How Businesses Should Handle Sensitive Data in 2022

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StrategyDriven Risk Management Article |Handle Sensitive Data|How Businesses Should Handle Sensitive Data in 2022Mishandling sensitive data can be fatal for your business. Not only is this data usually given to you in trust by your customers, but it’s something that you’re legally required to protect, keeping safe and secure. In this article, we’ll look at ways in which you should be handling all sensitive data internally. The tips below will ensure that you’re able to keep handling sensitive data – whether that’s credit card details or personally identifiable information – without being at risk of data breaches or leaks that could damage your business.

Training

All good data handling begins with training. All your staff should be trained in how to keep data secure and how to keep their logins and passwords safe. This might take a training day, with you bringing in external facilitators to show your staff how to best handle data. Alternatively, you could appoint a data manager who is ultimately in charge of how your data is handled internally. They’ll have the master key for your sensitive data, and they’ll be an employee that you can trust to know how to handle data without leaving it at risk of being stolen or exposed.

Transfers

Sometimes, you’ll need to transfer sensitive data from place to place. That might be from one physical server to another, from your business to another business, or from a physical server into the cloud. During these moments of transit, your data is more likely to be intercepted and exposed, which means that you should concentrate on finding ways to secure your data when it’s in transit. Use Globalscape secure file transfer technology to ensure that your data is moved from place to place without the risk of being intercepted by bad actors or leaked accidentally when you need to move data to a new location.


Cybersecurity

Even when your data is simply sitting in a database without being moved, it could be exposed by bad actors who hack into your systems. This has happened several times in the past year, often via ransomware attacks that steal company data and demand a ransom payment to have it returned to them. The best way to protect from these threats is to install a reliable cybersecurity system. These are sold to businesses in many shapes and sizes, so it’s well worth doing a little research before deciding on which package you should purchase. Many are tailored to businesses just like yours.

Data Hygiene

The final tip in this guide is to keep your data clean and readable at all times. If your data is scattered across different platforms, is difficult to read, and will take a lot of manual editing in order to understand and leverage, it’s more likely that your workers will have to access sensitive data on their laptops and work devices, instead of leaving that data protected within files and databases. If you practice good data hygiene and keep your data machine-readable, you’ll never have to expose your data in the first place – it’ll be read and processed automatically, which means you’ll rarely have to access it in the first place.

Use these tips to secure your sensitive data in the future.

The Best Strategies To Get Your Business Noticed

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Business Strategies|The Best Strategies To Get Your Business NoticedOne of the biggest challenges that businesses have is getting noticed, especially in today’s digital age. These days, businesses across the board have to compete with many companies online, and this can make it hard to stand out and get noticed. This is particularly true when you are a new or small business competing against much larger brands. So, what can be done about this? There are a few effective strategies to try that will help you to stand out, get noticed and start competing at a much higher level. Keep reading for a few of the best strategies to get your business noticed.

Market Research

First, you should use market research as a way to learn about the market and how you can differentiate yourself. Market research is a key stage when starting a business, but markets change, so it is helpful to carry out new market research every few years. This should help you to find a way to differentiate yourself while still appealing to your target market.

Find An Influencer

These days, one of the best ways to stand out and get noticed is with influencer marketing. Having someone with influence in your industry recommend your products/services will help you to reach a much larger audience. Plus, this is a highly effective way to instantly build credibility for your brand. Influencer marketing can take your business to new heights and help you to compete at a much higher level.


Manage Partnerships with PRM

One of the best ways to stand out and get noticed is to strike up partnerships with other businesses. This can help you to raise brand awareness, tap into new markets and build credibility. Partnerships can take your business to new levels of success, but they can also be hard to manage when you consider how many tasks are involved with each partnership, including onboarding, enablement, and commission repayments. This is why it is a smart idea to use a partner relationship management (PRM) solution that can make partnerships easy to manage; learn more from Workspan.

Create Engaging Content

Every brand is creating content as a way to get noticed online, but few are creating content that is actually engaging and valuable. This presents an opportunity for your brand, so you need to think about topic ideas that will engage your target market and either entertain or educate them. You then need to bring this content to life with multimedia, statistics, quotes, and interesting viewpoints that will actually get your business noticed online.

Raise Awareness In The Community

It is not just the internet that you should be focusing on, as you can also get noticed by raising awareness in the local community. There are many ways that this can be done, including hosting events, attending community events, getting involved with schools, raising money for charity, and networking with other business owners.

These are a few of the best strategies to use if you are looking to get your business noticed and want to stand out from the crowd.

Future Manufacturing Trends Your Business Needs to Know

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Manufacturing Trends|Future Manufacturing Trends Your Business Needs to KnowManufacturing businesses are a staple in the global market, as they endeavor to keep up with the supply and demand of consumers. To do this, they have to continuously identify problems and inefficiencies, improve processes and overcome any challenges that are thrown their way.

One of the best ways to stay ahead in the industry and ensure your business is competitive is by keeping up with the latest manufacturing trends. This is because the manufacturing trends are driven by the needs of the industry and tools that are going to improve the objectives of any business, for example, technological advances.

While the industry is changing, global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have also played a role in shaping the future of manufacturing due to the new obstacles and challenges the industry had to face. This meant a huge overhaul in the way that manufacturers had to run their businesses, as well as a shift in the way that consumers shop and purchase products. It has given many businesses a new perspective on the way things are run.

Many future trends in the manufacturing industry are going to be a response to these challenges that society faces, and provide businesses with sophisticated opportunities.

Here are some of the top future manufacturing trends that your business needs to know.

#1 Smart factories

It seems the manufacturing industry is at a tipping point, where more businesses will begin to build smart factories. This may include smart equipment, as well as smart software that provides a central monitoring system and data analytics, such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness software.

The free time during the COVID-19 pandemic was able to raise a variety of problems and inefficiencies with current software and machinery, and many businesses are using this as an opportunity to phase out older equipment and bring in new machines that are equipped with the latest technology and combines several processes into one machine.

Incorporating smart equipment will play a huge role in how efficient your business is, and the quality of your output. It will ensure you remain competitive in the market, as you will be able to keep up with your competitors who are reaping the same benefits. If you don’t, you will create a big gap between yourself and your competitors, and find your business plateaus.


#2 Sustainable processes

Sustainable processes are a huge focus for many businesses in the manufacturing industry. As Governments all over the world are implementing high targets for emissions, it is up to businesses to play their role and make positive and impactful changes. They are also going to come under pressure from their clients, who are going to want to work with businesses that are meeting the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standard requirements.

Manufacturing businesses are responsible for a large portion of toxic emissions. This is because of the variety of activities that are involved in the business, such as transporting goods, producing energy to run machinery, chemical reactions when working with raw materials, and waste in the production process.

In the near future, manufacturing businesses are going to be making more sustainable choices, for example, by only working with suppliers that have a Green certificate, not running equipment unnecessarily, using quality machines, utilizing renewable energy resources, reducing plastic consumption, pursuing carbon-neutral practices, reducing waste by recycling and reusing materials and much more.

#3 Health and safety

Health and safety should always be a priority, especially in a manufacturing business where the risk of injury is much higher. However, there are hundreds of fatalities per year, and this number only continues to rise. This has resulted in health and safety becoming a trend, in the hopes that more businesses will take it seriously.

Many businesses are employing a range of different systems and processes that will help make the workplace a much safer place for employees to be, with the goal of reducing risks and accidents. There will be more reviews in the workplace to monitor safety habits and behaviors, as well as regular training for all staff members, especially with the introduction of new technology.

Businesses are also investing in advanced equipment that will monitor the movement of their employees and even other aspects such as their temperature. This is to help with the control of COVID-19 and ensure employees are fit and well for work, and do not disrupt the workforce. During the pandemic, many businesses suffered with staff on furlough and off sick. Stricter measures that look after employees’ health will help keep staff well, happy and working.

With new technology and sustainable practices being introduced, the future of manufacturing is close.

How to Protect Your Company’s Data

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StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Protect your company's data|How to Protect Your Company's DataWhen you’re running a business your data is one of the most important things that you possess. If your data is compromised it can allow cybercriminals to get access to sensitive information that can cripple your business.

Sometimes businesses recover in a few weeks but the amount of revenue that is lost can be devastating and it can take several months or even years for the business to recover. Some businesses never recover at all and they completely go under because of a security breach, here are some tips for protecting your business.

Do Regular Audits

Conducting a regular cyber security audit is one way to protect your data. When you do regular audits you will identify the strengths and weaknesses as well as the gaps in your security and you can take measures to swiftly correct them before your data is reached.

Have a Plan

The next thing you need to do is to have a plan of how you are going to deal with security breaches. Your audit will tell you about your vulnerabilities and you can then come up with a step-by-step plan for dealing with them.

The best thing you can do for your business is to have a cyber security protocol in place. This way those on your team who are in charge of IT will know exactly which steps to take if data has been compromised.

Consider outsourcing your IT services to AWS Professional Services to get managed IT services to protect your data.


Do Regular Backups

Backing up your data is one of the easiest ways to protect your business. You can do this daily in the clouds. You can even do it every few hours if that makes you feel more secure.

This way if your data is hacked and stolen you can access it to get your business up and running sooner rather than later.

Educate Your Employees

Cybercrime can take many different forms and it is up to you to educate your employees about this. Many times companies have data breaches simply because employees were ignorant about the different types of cybersecurity and data breaches that are possible.

For example, one of the most popular cyber crimes is phishing emails. These emails look as if they are coming from legitimate persons in an organization. However, on closer inspection, they contain links to malware and ransomware or phishing websites that mimic your company’s website.

All this is done to capture information and target your financial and other sensitive information.

Stay Safe

Securing your business data should always be a priority. Breaches in security can affect your business significantly.

The best way to avoid this is to ensure that you have a plan in place that addresses cybersecurity. You should always be on the lookout for suspicious activity that signals something is not right.

Once you identify these things you can then take action to secure your business as quickly as possible.

Security Measures That All Business Owners Should Consider

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StrategyDriven Risk Management. Article |Security Measures|Security Measures That All Business Owners Should ConsiderAs a business owner, you have a lot on your plate. You’re responsible for keeping your employees safe, managing your finances, and ensuring that your products or services are of the highest quality. Therefore, security should be one of your top priorities.
There are a variety of security measures that all business owners should consider, from basic things like installing locks and alarm systems to more sophisticated measures like hiring security guards or using facial recognition software.

Here Are Just A Few Of The Most Essential Security Measures To Keep In Mind:

1. Install locks and alarms

One of the most basic but essential security measures is to install locks on all doors and windows, as well as an alarm system. This will deter burglars and help to keep your premises secure.

2. Use security cameras

Another good security measure is to install security cameras, both inside and outside of your premises. This will help you to monitor activity on your property and deter criminals.

3. Hire security guards

If you have the budget for it, another excellent security measure is to hire professional security guards. They can patrol your property and provide a visible deterrent to potential criminals.

4. Use facial recognition software

Facial recognition software is becoming increasingly popular as a security measure, as it can be used to track people who enter and exit your premises. This can be especially useful in identifying potential intruders.

5. Implement access control measures

One way to enhance security is to implement access control measures, such as requiring employees to wear ID badges or using key cards to enter certain areas. This can help you to keep track of who is on your property and prevent unauthorized people from gaining access.

6. Conduct background checks

If you’re hiring new employees, it is important to conduct background checks to ensure that they don’t have a criminal history. This will help you to avoid potential problems down the road.

7. Keep your premises clean and well-lit

A neat and well-lit premise is less likely to be targeted by criminals than a messy and dark one. So, keeping your property in good condition can act as a deterrent. In addition, it is important to trim back any bushes or trees that could provide cover for potential intruders.


8. Install a fence

If your premises are located in a high-crime area, you may want to consider installing a fence. This will help to deter potential criminals and make it more difficult for them to access your property.

9. Use motion sensor lights

Another good security measure is to install motion sensor lights around your property. These will turn on automatically when someone approaches, making it more difficult for criminals to operate undetected.

10. Train your employees

It is also essential to train your employees in basic security measures, such as how to handle cash, how to use the alarm system, and what to do in the event of an emergency. This will help them to be more alert and less likely to fall victim to crime.
In addition, it is important to educate your employees about security measures and make sure they know what to do in the event of an emergency. This includes things like knowing how to lock doors and windows, being aware of who is on the premises, and knowing where the fire exits are located.

11. Stay up-to-date on security trends

Security is an ever-changing field, so it’s crucial to stay up-to-date on the latest trends. This will help you to identify new threats and take steps to protect your business.

12. Review your insurance policy

Finally, make sure that you have a comprehensive insurance policy in place. This will cover you in the event that your property is damaged or destroyed by crime.

13. Invest in security

Ultimately, the best way to protect your business is to invest in security. This includes both physical security measures and cyber security measures. It’s also a good idea to review your security measures on a regular basis to ensure that they’re still effective. This will help you to identify any potential weaknesses and take steps to address them. By taking steps to secure your premises and data, you can help to keep your business safe from harm.

In today’s day and age, there’s something else you need to be thinking about:

Cyber Security.

The reason cyber security is so crucial for businesses is because hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated. They’re constantly finding new ways to break into systems and steal sensitive data. And if they can get their hands on your customer’s information, they can wreak havoc on their lives.

So what can you do to protect your business from these cyber threats?

Here Are A Few Things To Consider:

Invest in a good cyber security system:

This is one of the most important things you can do to protect your business. There are a lot of different cyber security systems out there, so do some research and find one that fits your needs.

Educate your employees:

Your employees are one of your biggest assets, but they can also be one of your biggest vulnerabilities. Make sure they know how to spot a phishing email or a suspicious website. And teach them not to click on links or attachments from people they don’t know.

Keep your software up to date:

Software updates often include security patches that can help protect your system from new threats. So make sure you’re always running the latest version of your operating system and applications.

Backup your data:

If hackers do manage to get into your system, they could delete or encrypt your data. That’s why it’s essential to have all your critical data to amazon backup security. That way, if the worst does happen, you’ll be able to recover it.

In Closing

These are just a few things to consider when it comes to cyber security. But ultimately, the best way to protect your business is to stay informed and stay vigilant. Cyber threats are constantly evolving, so you need to be prepared for anything.