As a business owner, you know that continuous, steady growth is an essential part of success. When you’re ready to get serious about scaling your organization, several vital activities must happen. Documented workflows and processes, streamlined hiring, onboarding and training, well-oiled marketing systems and more top the list. One key but often overlooked element of scaling success that can make or break your efforts is leveraging technology to enhance operations quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively.  

One resource necessary for growth is the cloud. The cloud, which now integrates with numerous AI tools, giving it more capabilities than ever before, allows you to streamline and automate your operations without large, unnecessary investments. 

In this article we’ll cover what the cloud is, the major benefits you should take advantage of and how you can use it to grow your organization without overspending.  

The cloud is simply a global infrastructure of servers that gives you remote, on-demand access to computer system resources, including data storage, over the Internet instead of on your computer’s hard drive. With these capabilities, your business doesn’t need to invest in its own hardware or software licenses, allowing you to pay only for what you use when you use it. Software and hardware can be expensive, making this a great solution for businesses in growth mode without unlimited budgets. 

How can the cloud help your organization? Here are 5 benefits to consider: 

1. Economies of Scale – As mentioned, with most cloud-based programs you can expand the services as your business grows. When revenue increases and you take on more clients, you can choose to upgrade your services or invest in new features or capabilities, so you never pay for more than you need at the time. It takes only a few clicks from an administrator.
   
    
2. Enhanced Collaboration – In a digital world, we need real-time access to tools for collaboration, no matter where our employees are. Cloud-based programs can typically be accessed anywhere in the world on any device by multiple members of the team simultaneously. This allows for colleagues to work on projects together even if they aren’t in a physical office or are in different time zones, increasing productivity all around.
   
    
3. Increased Automation – You can save money and your employees’ time by having cloud-based programs automate certain repeatable tasks such as regular backups, logging and monitoring networks, resource allocation and much more. Most business owners don’t know how many tasks they can automate or how much money and time they can save until they have an IT professional review their network.
   
    
4. Faster Access to Resources – With the cloud, your employees no longer have to wait for extensive downloads or installations. Most tools are readily available instantly, making it easier and faster to get work done.
   
    
5. Reduced Disaster Recovery Costs – Disasters rarely damage cloud-based data and assets that are hosted virtually on servers, not on hardware in the office. Your IT professional should have multiple backups of your data, so if something goes wrong, it will be easy to get it back up and running.  

Cloud-based programs are a great resource for business owners who want to scale. They are easy to use, simple and flexible to expand, cost-effective, great for collaboration, more secure than other programs and much more.  

If you think you’re not harnessing all the power that cloud tools provide, you’re probably not. The best next step is to have an IT professional do an in-depth review of your current network to find the areas of opportunity in your business.  

We offer a FREE Network Assessment, where we’ll extensively review your network and sit down with you to review what should be done differently to save you money and enhance your business operations. If you’re serious about scaling and want to do it the right way, click here to book a Network Assessment with our CEO Adam or call our office at 330-441-4426 to get a meeting on the schedule.  

If you’re not ready to book a call yet, then read this recent article from Quartz highlighting three businesses and what the cloud is helping them achieve. It’s a valuable read.  

You’ve all heard the stats – small businesses are the #1 target for cybercriminals because they’re easy targets, with a recent article in Security Magazine reporting that nearly two-thirds (63%) of small businesses have experienced a cyber-attack and 58% an actual breach. But what many still don’t understand (or simply don’t appreciate) is how much a cyber-attack can cost you. 

That’s why one of the fastest-growing categories in insurance is cyber liability. Cyber liability covers the massive costs associated with a breach, which may include the following, depending on your policy: 

• Legal fees to handle any number of lawsuits, including class action litigation against your organization, as well as fines and penalties incurred by a regulatory investigation by government and law enforcement agencies. 
• Negotiation and payment of a ransomware demand. 
• Data restoration and emergency IT fees to recover your network and get it operational again. 
• Customer notifications and credit and identity theft monitoring for clients and employees. 
• Public relations expertise and call center costs for taking inbound calls and questions. 
• Loss of revenue related to being unable to transact; if your operations and data are frozen, you might not be able to process sales and deliver goods and services for days or weeks.  
• Errors and omissions to cover liability related to a failure to perform and deliver services to customers, as well as allegations of negligence in protecting your customers’ data. 

If you want to make sure you don’t lose everything you worked so hard for to a cyber scumbag, cyber liability is a very important part of protecting your assets.  

But here’s what you need to know: In order to get coverage, businesses are required by insurance companies to implement much more robust and comprehensive cyber-protections. Obviously, the insurers want the companies they are underwriting to reduce the chances and the overall financial impact of a devastating cyber-attack, so they don’t have to pay out – and this is where you need to pay attention. 

MANY business owners are signing (verifying) that they DO have such policies and protections in place, such as 2FA, a strength of password requirement, employee awareness training and data recovery and backups, but aren’t actually implementing them, because they assume their IT company or person knows this and is doing what is outlined in the policy. Not so in many cases. 

Unless cyber security is your area of expertise, it’s very easy for you to misrepresent and make false statements in the application for insurance, which can lead to your being denied coverage in the event of an attack and having your policy rescinded.  

If you have cyber liability or similar insurance policies in place, I urge you to revisit the application you completed with your IT person or company to make absolutely certain they are doing everything you represented and affirmed you are doing. Your insurance agent or broker should be willing to assist you with this process since your IT company or person cannot be expected to be insurance professionals who know how to interpret the legal requirements outlined.  

What’s critical here is that you work with your IT company or person to ensure 100% compliance with the security standards, protocols and protections you agreed to and verified having in place when you applied for coverage. IF A BREACH HAPPENS, your insurance provider will NOT just cut you a check. They will conduct an investigation to determine what happened and what caused the breach. They will want to see tangible evidence and documentation that proves the preventative measures you had in place to ward off cyberthreats. If it’s discovered that you failed to put in place the adequate preventative measures that you affirmed you had in place and would continue to maintain your insurance application, your insurance company has every reason to deny your claim and coverage.  

If you have ANY concerns over this – including whether or not you need coverage, whether your coverage is sufficient and whether you are doing what you need to do to avoid an insurance denial, click here to schedule a quick consultation to discuss your current situation and to receive a referral to a cyber insurance expert we recommend.