office Is your IT manager really qualified to keep your data secure?
Your IT manager has a big role to fulfill within your company. Not only is this individual tasked with keeping your phone and internet systems running smoothly, they are often responsible for keeping your organisation's data secure. The importance of data security in many businesses has increased substantially over the past several years and keeping your data secure has become a critical part of customer service, compliance, and even business continuity. Should it be your IT manager's responsibility?
The Standard Requirements for IT Managers
Technology plays an incredibly important role in your business--and your IT team has to be up to the task. Hiring an IT manager means looking for an exceptional individual who has a range of important skills and capabilities, from crisis management skills to the tech skills necessary to handle the day-to-day functionality of your business. The IT manager often takes on a number of important tasks:
- Developing and maintaining technology processes throughout your business
- Maintaining and updating software
- Maintaining and updating hardware as needed
- Running regular checks on network security
- Maintaining basic data security standards
- Overseeing system updates
- Dealing with migrations
- Handling outages and bringing your system back online as soon as possible
- Determining timelines and handling major projects, including upgrades
- Managing other employees within the IT department
- Helping employees troubleshoot their IT issues
With such a wide range of skills required, it's often critical to look for an IT manager with several years of industry experience. You will often find, however, that IT managers come to the table with degrees in Computer Science or Information Technology, not degrees and certifications in cyber security. This may mean that your IT manager has little more than a passing knowledge of data security or how to keep your organisation's valuable information secure.
Does your IT manager really have time to manage your cybersecurity?
Your IT manager often has a wide range of tasks on their plate--often including upgrades, tech support for various individuals throughout the building, and dealing with crises. As a result, security management may take a back seat or, in a worst-case scenario, fall through the cracks entirely. Is it really important? Consider the cost of data that isn't properly secured.
Client acquisition goes down with poor security. New clients want to know that their data is secure and protected in your systems. Failure to provide that security, on the other hand, can cause potential new clients to shy away from your business.
Client retention decreases. 70% of customers say that they would stop doing business with a company after a data breach. This holds particularly true for businesses that don't take what customers consider appropriate measures to protect private data or to ensure continued customer security--and it can be devastating to your business reputation and revenue.
Legal issues arise. If you are not meeting compliance with Australian and even international standards, depending on your customers, you may face legal costs associated with your data breach. The average cost of a data breach stands at over $7 million and legal fees add significantly to those costs.
Trust in your brand plummets. After a major data breach, especially one that becomes the subject of public discussion, you may struggle to maintain your reputation. Building a trustworthy and reputable brand is an expensive and difficult exercise, and trying to regain trust after a breach is a challenge that your business may never recover from.
A single data breach can cost your company millions of dollars. Unfortunately, many Australian businesses are struggling to identify, isolate, and stop data breaches, which means you can continue to lose money throughout the process.
The cybersecurity skills shortage
Throughout Australia, cyber security faces a significant skills shortage. This skills shortage has already cost more than $400 million dollars and it's set to cost even more in the coming years. Cyber security is a constantly growing field that has substantial implications for every business across Australia. While most cyber security professionals themselves are highly trained and have skills that cover a wide range of arenas.
As technology improves, cyber security professionals are finding their skills increasingly in demand--and many of them are seeing a substantial increase in their daily workloads. For businesses, the high demand for cyber security professional means you have to fork out top dollar to have an in-house expert.
Chances are, your IT manager already has to keep up with information from a wide range of other fields. Unfortunately, with the skills gap widening, the chances increase significantly that your IT manager does not have the specialised skills necessary to keep your business's data as secure as possible. Ultimately, this can result in a loss of revenue, legal implications and much worse.
Building a Solution
With the skills shortage in cyber security Australia, you may find that it's more difficult than ever to find an effective solution to the problem. A cyber security specialist working in-house has the potential to offer your business the security it so desperately needs. The average IT manager, on the other hand, probably won't be able to.
That's where we comes in.
We understand the importance of cyber security in business. Furthermore, working with us is far cheaper than hiring a cyber security specialist to work directly with your business--not to mention the fact that, given the current shortage of cyber security specialists in Australia, finding a specialist to work for your business could be incredibly difficult. Not only that, you won't have to worry about training or onboarding staff, nor will you have to suffer downtime between employees if your specialist moves on. We has the solution to ensure that your data is secure. Consider our skills:
Remote accessibility
Enhanced flexibility in the workplace
Private cloud access
A dedicated Australian support team
Government-grade security
Leveraging the power of our private cloud solution makes it easy to scale your business and offers a higher level of security than many other solutions, which allows you to keep your data safer and protect both your clients and your private data.
Moving to a private cloud solution not only takes away the burden of cybersecurity from your internal IT manager, but also gives back this key employee critical time to focus on other high value activities, like implementing improvements to your suite of technology and enabling your staff.
Let's talk.