The components of startup success are not always about the customer or the client. An inherent knowledge of your internal processes is a must. To genuinely understand your business, you need to know how sound and strong it is and how it would fare if faced with external threats. The most significant external threat now, in the modern technological age, is a data breach. Protecting your business data from a breach isn’t something to take lightly, and at a minimum, you should be considering the following factors:

The Right Systems

Yes, you can purchase the most sophisticated data management systems and services, but this is only one piece of the puzzle. If you are a startup who is putting a lot of money into your tech, but you don’t have the necessary knowledge to back it up, is this actually benefiting you? When it comes to your tech, you can do what many businesses do and hire an IT support company to provide the protection for you. There are many benefits to this approach because your systems could be scaled up or down, depending on the success of your business, and it also takes a lot of stress out of the process by giving you the opportunity to focus on your business.

The Right Communication

The right staff members know for example not to work on personal business during their work hours or to click and open a questionable email. So, how can you ensure that you have the right staff onboard? Well, it’s not just about hiring the right people; it’s also about making sure that you are communicating best practices. There are many ways to educate your staff about company policies and to make them aware of why adhering to them are vital to the company’s success. The best way to communicate information accurately is to provide the bigger picture. If your staff is told not to do something, but they don’t know why, why should they listen to you? If you provide the bigger picture, as well as the fallout of what will happen, you are developing an employee who is careful, confident and sensible.

The Right Penalties

In addition to communicating best practices properly, it behooves you to rein everything in your business in that much tighter. If your company was to suffer a data breach, not only might you be subject to a severe financial penalty, but your customers would lose trust in you. By communicating to your employees what the real impact would be on the business, and implementing strict measures concerning data control, you are ensuring your business is adequately protected internally.

Many companies are subject to data breaches, big and small, making it essential that every company knows how to protect their information. Protecting your business data inside and out will require proactive management on your part, the right systems, the right communication and penalties in place for those who don’t adhere. Protection against malware, spyware, and viruses, are the baseline of security. Ensure that all of the items noted are in place to ensure that your business progresses safely and that threats of data breaches are minimized.

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