Info Tech Inc

We’re living and operating in a technology-fueled business world where even the smallest companies are required to build out IT infrastructures in order to stay current and competitive. But with the high cost of IT, many small business owners are left wondering how they can afford to continue without depleting their financial reserves.

5 Ways to Lower IT Costs

If your business is in a position where IT costs have become exuberant and oppressive, you aren’t alone. But thankfully, there are some rather simple steps you can take to slash these expenses while still adding value to your organization.

Let’s explore a few of them in further detail:

1. Try Contract Staffing

People are expensive. Go ahead and review your IT budget right now and you’ll see that salaries, wages, and benefits represent a big piece of the pie. In particular, it’s challenging to control costs when you fluctuate between busy periods and slow stretches.

“To save money, you can turn to contract staffing. You can maintain adequate staffing levels to handle the company’s slow periods. Contract staffing can then fill in the gaps and help you manage higher-demand periods,” staffing expert Courtney Gakman writes. “It may make sense to outsource contract staffing recruitment to save time and money. When a new project approaches, a technical recruitment company can quickly find contractors for you. When the project ends, you can let them go. This flexibility can help you keep your personnel costs under control.”

The more scalable you make your IT investments, the less you’ll waste on resources you don’t need, just so you can weather the slow seasons and wait for the busy periods.

2. Consider Forgoing Software Updates

Software maintenance can get expensive. After just five years, the average company spends more money on maintaining and updating software than they did on the original purchase price of the software. And it’s for this reason that a lot of companies are opting to perform fewer updates. (Cloud SaaS is obviously another solution. When you’re operating on the cloud, most updates occur automatically and don’t cost you a dime.)

3. Leverage a GPO

As you know, small businesses often face a disadvantage when it comes to purchases. Because of your small size and limited purchase needs, you don’t always qualify for the same bulk discounts that larger organizations do. This increases your costs on IT expenditures and limits your ability to generate the necessary ROI. But what if there were another way?

Consider joining a Group Purchasing Organization, or GPO, which works a lot like a Costco or Sam’s Club. A GPO is basically a network of businesses that band together to maximize their purchasing power in order to receive significant discounts and savings on the products and services they purchase – including hardware and software.

4. Try Telecommuting

IT is one of those fields where you don’t always need your team to be physically present in the same environment. This makes it the perfect industry for telecommuting.

When employees telecommute, you don’t require the same square footage, which allows you to save on office space. You also consume far fewer utilities. Then there’s the added benefit of more satisfied employees, which theoretically results in greater productivity and less turnover.

5. Automate Certain IT Services

Be mindful of how your employees are using their time. Are there certain tasks you can automate to better utilize time and save money?

“Automation and machine learning tools could reduce or even eliminate these huge ongoing IT costs,” IT pro William Goddard writes. “Algorithms – even chatbots – can be used to personalize permissions for new hires and existing employees. Machine learning solutions can be utilized to monitor events and automatically refresh printers and other IT equipment without staff having to get involved.”

Depending on your industry, you may find half a dozen or more tasks that can be automated. In doing so, you’ll increase efficiency, lower expenses, and add more value to the bottom line.

What’s Your Game Plan?

As you can see, it’s possible to lower IT costs and still add value to your business. The biggest challenge is determining which methods you’ll implement and how you can strategically shift your approach so that you continue to maximize operational efficiency while simultaneously enjoying lower expenditures. It could take months to figure out the perfect blend. Slow down and patiently wait for the right results.

If you’re like most consumers, you do a lot of online shopping. Generally speaking, online shopping is safer now than it’s ever been before—but every year, hundreds of thousands of people are the victims of online fraud.

You might not get what you pay for. You might unwittingly hand your personal information over to a cybercriminal. You might be the victim of overcharging, or other schemes meant to tap into your bank information.

Fortunately, there are a number of steps that you can take, as a consumer, to make your online purchases safer.

Choose Your Platforms Carefully

First, choose your platforms and online stores carefully. Some platforms offer much greater protection than others. Websites and platforms with a long history and tons of consumer reviews are generally more trustworthy than sites that have just emerged. Check to make sure the site provides SSL encryption (denoted by HTTPS instead of HTTP), and investigate to learn what kind of payment processing they use.

You’ll also want to look up the company’s policies and security measures; for example, does this company offer fraud protection for their customers? What kind of return policy do they offer? Only do business with companies you trust.

Always Double Check the Legitimacy of the Site

Even if you trust a high-profile, well-known name in the industry, it’s important to double-check to ensure the legitimacy of a site before you complete a purchase. Occasionally, cybercriminals will mock up a site designed to look like a legitimate site, with the sole intention of nabbing your personal information. When this happens, you’ll usually be able to notice something out of place—like a logo that doesn’t look quite right, an unfamiliar URL, or a checkout process that isn’t what you’re used to.

Consider Using Prepaid Debit Cards

Prepaid debit cards are loaded with a fixed amount of money, and can usually be used like any standard debit or credit card. If a thief gets access to your credit card or debit card information, they could rack up debt in your name or make purchases without your consent. But if they steal the information of a prepaid debit card, there’s an upper limit to how much damage they can cause.

Use Cards and Payment Services With Fraud Protection

These days, most credit card providers and other financial institutions offer some measure of fraud protection. If someone makes an unauthorized purchase on your account, you’ll be entitled to a full refund (and a new credit card) after reporting the issue. However, you shouldn’t flatly assume that you have this protection; do your research and only work with the institutions that offer suitable perks for their customers.

Additionally, it’s important for you to keep a close eye on your accounts. Monitor for any suspicious charges, or purchases you don’t remember authorizing.

Use Strong Passwords, and Change Them Often

Most online stores require you to create and use an account for all your purchases. If your password is weak, or easy to guess, it’s only a matter of time before someone gains access to that account (and could potentially make purchases in your name).

The best way to fight against this is to choose a strong password, with a mix of characters (like lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special symbols), and a high number of characters. Be sure to change your password regularly as well.

Avoid Public Wi-Fi

When making online purchases, make sure you’re only using a secure, trusted network. If you use public Wi-Fi, you may be rendering yourself vulnerable. Because the Wi-Fi network isn’t secured, anyone with access to the network could feasibly gain access to the information you’re transmitting. As long as you use a network with decent security and a password restricting access, you should be fine.

Understand Common Schemes

It’s also a good idea to educate yourself on common schemes executed by cybercriminals. For example, if someone gets access to your email address, they may send you a message masquerading as a representative from an online store, asking for your password or credit card information. You may also stumble upon a fake online form asking you for your information (a scam known as phishing). The better you understand these tricks, the better you can avoid them.

These days, online shopping is relatively safe, and most people are able to make purchases on a regular basis without dealing with scams or fraudulent transactions. However, it’s still important to learn and adhere to best practices for online security. Thankfully, you don’t need to be a tech expert or spend much time or money to guard yourself; even the most rudimentary steps can keep you relatively safe in this online environment.

Smart home technology is no longer reserved for the rich. In today’s real estate market, many homes come with a standard package of smart devices like thermostats, locks, and security systems. This applies to homes for sale and rentals.

While smart home devices are convenient, tenants are concerned that internet-connected devices are a threat to their privacy. For instance, an increasing number of landlords are using automatic door locks with facial recognition systems to grant entry into the building. Tenants who don’t want to be tracked and recorded have filed lawsuits to stop this practice.

While smart surveillance relying on biometric data can be invasive, not all landlords are trying to be nosy. Most landlords just want to secure their building and keep unauthorized people off the property. Plus, smart home technology has the potential to provide the landlord with more income. Who wouldn’t pay a little extra to control the thermostat from the comfort of a warm bed?

Although tenant convenience and security have been the top incentives for landlords to implement smart technology, a company called Teman GateGuard promises to use this technology to solve another problem for landlords.

Landlords are being encouraged to use smart technology to raise the rent

According to cnet.com, Teman GateGuard is pitching smart surveillance technology to landlords in New York to help them sidestep new rent control regulations that prevent them from collecting market rate for their units. With this new legislation, the only way New York landlords can raise the rent to market prices in a rent-stabilized unit is to vacate the unit. Gate Guard promises to solve this problem, but first it’s important to understand what happened with New York’s rent control laws.

New York rent control is now stricter than ever

In June 2019, New York passed legislation that makes it harder for landlords to raise rents for rent-stabilized units. Under former regulations, a landlord could charge market price for a rent-stabilized unit occupied by a tenant making $200,000 per year or more. A landlord could also increase the rent by up to 6% following a major capital improvement to the building. However, the new legislation eliminates and diminishes those exceptions.

That’s where Teman GateGuard comes in. Landlords are being told they can use a product called the AI Doorman Intercom to photograph all visitors to find out if a tenant is breaking the rules like illegally subletting or running an Airbnb. When a tenant breaks the rules, they can be evicted.

Using smart video surveillance to monitor tenants could be the best way for landlords to prove a tenant is violating their lease. However, tenants don’t like being watched.

Privacy is still a big concern for tenants

Landlords want tenants to follow the rules and pay rent on time. Tenants want their landlords to stay out of their business. Landlords who use video surveillance beyond a simple security camera for common areas usually come under fire in the courts.

Perhaps the biggest concern tenants have is privacy over their data. For instance, when a tenant uses a key fob to enter or exit an apartment building, that data is recorded, and the landlord will know when a tenant and their family members are home. Since there are no laws detailing what can be done with data collected this way, landlords could potentially sell it to advertisers – or anyone.

A bigger concern over privacy was explained in the New York Times. “In the most concerning cases, some smart home systems give landlords access to a resident’s utility data, such as heat, electricity and Wi-Fi usage rates. Using this information, bad actor landlords have a new tool at their disposal to harass tenants – and in some cases, try to evict them.”

It’s time to blend convenience with privacy

Keyless entry and biometric video surveillance offer tenants convenience and security, although it comes at a price. Ideally, trustworthy landlords will use this technology for good and not take advantage of tenant privacy. The challenge for tenants is renting from landlords who won’t abuse the technology.

Currently proposed legislation seeks to make it illegal for residential landlords to use facial recognition technology in New York, and other legislation seeks to give tenants control over any data collected by landlords.

New York is the first state to take action against these privacy violations and the state’s success will inspire other states and cities to follow suit.

Whether you’re running a full-fledged eCommerce store or you’re simply selling a few pieces of premium content, you’ll need some way to collect payments from customers. That also means you need to keep their payment data safe—and improve the security of your website overall.

Website security is not something to take lightly. If your customers’ data are compromised, you may never be able to fully recover; not only will it be tremendously expensive to recover and make up for the compromised data, your brand reputation will suffer. Fortunately, there are a handful of strategies that can improve your payment security—and none of them are expensive to implement.

Choose the Right Payment Processing Provider

First, understand that there are many payment processors to choose from. Most of the household names, like PayPal, Authorize.net, and Stripe, have a good reputation for a reason; they’ve had a history of processing payments securely, with few (if any) security issues. They also update their connections regularly, and may have built-in security features, like alerts of suspicious activity. Make sure you investigate the reputation and history of your payment processor in addition to inquiring about basic features and pricing.

Don’t Gather Data Unless You Have To

You might be able to save your customers’ credit card numbers on the backend of your site, but every piece of personal data you store is another vulnerability. Chances are, there’s another solution. In some cases, you can simply avoid gathering the piece of data in question; for example, you might avoid collecting social security numbers (SSNs) altogether. In others, you can simply allow a third-party payment specialist to capture and store consumer data. That way, you won’t be directly responsible for storing and protecting that information.

Mandate Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication is a simple security measure that can make each of your customers’ accounts safer. Ordinarily, entrepreneurs are encouraged to make the checkout process as fast and easy as possible, reducing the number of clicks necessary and the number of steps between a customer and their payment. With two-factor authentication, you’ll require customers to provide not only a personal password, but also a unique code sent to their mobile phone, email address, or other contact option. This can slow down the checkout process, but it sharply increases the security of the transaction. It’s worth upgrading.

Require Strong Passwords (and Force Changes)

Even if you’re using the most secure payment processor available, if your customer’s account is compromised due to a guessed or stolen password, their account could still be the subject of fraud. Accordingly, you can prevent issues by requiring stronger passwords. The general approach is to require customers to use a mix of different characters, including lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special symbols. In addition, the password should be a minimum length—and the longer it is, the more secure it is. As one last measure, force your customers to change their passwords on a regular basis (like once or twice a year).

Get an SSL Certificate

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is a document that verifies your ownership of a security technology that allows for encrypted communication between web browsers and web servers. Once enabled, your SSL encryption will allow your site to display with “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP.”

There are two reasons why this is important. First, it will authenticate the identity of your website; if customers visit a website that looks and functions like yours (but is being fraudulently hosted by a cybercriminal), they won’t be fooled into handing over their login credentials. Second, it encrypts any and all data being transferred between parties, protecting it from being intercepted.

Actively Monitor Your Site for Suspicious Activity

It’s also a good idea to monitor your site for suspicious activity, like fraudulent accounts or bots. Depending on your website server and what plugins you’re using, you may have access to a built-in option for this. You’ll also want to actively monitor activity through your payment processing provider.

Educate Customers About Possible Scams

Even with all these security standards in place, it’s possible for your customers to fall for scams that render them vulnerable. If you want to go the extra mile, you can work to educate them about these scams. For example, you can warn them about suspicious emails or sites masquerading as authoritative sites, or you can caution them never to provide their password to anyone, even if they seem like a staff member.

Online security is one of the best investments you can make as an online retailer or website that collects payments from customers. It may take some time and effort to establish a secure foundation, but it’s far better than waiting until an incident has already occurred.