Do you own a small business? Are you concerned about security? Do you care about your customers’ privacy?
If you say “yes” to these questions, then you are in good company. In a recent study of small and medium-sized businesses (conducted by Kaseya and summarized at BetaNews), business owners stated that security was a key business concern for them. Fifty-four (54) percent believed that security was the most important issue which they faced.
Eighty-six (86) percent of these same survey respondents experienced network availability issues. And forty-five (45) percent of them experienced network service interruptions that lasted longer than five (5) minutes. Yet despite these risks, over seventy (70) percent of small business have chosen to use “external” services. Apparently, businesses – regardless of size – are accepting these risks. Indeed, many executives think that these risks are the very ‘table stakes’ that they must pay to stay “connected” to their customers.
What services do other companies purchase?
According to Mike Puglia, “Microsoft Office 365 leads the way as the most deployed solution (72 percent) followed by Dropbox (29 percent) and Salesforce and Google Suite both coming in with 17 percent.” Undoubtedly, every organization (with the possible exception of the telecos and the government) gets its connectivity from a service provider. And almost every company gets key services (like domain naming, site hosting, and email connections) from an external provider. Consequently, very few businesses can compete unless they are connected to the Internet. And very few businesses can make these connections on their own. Bottom Line: You must be connected to compete. And whenever you connect your resources to those of others, you are accepting the risk of exploitation.
What should you do to compete – and survive?
If you are a small or medium-sized business, then you need to use the same services that the big “enterprise” corporations use. But you can’t afford to maintain an entire department of IT professionals. So you need “corporate-sized” professional services at an affordable price. If you want scalable solutions that are affordably priced, then you should contact Lobo Strategies. We can help you walk this tightrope.