3 Ways to make sure your business is secure

No matter the size of your business there’s no doubt that you will have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it.

It’s your baby and you can feel more attached to it than a member of your own family at times and you certainly end up spending more time dedicated to them it can seem!

As your business grows it becomes not just the physical items they need protecting but also the human ones and as owners the responsibility sits with you to make sure everything is up to scratch!

Starting a business is generally seen as taking a big chance in life as you open yourself up to all manor of things that can go wrong or make the company fail so it’s important that when there are things that you can control that you take those opportunities to make life as easy as possible for yourself!

With how much of an investment you make in both the practical and emotional sense it always amazes me when people end up being a bit lapse when it comes to the security of their business. With that in mind I thought I would list my top 3 ways of making sure your pride and joy in the business sense at least is secure.

1 – Practical

If you own a shop or hire an office then no doubt you need to keep that secure at night but you would be surprised at just how many people don’t even think about purchasing a business alarm.

There are some fantastic systems out there that can take care of everything from doors and hallways to contacting the police or your local security firm. A lot of people in the early days of their business may see it as an unnecessary cost they don’t want to pay out for but for a lot of owners a fair amount of the value of their business is the stock and equipment that they hold on-site.

As always it’s worth ringing around and getting multiple quotes but it will be one less thing to worry about at night if you know that all your computers or stock are under protection.

The likes of Swipe and Access Cards can be expensive to implement if you don’t work in a managed service office that already provides them but the absolute last thing you want (and again I’ve seen it happen!) is that someone easily gains access to your offices and walks off the site with valuable information and stock. Even just implementing an ID card policy for your staff can be important and if you have delivery or contractor staff coming and going all day long it’s important you get them to sign in each time they visit so their whereabouts are controlled.

2 – Protecting your computers

Outside of the physical protection mentioned above it’s important that all the computers you use are not vulnerable from viruses or malware. In an age where where everything is connected to the Internet so we can access all the data we want from any location it’s very important that we remember that it needs protecting as well.

When you start out you may be find using software such as Avast is enough however as your systems evolve you may want to look at a suite of packages from Norton that offer everything from Virus and Malware to cloud data backups so that your business information is securely stored offsite each day should the worst happen.

It always amazes me the risks that small to medium companies will take when it comes to the IT side of things and over the years I’ve seen many a total meltdown when a computer goes pop and the un-backed up work they had been working on for weeks are lost forever. With secure cloud storage solutions now available for as little as a few pounds a month it seems crazy to not make all that important data as secure as possible.

3 – Protecting your staff

A lot of the time business owners forget that their staff are a huge part of their business and it’s important that you protect them as much as you can.

One company I worked for (A large national Bank no less!) was in a not so great area of Leeds and on the first day of working there everyone was issued with Attack Alarms.

Now this was obviously quite alarming at the time of being given it but looking back all those years later I can’t think of the last time and employer showed concern for our safety in the same way!

Of course your staff also need to feel safe when they are in the office as well so it’s very important that everyone follows Health and Safety guidelines to make that environment as safe as can be.

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