Few things in the office are as frustrating as Internet connectivity issues, right? The router is right there, you seem to have a strong Wi-Fi signal, but your virtual meeting keeps disconnecting. What gives?
The reason is simple: a signal’s strength isn’t the same as how much information can get through. The difference is key to focusing on the right metrics and—most importantly—ensuring your team can work the way they need to.
IT is more than a necessary expense; it’s a tool to get your business into a more advantageous position, one where you can make more money and help more people. The only way you can get to this point, however, is if your IT is yielding a return on your investment; otherwise, it will always feel like a money pit.
With the new year just around the corner, you’re probably wondering what the latest cybersecurity threats will have in store for small businesses like yours. One such threat is the rise of agentic AI, which capitalizes on the weakest link in any business’ cybersecurity infrastructure: its human elements. If you already have a hard time figuring out if the person on the other end of the phone line is human, just wait… It’s only going to get worse.
It’s not exactly a secret that the holiday season is—speaking generally—a pretty busy time for businesses. This makes any slowness in your network particularly frustrating to deal with, and potentially alienating to your audience. So what can be done?
For starters, the following five fixes:
Be honest: Do you have a real plan for the day your server goes dark? We're not talking about a little glitch—we mean a full, sudden stop due to a failed disk, a nasty strain of ransomware, or an accidental keyboard slip. For too many businesses, the "plan" is just that dusty external drive they plug in at closing time. This isn't a strategy; it's a prayer, and one that will go unheard when you need it most.
That false comfort is your biggest IT blind spot, because if a simple copy-paste job was enough, we wouldn't see businesses vanish after a single data incident. Stop crossing your fingers and let's get you a recovery plan that actually works.
