How do you know when it is time to change IT providers? Do you wait until some unforeseen disaster? Until you find out all their best techs have left? Until your competitors are moving past you due to higher levels of tech enabled productivity?
Changing IT providers is right up there with finding a new accounting or legal group to work with.
The bad guys are real, especially on the Internet. In fact, the bad guys of the Internet are worse than those in real life. At least you can SEE the ones in real life and defend yourself or flee. The baddies of the Internet come into your house, sit on all the furniture, make a mess, and steal your stuff….all while you are in the kitchen hanging out unaware!
No amount of security will stop them from attempting to break in and nothing is foolproof.
The remote work shift puts the management of devices, applications, and data front and center in the security discussion. The firewall, local Active Directory, and VPN solutions typically don't scale or take into account the vast number of variables when users want to work from any device at any time.
We covered the basic security options that are available to all M365 plans here. This is the equivalent of locking your doors at night, a good idea, but not enough if you have someone that really wants to get into your house. Unfortunately there is no equivalent of a "safe" neighborhood on the Internet, if you are utilizing email you will eventually be targeted for a break-in!
The biggest attack vector for breaking in is email.
What is the first thing that happens before you move homes? All of those old clothes, exercise equipment, and children's toys go off to the donation bin. This is also known as The Great Purge. The analog nature of all this stuff means that you are going to put it in boxes to haul it across the city.
Going from servers to services is a lot like playing a game of Jenga. You have to pull out all the various blocks (apps) without knocking over the tower (your business). You can go for the slow methodical method, or the "turn if off and see who complains" method.
The impact of technology in the professional contractor industry has changed drastically over the past ten years. The explosion of mobile devices, ubiquitous LTE connectivity, and cloud-based file storage has made a big difference. Running from job-site to job-site with file folders full of timesheets, bill of materials, and progress reports can be a thing of the past with the right use of technology.
The new Microsoft Edge browser has finally caught up to Google's Chrome browser, and the timing is great. The #wfh transition means that more personal devices are being utilized to access corporate resources. Often this is done via a web browser, which means your corporate security could depend on what browser they are using!
Microsoft transitioned to the Chromium-based engine for the new Edge browser which was released in January 2020. The move to the Chromium engine means that your favorite Chrome extensions will work in addition to the enhanced speed and page loads it provides.
No matter how good your technology plan was going into 2020, it is time to recalibrate it. The business environment has permanently changed and will not be going back to "how it was" with or without COVID-19. Thousands of workers shifted to #wfh for the first time, and guess what? They were MORE productive than they have ever been.
Most organizations have one central place for storing a lot of sensitive information. Some offices save documents to personal or work computers, or somewhere else on their servers. Others, including myself, rely on SharePoint for information saving and sharing.