School holidays aren’t quite over yet, but as everyone trickles back to work, Xenex Systems is already fielding questions about where the IT focus for 2023 should be.
Some people have felt tentative about 2023. We’re all juggling labour shortages and rising interest rates, bracing for the predictions of financial uncertainty and even a recession, all while being peppered with news data breaches at some pretty well-regarded businesses.
Internally, Xenex Systems will be searching for a couple of new team members in both sales and for our support desk, plus focussing on one of our newer market segments – the medical industry. But we’re also keeping our eyes on what’s coming up for our clients. So, we’ve created this snapshot of 2023 advice for Australian SMBs.
We’re here to help you work smarter, not harder. With so many things to think about, we say you focus on just 3:
- Ramp up your cyber security
- Reconsider, or refine your cloud use, and
- Break up your spend.
That’s it, that’s all!
CYBER SECURITY:
If the big wigs like Medibank, Optus and even the Australian Federal Police are having data breaches, what hope do you have? Well luckily for you, Ms Architecture Firm or Mr Medical Centre, you’re far more nimble, and able to embrace tweaks to your cyber security than these behemoths. While you might not be able to hire your own hacker, you could hire someone like us to show you the way.
Another big tip here is bringing all your staff in on maintaining that security – it’s not just down to the business owner or the IT team (thanks for flagging that, Bernard Marr!).
Does every team member know what to look for in a phishing email? Do they know how to create an ultra-secure password and where to store it (other than a post-it)? How secure is your network? When and where is it backed up?
CLOUD TAKE UP:
A client of ours had a team member accidentally leave her laptop at the office the day before an unexpected work from home day, and she didn’t skip a beat. Why? Look up! It’s in the cloud!
Access to Sharepoint, Xero Salesforce? All of it! With so much software offered as a subscription, it’s mostly second nature.
But what about your network itself? Have you got that secret room where you’re storing your business’ backed up data and “oops” you’re out of space, so it’s not been backed up for a week? This isn’t just downright risky and not at all secure, but it’s also an incredibly expensive option over using the cloud.
Using cloud is a sure-fire way to tighten the purse strings on your outgoings in 2023 and also work a bit smarter by reducing your risk. You wouldn’t believe how many businesses haven’t done the comparison.
MANAGING SPEND:
Most businesses are adding a little caution to their spending for 2023 and beyond. So it’s not about doing everything all at once. Choose the best wins, then create a plan for improvements AND maintenance that works for you.
Typically our clients undertake the initial “clean up” tasks as a stand-alone project to keep their ongoing engagement minimal and predictable. But we’re pretty flexible (unlike those giants with the data breaches) so let’s just discuss what could suit best.
Whether New Years’ resolutions are your thing or not, we love the words of Daryl Plummer from Gartner and encourage you to “seize uncertainty.” None of this has to be overwhelming when you have the right team in your corner.
Xenex Systems is here to help you work smarter, not harder, in 2023. So, chat to us about getting a free-of-charge audit of your systems then we’ll put together our recommendation of how to comfortably tackle the new year in your business.