and acted upon. In this regard, device content management can be regarded as a productivity tool. 

6. Mobile Device Troubleshooting 

If you use multiple devices, you’ll need to perform troubleshooting regularly. However, troubleshooting devices can take time, since your team needs to go through each device individually. Even so, the right MDM features can help you troubleshoot device issues remotely from your admin console. In doing so, it will be easier to pinpoint issues with mission-critical devices and fix them without examining the devices physically. 

7. Remote Data Wiping and Device Location Tracking 

In today’s dynamic business world, breaches can happen at any time. If you fall victim to a data breach or lose a mobile device, sensitive company data will be put at serious risk. For this reason, the MDM solution you choose should be able to wipe data from the lost device remotely. This MDM feature helps prevent sensitive company information from ending up in the wrong hands. 

Besides providing a remote data wiping capability, a good MDM solution should allow real-time tracking of all device locations. This is particularly essential if the devices contain sensitive corporate or customer data. It’s also useful during emergencies when employees lose their devices and need help recovering them. 

Need Help With an MDM Features Comparison?

Effectively managing and securing all of the devices in use by a business is a tall order. To do so successfully, you need an MDM solution that combines features like service security, management, and deployment tools to secure your network and data. The managed IT experts at Toniolo can enable you to manage and configure your mobile devices remotely while supporting your organization to scale. Contact us today to learn more about our device management solutions.

What are the Costs of an In-House IT Department?

Technology is an essential component in the successful running of a small business, but it can be expensive. When it comes to managing your IT, choosing between an in-house IT team and outsourcing to a Managed IT Support Provider can be a tough decision to make, especially if you’re operating with limited resources. Many SMB leaders believe that outsourcing is beyond their means, and assume that hiring an internal specialist or team is the more financially viable option. 

However, running and maintaining in-house IT support comes with a multitude of hidden costs, and can often amount to much more than outsourcing. This blog post breaks down the financial realities of in-house IT departments, and the potential cost savings you stand to gain by opting for remote IT support.

What are the Costs of an In-House IT Department?

To reach an accurate estimate of the cost of in-house IT for your business, it’s important to consider everything from employee salaries and benefits, to essential tools and potential downtime.

People Costs

The cost of hiring each new IT support employee could be more than you think. Depending on the level of expertise, the base salary for IT support staff could be anything between $60,000 – $150,000+ per IT hire. This amount doesn’t include stock options and benefits, which could easily add a further 20%.

Additional costs for in-house employees include supplies, equipment, office space, and IT allocation, as well as the investment involved in recruiting and onboarding new team members. Below are some stats and figures to keep in mind:

• Hiring an internal role can take up to 2 months

• It takes up to 8 months for a new employee to reach full productivity

• IT has one of the highest turnover rates, at 18% globally

• Turnover costs you between 100% – 300% of the employee’s salary

Downtime Costs

25% of small businesses say it costs them about $20,000 to $40,000 per hour of IT downtime. Downtime leads to business disruptions, decreased employee productivity, and significant challenges in revenue generation. That doesn’t include the risk of losing crucial data, failed backups, or security breaches that can happen during downtime. If a critical employee is sick or on vacation during a system outage, how much will it cost your business?

Cost of Tools Required for In-House IT

Apart from the recruitment and employment costs of having an in-house IT team, a business also has to meet the cost of IT hardware and software. At the very least, an internal IT team will typically require:

• Ticketing software

• SaaS management software

• Remote assistance software, such as Bomgar or TeamViewer

• A CMDB, if that’s not in the ticket system already

• Network and server monitoring tools

• MDM software

Without the appropriate technology stack, your internal team won’t be productive. Yet, these tools don’t come cheap.

Once your technology stack is in place, you risk facing additional device management costs. MDM software is critical to the tracking and security of all devices used in your business.

Generally, MDM costs your business an average of $16,000+ upfront, and an additional 100 or more hours of training for admins. If you choose to run your systems without MDM, you risk facing unmanaged costs of about $5,000 for every device, each year. Not having MDM also means that your business can’t obtain specific security certifications.

Cost Benefits of Outsourcing IT  

Outsourcing IT support to a managed service provider is a common alternative for companies who want to take a proactive approach to cybersecurity, system monitoring, and risk management, without building out a team in-house. Service providers have reliable response timeframes and provide transparent service level agreements. The financial benefits of outsourcing IT include:

Infrastructure Expenses

When you outsource your IT support function to an IT solution like Toniolo, you are in a position to downgrade the amount of infrastructure you need on site. You can choose to migrate to your MSP’s data centres and IT storage closets, which saves costs in hardware, energy, and space. At the same time, you’ll save money on licensing, training, consulting, and monitoring.

Expert-Level Support

Depending on the MSP you partner with, outsourcing can give you access to large teams of IT specialists and engineers. Pair that with professional project managers, network operators, solutions specialists, customer success managers, and partner networks, you could be looking at an enterprise-level team at your fingertips. 

Having access to this team of experts means that you can solve your IT problems as soon as they arise, helping you get back on track in a matter of minutes. Outsourcing to an IT team that has a variety of skill sets will equip you with far more knowledge than one or two in-house staff.

Scalability

Outsourcing IT support enables you to scale your business up or down without complications. As your business grows, so does the IT support structure. To replicate this benefit internally, businesses would typically need to hire another new IT manager for every increase of 50 employees. 

Your business also becomes more flexible, especially in the early years when you experience significant growth and inevitable change. As a small business owner, you must get what you pay for, which means you’ll get the latest technology, proactive support, and improved security when you outsource.

Availability Gaps

When working with an in-house team, you’re constrained to their availability. This means that their sick days, vacation days, or other availability gaps could leave your business vulnerable. Outsourcing reduces this risk. Providers often offer flexible support hours that accommodate your business needs worldwide.  You’re empowered to have one comprehensive and consistent IT support option for your employees, that you can count on when you need it. 

Device Management

Outsourced IT support services usually include the installation and proactive management of MDM software across your IT infrastructure. By working with an IT solution like Toniolo, you will have access to professionals in MDM who can align the policies they deploy with cutting-edge security protocols or your specific business needs. While some providers may charge you for MDM software, others absorb the cost. This allows your organization to implement business critical actions including security, patching, imaging, and upgrading, without needing technical expertise, while simultaneously giving you visibility into your device inventory and compliance. 

Partnering with Toniolo for Outsourced IT Support

Building an in-house IT support team can be expensive and time-consuming. Apart from reducing the hidden costs of employment, outsourcing helps your business scale effectively. It also controls costly downtime associated with an internal team that lacks total capacity. Outsourcing with Toniolo has many benefits for your business. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and learn how our team can help you.