With cyber threats growing and changing all the time, businesses need to have the right defences – how can managed service providers help with this?
There is no denying that businesses need cybersecurity now more than ever. Now that business is reliant on complex, digital systems and exchanges, the risk of security breaches looms over all businesses – from major enterprises to small businesses. But where enterprises have the capital to invest in the latest security, how can small and medium-sized businesses get the protection they need? The answer is with managed services. We spoke with TechQuarters, a London-based managed service provider (MSP) and Microsoft Solutions Partner, whose IT support Croydon and London businesses have been using for the last 12 years. According to them, managed services are a great way for smaller businesses to access high-quality cybersecurity – but how so?
1. Better IT Support
First and foremost, a managed service provider offers businesses the best IT support available. This is because their wealth of expertise and resources offers much better value for money compared with smaller businesses trying to build their own IT department in-house. A well-managed service provider will implement proactive solutions like network and server monitoring, which can help businesses prevent IT faults that can inhibit their infrastructure’s security. With a more robust IT infrastructure, businesses have less to fear when it comes to weakening security.
2. Staff Training
Another way in which managed service providers can help businesses with their cybersecurity is by offering staff training. It may be surprising to some just how many cybersecurity breaches occur due to human error, or staff not upholding good behaviour with technology. This can easily result in a major security disaster. As mentioned before, MSPs will have leading knowledge and expertise on modern security – this means that they are the ideal people to train staff on the security best practices that the organisation should be adhering to. For example, they might offer training days or even offer to develop a company handbook for security.
3. Cloud Migration
Here is where big changes can be seen for small businesses. Most MSPs are vendors of enterprise technology solutions. For example, TechQuarters have been Microsoft Office 365 consultants since they first started. They have also helped businesses with cloud migrations, setting up Azure infrastructures for digital transformation, and much more. The cloud offers excellent security benefits when compared with conventional server infrastructures. For one thing, public clouds are the beneficiaries of billions of dollars worth of security research and development, because every cloud provider wants to offer the most secure cloud services.
4. Backups & Disaster Recovery
Tying in with cloud services, another thing that MSPs can do for small businesses to help boost their security is setting up backups and disaster recovery. Backups are examples of how they sound – a complete backup of an organisation’s data. Thanks to the cloud, such backups can be performed quickly and easily – every hour, even. This means that in the event of a data breach or other such disaster, businesses will never be short of up-to-date data restoration. This is where disaster recovery comes in because a data breach or cyber-attack can put a business out of action for hours, or even days. But with disaster recovery, businesses can establish systems and processes to help minimize the time it takes to return to normal business function.
5. Implementing Business Solutions
As mentioned before, MSPs can help businesses adopt technology solutions like Microsoft 365 and Azure. These are business solutions, and by definition have much better security than consumer-grade solutions. Many smaller businesses opt for using consumer software because it is cheaper (or free), but the trade-off is poorer security. All London IT support companies recommend only using business solutions for business purposes because company data should be kept in applications and systems that were designed for it.
