Even a single second of downtime at your business can cause a ripple effect that sees operations become unhinged. While most Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) take into account longer power outages, short ones can be just as dangerous to your company.
What would you do if you couldn’t access Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of the other social media platforms that you rely on to keep you up-to-date with the ins and outs of your friends’ lives, current affairs and celebrity gossip? Would you miss it or would it be a blessing in disguise? If you’re tempted to think the latter, think for a moment about those countries where their citizens don’t have the choice.
You are probably already familiar with ransomware, one of the nastier forms of malicious software that does the rounds every now and again, but what you may not already be acquainted with is a ransomware program called Chimera. Only recently discovered, Chimera’s creators have taken the already unpleasant ransomware program’s scare tactics to the next level.
As a small or medium-sized business owner or manager, it’s only to be expected that you want to keep your company safe from cyber attacks and hacking attempts. But how much do you really know about online safety? With massive corporations such as Sony falling victim to attack, cyber security has never been more in the public eye.
Pushing the envelope, thinking outside the box, keeping someone in the loop. All of these phrases, and countless more, have had their turn in the corporate spotlight. Thankfully now, in most working environments, they have been consigned to history. However, one buzzword is making the rounds at the moment and - unlike some of its predecessors - it actually means something: here we take a look at “big data.
Meetings that result in little more than wasted hours are counter-productive and a surprisingly large drain on resources. After all, if your best people are spending the majority of their working day locked in a meeting room, drinking endless cups of coffee, making copious notes, and yet leaving with little or nothing to show for it, you’re quite simply throwing money down the drain.
It’s one thing to look at and collect your business’s data, but how do you actually go about turning that wealth of information into something meaningful you can use as a force to propel your organization on to bigger and better things? Data mining can be a daunting task, and may well make a regular appearance at the very bottom of your to-do list, but there are ways of tackling this seemingly insurmountable challenge.
You are protecting your small or medium-sized business with insurance - of course you are. But is that really enough? The recent increase in natural disasters has led savvy business owners to also take out business interruption insurance, which covers many additional scenarios in the event that you are unable to carry on operating.
While a small number of Facebook and Google users have, in the past, been warned that their accounts may have been hacked into by something called a “state-sponsored actor”, users of social media platform Twitter have largely escaped unscathed by the phenomenon.
As end users of Google’s suite of productivity enhancing tools, we have a right to know that the company is doing everything in its power to protect its billions of users - whether they are working from a desktop, browsing while they are on the go, or working remotely.