Farewell Microsoft TMG! But What Do You Replace It With?

Microsoft have announced that they are no longer going to be supporting Microsoft Threat Management Gateway (TMG) from April 2015. So what should you do if you have been using Microsoft TMG as a firewall, proxy server or web filter?

In reality, TMG’s technology was starting to look a little “old hat” anyway. Filter lists can only ever know about a small percentage of the web sites on the internet, and it can be a hacked business site that can hurt you! 

 
Web security today needs be a little smarter to protect your networks:

Blocking Known Hacked Web Sites

If you end up with a Trojan or spyware on your PC, you have a 90+% chance that you got it from a malicious or hacked web site. These days, web security solutions refers to a constantly updated database of known hacked or malicious web sites to which access is blocked.

Control of Web Applications

Love them or hate them, web applications such as YouTube and Skype are here to stay. There is some great training / research material on YouTube, and Skype can be incredibly useful, but it gobbles up your internet connection if you aren’t careful. Today’s web protection products allow you to control the amount of your internet bandwidth that can be used by video and audio, so that you have at least some bandwidth reserved for home workers and email.

Facebook security

Facebook is probably an integral part of your marketing strategy, but it is also a great way to waste time playing games and a playground for malicious code that can infect your PC’s. You need a system that can allow you to update your company’s Facebook page but block downloads of malicious code and stop your users playing games. 

Different manufacturers approach web security in different ways. You can secure internet access on your employees’ PC’s, using a web proxy appliance, integrated into your firewall, or as a hosted web security service. 

If you are a UK company and need some help in deciding which approach is right for you, please do get in contact so that we can find out a little more about your IT installation and recommend some sensible options.

How Would A Server Crash Effect Your Business?

Could your company carry on doing business if your server failed and you were unable to recover your data? If your answer is that “It’s not going to happen!” because you know that you have got that one covered, then great. If on the other hand you have just felt a chill run down your spine at the very thought of your server failing, then don’t put it off any longer. If your data is that important to you, then for heaven’s sake do something about it. 

Uninterruptible Power Supplies

If your server sits in your office, you should protect it using an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). A UPS does 2 jobs. Its primary job is to provide you with time to shut your machines down properly in the event of loss of power. It does this by providing you with power from its batteries. Servers don’t like losing power unexpectedly. It can cause corruption on the hard drive and in extreme cases can make it impossible to read data from it. The second job that a UPS will do for you is to smooth out the power and protect you against temporary power surges which could damage your server as well as momentary loss of power which could cause the system to shut down unnecessarily.

When looking at a UPS, there are two things that you need to know:

• The amount of power that you want to pass through it.
• The amount of time that you need protection for. 

For most small businesses, you just need a few minutes as a grace period to allow you to shut your servers down safely. 

When you buy a UPS, don't forget that you will need to replace the batteries every couple of years. 

Online Backup

Most companies take some form of backup of their servers, but I am always surprised by the number of companies that still rely on tape and disk backup backup. It’s not that I dispute whether tape backups work or not. It’s rather that the only truly reliable solution for business continuity is to have offsite backup, and to automate that process rather than relying on the office manager remembering to insert the tape and take it home with them at night. The time when you will need that backup most is in the event that you are unlucky enough to suffer a fire or a flood, and the best way to ensure that you get access to your data after a fire is to use online backup. Admittedly, you need to have a high speed internet connection to use online backup reliably, but they are more widely available now. If you haven’t already made the investment in online backup, now is a good time to do so.

You can of course spend much more on business continuity than simply investing in online backup and provision of a decent UPS system, but this is sufficient for most small businesses. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind that your business can recover as quickly as possible when bad things happen. 

Why Good IT Security Is Important For Small Businesses.

Why do small businesses need to worry about IT security? We all understand why banks need to have good security … they’ve got our money, and if they get hacked they are probably out of business. What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t have good security as a small business?

The truth is that the damage caused to a small business by poor security may not be as catastrophic as a bank getting hacked, but the consequences of poor security are still painful .. and costly. 

The first thing you’ve got to realise is that security isn’t just about getting your web site hacked. In fact, a good proportion of what we do in managing IT support for our customers involves managing network security. 

How does IT Security impact small businesses?

The problem for small businesses is internet malware. Malware is “bad” software that is unintentionally downloaded from hacked web sites that seeks out bugs in software that is installed on your PC. Unless your PC is kept updated with the latest security updates, malware can use these bugs to upload malicious software which can turn your PC into a spam sender or steal your internet passwords. The first you are likely to know that you have malware on your PC is when things start to grind to a halt, and this is the point at which bad security starts to cost you money. 

Few things are more frustrating than a PC on a go-slow because of a malware infection. It gets in the way of doing your work and causes frustration. You can try running applications such as Malwarebytes to lean it up, but you then lose your PC for the best part of a day while it runs a full scan of your system. Critically all of this is taking place when you want to be getting on dealing with your clients, costing you money with every minute that goes by … and you haven’t even called your IT support company yet!

How to keep internet malware at bay.

The answer is to make sure that your PC’s and servers are kept updated and maintained on a regular basis. If you’re a small business without a dedicated IT Manager that can be a tall order. In reality you are better off outsourcing to a managed service provide who will use automation software to run manage and update your systems remotely. Using automation cuts the cost of keeping your PC’s properly updated and in good working order. More importantly, it’s not your problem!

So don’t discount security just because you’re a small business. It’s just as important to you as it is to bigger businesses. You just see the benefits a different way. For you, IT security translates into reliability of your PC’s and servers.

Planning For Cloud Computing Success

There is much to be said in favour of cloud computing, especially if you are a small business without the in-house skills to manage your IT systems properly. Irrespective of all of the arguments on how cloud computing saves you money, many companies who adopt cloud systems do so because they buy in to the idea that they will no longer have to worry about buying hardware, upgrading it, and making sure that their business information is properly backed up. However it is implemented,  outsourcing IT is increasingly seen as an easy win for businesses.

Furthermore, in these days of flexible working, your office becomes wherever you want it to be, since you can access your company information from a café or airport lounge equally as well as you can from your own desk.  

Nonetheless, if you decide that cloud computing is right for your business, you shouldn’t rush headlong into it. Change can be a painful process, and your implementation needs to be planned to make sure that you set off on the right foot and avoid push-back from your staff. Involoving your employees from day 1 is hugely important. They are after all the people who earn money for your company, and they may have genuine concerns that you will need to address prior to implementation. 

Plan For Change

When you move your business applications to the cloud you may well find that it requires minor changes to working practices for your staff. You may for instance be moving to a newer version of your business software, or the cloud version may work slightly differently to the way that your staff have been used to working previously. Alternatively, if you are looking to move to a cloud CRM system, you may be making changes to streamline your business processes. In any event, your new cloud based system should be installed as a pilot in parallel to your current systems for sufficient time to allow training and acceptance testing to take place.   

Security

If you are moving to the cloud, you have to consider the security of your data. Under the data Protection Act, you should not take your clients’ personal information outside the EU, so make sure that you know where your information is being stored. You also need to take into account that your data is now being stored on another company’s systems, so should you be taking additional security measures such as encrypting your information, or protecting access to your cloud systems using strong authentication?

One size certainly doesn’t fit all companies when it comes to cloud migration, but you need to make sure that you get the process right for your business. As with any IT project, planning for success will pay dividends.

What Can Small Businesses Learn From McDonalds

It’s hard to imagine a high street without a McDonalds today, but I have to hold my hand up to remembering the first time that the Golden Arches appeared on our high Streets in the 1970’s. In particular I remember going up into Birmingham with my girlfriend at the time and as it came up to 1pm we went looking for somewhere to eat. We found a busy traditional café just off New Street so we went in and took a seat.

It was a busy day and the café was clearly short staffed ; plates remained on tables for a little too long, and it took an eternity for the waitress to come to take our order. After another 20 minutes any thoughts of lust I had for the one I was with had turned to thoughts of lunch that I was now desperate to eat but which had still not arrived, so we just left and headed off down New Street and into McDonalds. 

The contrast couldn’t have been more stark. We were greeted with smiles and the familiar “Can I help anyone?”, and within minutes I was gratefully tucking into my quarter pounder with cheese. Who knows if my order in the overstretched café ever saw the light of day!

Needless to say, the café on New Street that had so miserably failed my expectations is now long gone, but McDonalds  … well, we all know!

So what has all this got to do with IT Support, small businesses, or anything that could be relevant to you and me? The answer is simple. McDonalds hasn’t grown into the megacorporation that they are today by serving the tastiest burgers in town. They managed that by being the restaurant that served you fastest, wished you a nice day as they gave you your food, cleared the tables more quickly than anybody else, swept the floor more often than anyone else, and even cleaned up the pavement outside the restaurant more often than anyone else. They also know their market better than any other company on the planet. See, I didn’t mention what I thought of their food once!

It’s called customer service, and in the battle against big companies it’s the only competitive advantage that many of us have. If you are a small business owner, I firmly believe that you need to bake good customer service into everything that your company does. If you give good service, you become a supplier of a commodity that is in short supply, and what's more you will get recommended. What's not to like about free advertising by your customers? 

So next week, just give a little more to your customers. It could repay you ten times over.

A Little IT Maintenance Saves A Lot Of IT Support

If you are a small business, you need your IT to work. As a small business owner myself, I believe we're in fact more reliant on technology than big business. Let’s face it, we really need to sweat our assets to help us to compete with big companies, and technology enables us to do this. We can deliver better customer service than the big boys, and react every bit as quickly as they can ... just as long as our IT keeps running.

Since the onset of the internet age, the speed of everyone’s business process has accelerated beyond anybody’s expectations due to email and E-commerce, so it hurts when your IT fails. What’s more I’m convinced that technology has its own sixth sense that tells it exactly the right time to throw a hissy fit to cause us the most inconvenience. It can be when I have to get a quote out, get some marketing material together for a deadline, or just when I want to clear everything up before I go home. That’s when the technology gremlin strikes! Fortunately I have my own support department at hand that I can call on when I need them. If you’re a small law firm, accountancy practice or marketing company, you may not have such a luxury!

When we get a call from a new customer, it is almost inevitably because ”the wheels have fallen off” their IT. We have even experienced one business owner who was scared of re-booting his Windows server in case it didn’t come back on again! I can understand business owners not wanting to take their time managing IT, but surely living in fear of a power spike is no way to run a business?

The idiom that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is especially true when it comes to IT. If you only ever spend money on your IT when it fails I can only guarantee you that your IT will keep failing, and we all know the problems when that happens. Invoices don’t get issued, customer service can grind to a halt, and your sales person suddenly becomes an impromptu IT engineer. He may well know a bit about computers, but shouldn’t he be looking after your clients or chasing down new business? Your IT will work better and more reliably if you spend money on preventative maintenance. That way you will experience fewer failures, your blood pressure will be lower, and your salesman can get back on the telephone.

Am I biased? Well, I run an IT support company, of course I am! … But it’s hardly rocket science is it?

How Can Online CRM Help Your Company To Communicate Better?

Given that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, you clearly need to take good care of your client base. Yet sales, customer service and finance functions within a company fail to join up, and this can be bad for business. Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to customer relationships, and installing a CRM provides a simple means of sharing relevant information about your customers that will help your employees to do their job better. 

Let’s take three hypothetical situations to demonstrate my point:

• A salesman is chasing a customer for a new order, but is unaware that the customer has unpaid invoices that are more than 90 days overdue .

• An engineer arrives on site to perform an installation, but has no knowledge of discussions between the customer and his salesperson on the detail of the work to be carried out so the work is completed incorrectly.

• An accounts administrator is chasing for payment of an invoice that has been issued, but is not aware that the contract has not been able to be completed because the goods are being returned as faulty.

In each case these people may have acted differently if customer communications had been joined up using a CRM system. The salesperson may have insisted on cash in advance;  the engineer wouldn’t have had to revisit an installation, and the accounts administrator may not have lost a customer for appearing incompetent.

What Else Does A CRM Do?

Of course there is a lot more to a CRM than providing a central point of reference for customer communications for everyone in your company. A CRM can join up your entire business process including:

• Gathering web  and social marketing leads directly into your sales process.
• Generating documentation for quotations, orders, invoices and customer service.
• Producing business pipeline reports  to assist in business planning.
• Analysing the relative profitability of all of your products / business .
• Measuring the performance of your sales staff.
• Evaluating the return on investment of your marketing campaigns.

You can of course do all of this by extracting information from multiple sources and crunching numbers through a spreadsheet, but at a far greater cost over time. It is the integration and automation of your entire business process that is the true prize of a successful CRM deployment.