Forward thinking is part of what we do. This is because we know that the landscape that we work in is constantly changing and as a result of this, new threats and challenges are constantly emerging. We deal with these as they appear, and as they evolve, our solutions evolve with them. It is a dance, a war of attrition, an unspoken agreement that the job is never really done as long as technology keeps marching forward.

Now we know all this already- it’s a baked-in feature of working in the tech sector, but how do we explain these truths to a potential client, or an existing one for that matter? After all, if a client has just bought a bunch of brand-new laptops from you, they’re not going to want to buy NEW laptops in three years’ time, are they? Do they think their staff should be able to work anywhere? Why should they; they’ve just shelled out on an office refurb and three new parking spaces! Cloud storage? But they bought a NAS only two years ago, and there’s loads of space left!

It’s easy to see how customers can look at forward thinking IT strategies and dismiss them as unnecessary expenditure at best, and frivolous or a ‘Hard-Sell’ at worst, but it’s become very evident with the recent responses to lockdown and requirements to furlough staff or take appropriate steps to allow them to work from home that many businesses were a long way behind the curve in terms of their readiness for unforeseen events, and those with well-planned policies encompassing ‘Business Resilience’ have seen minimal disruption to workflow.

It's become almost a meme that, when it comes to provisioning effective IT Business Resilience strategy, clients have to suffer a disaster before they will invest in resilience tech and disaster recovery; Implementing a backup solution after that server array broke, finally putting a password policy in place after that data breach, and putting in Work From Home solutions after the office toaster fire got out of hand… not having this stuff provisioned in the first place means down-time, or as time is money; down-money.

The sad truth is that whilst many of the remote working technologies and protocols we rely on for business resilience, or allowing our employees to access vital resources on our business networks from home have been reliable in the past, they are now creaking and showing vulnerabilities. Direct RDP intercepts and hacks are becoming more and more prevalent, and even VPN’s, such as those based on L2TP protocols, have been getting attention of late for all the wrong reasons.

Any good IT strategy should incorporate a good degree of the three R’s – Redundancy, Resilience and Responsiveness; this is to say, systems in everyday use should have a backup portal or interface, not be easily taken offline, and should be able to be brought to bear in the event of a business critical issue with minimal downtime and fuss. In this age of hugely powerful mobile devices, fantastic cellular data service coverage, Cloud productivity suites and VOIP, and with many of these coming from the same suppliers or MSP’s, it’s difficult to see how some companies are still behind the curve.

If there is one thing that this current situation has taught us, it’s that not planning for a disaster is a disaster in itself.

If you haven’t already invested in a Business Resilience strategy, give us a call. We’ll help you make the right decisions about your IT, giving you piece of mind and the ability to weather any storm. Get in contact to talk about our VOIP and cloud productivity solutions.