Stepping Up Your Cybersecurity With Defense in Depth (DiD)

When the pandemic hit, businesses all over the globe had to shift to remote work almost overnight. Now, with the vaccine rollout in full swing, the hybrid work model is gaining popularity. This allows employees to work from home, the office or split their time between both. According to a report, close to 65% of large businesses have adopted a hybrid model, and most workers prefer it that way.1

However, a distributed workforce comes with its own set of challenges. One of the primary concerns of IT leaders across the globe is the unprecedented increase in cybercrime. Experts estimate that cybercrime has shot up by almost 300% since the start of the pandemic.2

Agility for Your People, Processes and Technology

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Nothing is more crucial to a business than stability. Yes, profit matters, but companies can achieve consistent profits easily when markets are stable.

The world, of course, doesn’t always work this way. Markets are highly unpredictable and things change in the blink of an eye. If your business’s viability is dependent on the marketplace, which is almost always the case, you must be prepared to face the challenges of trying to maintain a smooth path through a changing landscape.

Businesses that survive and thrive under any circumstances share one trait: they are agile. When faced with a challenge, an agile business, like a skilled soccer player, knows when to decelerate, accelerate and turn. Agility can help organizations adapt to changes in the market and changes within the company.

Things to Avoid While Practicing Organizational Agility

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Even though it’s no secret that small to medium-sized businesses often have vastly fewer resources in comparison to larger enterprises, prioritizing agility is just as critical for their survival. This is because, in today’s world, where a variety of unpleasant surprises can arise at any time, you must be well prepared to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Recent events, such as the pandemic, supply chain issues, war, inflation and The Great Resignation, serve as explicit indicators of why your SMB needs to be agile.

When the needs of your customers, employees, the market, the economy and other factors change, agile businesses can adapt quickly and keep working toward their business goals. To be agile, you must have systems in place that allow you to respond quickly to rapidly changing conditions and opportunities by preparing your people, processes and technologies.

However, agility doesn’t happen overnight. You will encounter setbacks that can make your agility journey a bumpy ride. Knowing that is the first step towards business agility.

Making the Case for SMB Agility

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The last two years have been a bumpy ride for organizations of all sizes globally. During this time, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) were hit the worst. Since most SMBs have limited cash and resources, setbacks were much more severe for them than for big corporations with more resources.

Irrespective of whether your company had to completely shut down during the COVID-19 lockdowns or whether it had to create a touchless customer experience or transition to a remote workforce overnight, you may have had so much more at stake than the average business.

Whether you’re facing a global pandemic or something as simple as shifting market conditions, if you want to survive and reach your business objectives, you must improve your organization’s speed, adaptability and innovation. To do that, an SMB like yours requires even more business agility.

What is Organizational Agility?

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It’s hard to predict the future. Just think of all that has happened in the world in the last two years. From the COVID-19 pandemic to supply chain issues to inflation and war, no one could have predicted these events early enough to be adequately prepared.

These challenges make it more difficult for companies to succeed and achieve their long-term objectives.

When the needs of your employees, customers and the market change suddenly, you must be ready to make the necessary shift. Proactive small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can achieve this by practicing organizational agility.

Common Scalability Mistakes SMBs Make

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Most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are stretched for time and resources, due to which they may end up rushing through process implementations, technology upgrades and new hire training. Inevitably, this results in botched executions and a foundation that doesn’t support sustainable scalability.

Sustainable scaling allows you to scale up or down as needed and considers your people, processes and technologies. This is important for the future of your business because it prepares you to deal with unexpected changes. However, before embarking on the path to sustainable scalability, you should be aware of the most common mistakes to avoid.

Top Technologies for Scalability

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Rushing through process implementations, technology upgrades and new hire training can cause botched executions and unnecessary confusion. That’s why businesses must pursue a sustainable strategy that allows them to grow smarter, not just faster. Sustainability in business is all about being repeatable, adaptable and capable of scaling up and down as needed.

Sustainable scaling requires you to consider your people, processes, and technologies. Having the right technology on your side can help you scale your business up or down with ease as well as empower people and processes. But what technology should you consider introducing to your infrastructure to encourage flexible scaling? Keep reading to find out.

Operational and Data Integrity Risks of Internet of Things (IoT) for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs)

The continued rise in the number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices has brought about a host of security challenges for many businesses. As manufacturers compete in a race to bring their IoT devices to market, most fail to include even the most basic security controls necessary to protect the networks these devices connect to or the data they collect or transmit. This leaves businesses of all industries extremely vulnerable to a variety of security risks and cyberthreats.

Prioritize Compliance for Your Business

One of the many challenges you probably face as a business owner is dealing with the vague requirements present in HIPAA and PCI-DSS legislation. Due to the unclear regulatory messaging, “assuming” rather than “knowing” can land your organization in hot water with regulators.

The Health and Human Services (HSS) Office for Civil Rights receives over 1,000 complaints and notifications of HIPAA violations every year.1 When it comes to PCI-DSS, close to 70% of businesses are non-compliant.2 While you might assume it’s okay if your business does not comply with HIPAA or PCI-DSS since many other companies are non-compliant as well, we can assure you it’s not. Keep in mind that being non-compliant puts you and your business at risk of being audited and fined.

How to Adopt Zero Trust Security for Your SMB

With the cyberthreat landscape getting more complicated with every passing minute, cybersecurity deserves more attention than ever before. You can no longer put all your faith and trust in applications, interfaces, networks, devices, traffic and users. Misjudging and misplacing your trust in a devious entity can lead to severe breaches that can damage your business. Zero Trust Security practices, however, can go a long way towards helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) minimize cybersecurity risks and prevent data breaches.