4 Essentials for Business Technology Management

Proper business technology management is imperative in the information age. It plays a huge role in helping businesses find success. Overall, technology is what fuels business growth and managing technological assets is as important as managing any other business asset. Here are 4 essentials for business technology management.

Maintain a Strategic Technology Plan

The single most important thing that you can do when managing business technology is to make sure you maintain a strategic technology plan. A strategic technology plan is a technology plan that details short term, medium term, and long term plans. It details what the company plans to accomplish and how technology can be utilized to make it happen. This plan will also include budgets for technology. A strategic technology plan will provide policy guidance when it comes to backups, network security, and IT policies. It also provides a roadmap for the company’s tech assets.

Perform Regular Backups

As any strategic technology plan will demand, regular backups are an essential tool for business technology management. A solid backup policy will utilize both on site and off site backups. The data backups should consist of at least full weekly backups along with daily incremental backups. Backups should be kept for a sufficient time to ensure data is accessible even if accidentally deleted and only later discovered.

The importance of offsite backups can’t be stressed enough. In case of natural or manmade disaster, onsite backups could be partially or completely destroyed. Cloud storage is cheap and products like Amazon Cold Storage make long term data storage even more economical. It’s hard to argue against the importance of offsite backups.

Secure Your Networks

Another essential for technology management is network security. Data theft from hacking and other network security issues costs US business untold amounts every year. There are headlines nearly every month about a major data theft incident. Ensuring that networks are secure from intrusion is important.

Certain companies offer several products designed to help businesses properly protect themselves from intrusion and data theft. Things like this can really be a huge help for proactively managing your network and avoiding data threats.

Use VPNs

VPN usage is an essential technology management tool. It provides a secure internet link between two computers. The link is encrypted and data is protected. VPNs should be the norm for remote workers and for traveling workers. There is so much danger when it comes to data being passed over the internet. Unsecure Wi-Fi networks allow anyone to intercept traffic, but a VPN will encrypt and secure these open networks. VPNs can either be internally provisioned or a third party company can be utilized to handle the VPNs.

Overall, data and information are some of your most valuable assets in a business. That is why it is essential for you to keep it maintained and organized. Technology management is important and these essential technology management tips will help ensure that your business data, information, and network are protected.

Author: Kara Masterson is a freelance writer from Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah and enjoys writing and spending time with her dog, Max. Kara recommends companies such as Stealthbits as a great resource to help you better manage your company’s technology.