5 IT Challenges from Business Growth and Their Solutions

So, your business is growing… Great! This must be an exciting period for you and your staff, bring futures await and success is bubbling. Growth, however, is not all sunshine and rainbows. When your business is growing, you’ll be met with a new host of challenges.

Challenges such as:

Resource Constraints: Limited finances, manpower, and infrastructure to cope with increased demand and expansion.

Cash Flow Management: Strain on cash flow as the business needs to invest in growth-related expenses while waiting for increased revenues to catch up.

Talent Acquisition: Difficulty in finding and retaining skilled employees to meet the growing demands and support the business’s expansion.

Scaling IT Infrastructure: Ensuring the existing IT infrastructure can handle the growing data, traffic, and security requirements becomes crucial.

An often overlooked is a businesses IT, with managers often seeing IT as too complex or as something that is not a core competency, when in fact it is the opposite. The backbone of your business is its IT, with poor infrastructure, your business will not grow.

So here are some commonly seen issues that arise as a result of business growth, why they are a challenge and what you can do to fix it.

Data Security and Privacy:

Protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access, data breaches, and cyber threats.

Solution: Regularly update software, apply security patches, implement strong authentication measures like multi-factor authentication, and encrypt sensitive data to ensure data security. Conduct regular security training for employees to enhance cybersecurity awareness.

Scalability and IT Infrastructure:

Adapting IT infrastructure to accommodate the business’s growing needs without disruptions or increased costs. IT is expensive, that is why when businesses begin to grow, the cost of expanding your infrastructure can look daunting.

Solution: Embrace cloud-based solutions for flexible and scalable resources. Invest in virtualization technologies to optimize server usage and reduce hardware costs. Partner with reliable IT service providers to ensure scalable support and infrastructure management.

IT System Downtime and Reliability:

Minimizing system downtime and ensuring IT systems are reliable and available when needed. The more people you have working, the higher the chance that something goes wrong on someone’s device.

Solution: Implement robust backup and disaster recovery plans to restore operations quickly in case of a system failure. Use redundant hardware and failover mechanisms to maintain continuous operations. Regularly monitor IT systems to identify and address potential issues before they cause downtime.

Cybersecurity Threats and Attacks:

Protecting the business from evolving cyber threats, malware, and data breaches. A massive problem for growing businesses is the risk of a data breach.

Solution: Install and update firewalls, antivirus, and anti-malware software to detect and block potential threats. Conduct regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to identify and address weaknesses in the system. Ensure you train employees on recognizing and handling phishing attempts and security best practices.

Data Management and Compliance:

Effectively managing data while adhering to industry regulations and data privacy laws can be tricky.

Solution: Create a comprehensive data management strategy, outlining data collection, storage, and usage practices. Implement data retention policies to comply with relevant regulations and dispose of data securely when no longer needed. Conduct audits to ensure the organization’s adherence to compliance standards.

Managing all this yourself is a large task, this is where an IT company can step in and do all the hard work for you. With many businesses already using MSP’s, it is becoming increasingly evident that the benefits of outsourcing your IT is not something that can be overlooked.

If you’re looking for an IT company to assist you in upgrading your IT infrastructure or are simply looking for some extra help on your businesses IT, head to our website and get a free quote on how much it could cost a business of your size – www.genmar.co.uk