Looking to hire IT staff?

Where Automation Fits

Businesses have been committed to automation to both keep costs down and to keep their staff from having to deal with elements of the business that may not suit them. Many businesses not only try to add technology-driven automation to their production processes, they routinely use them in their administrative processes. The most frequent parts of a business that gets automated today are: 

Sales and Lead Acquisition 

Two of the most crucial parts to running a successful business are selling your products and services and finding new customers, and since sales is a competitive and costly side of your business, using automation only makes sense. Today, businesses automate all types of sales and lead acquisition activities, including:

• Lead scoring - Using the metrics available, automated algorithms can score businesses on their likelihood to need and want the products or services you offer. 
• Client onboarding - After your business signs up a customer, automating a welcome package can not only make the client at ease with their decision, it can keep from having to assign your staff to handle it—which can be a massive cost savings.
• Follow-ups - Automating follow-ups can help keep prospects engaged without spending time and resources on doing so.

Marketing

Businesses may not be able to completely automate their marketing, but automating some of their marketing processes can keep costs down and allow a business to do more. Here are some places automation works for marketing:

• Email marketing - Targeting potential customers or keeping current customers engaged can often be difficult. With automation, you can automatically roll out different marketing materials at different intervals in the client-business relationship.
• Social media - Social media is a great tool for small business marketing, but with so many platforms to manage, it can be costly and time consuming. By automating your ability to push out promotional materials and status updates, you can make a potentially never-ending job work. 

Customer Relationships

Cultivating positive customer relationships is much harder than it seems. Many different parts of your business need to work together to make it happen. Many businesses utilize Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that brings a lot of solid automation with it. These include:

• Workflow management - Maintaining a consistent workflow keeps your business efficient and productive, leaning on automated tools such as setting appointments and delivering necessary reports to decision makers can go a long way toward building functioning and prosperous customer relationships.
• Chatbot support - Automating customer support using AI-fueled chatbots can drastically improve your business’ ability to support your products and services, while also saving substantial capital. 

Administrative 

Finally, automating aspects of your administrative tasks can save a lot of headaches for the people that work in human resources and make it possible to streamline your business. Here are two ways automation fuels efficient administrative management:

• Recruitment - A lot has been made recently about the hardships many small businesses are having finding people that fit their business. There is software developed that automates the job of listing openings, allowing businesses to spend less to find the right candidates for their current openings. 
• Data backup - Automating the data backup process has changed the way people look at business continuity. Now, systems are more reliably protecting the data that is so key to running a modern business. 

The Negative Perception of Automation

With all the good things automation can do for a business, there is one major negative aspect. For the more jobs that computers and software can handle, people are going to be doing those jobs less and less. This has many people thinking that if they aren’t needed to do the job, they are expendable.

This theory is more of a bound than a step.

You see it’s true that with the rise of automation, less human resources are going to be needed to do the job. Machines are more efficient, more productive, and return a lot more than a human worker. This fact makes workers nervous. The truth is, however, that what is happening is more of a shift than a complete assault on the worker. Workers are still needed, they are just needed to have different skills. For centuries physical and manual labor was in high demand, but with increases in automation social and technological skills will be in higher demand. 

Make no mistake about it, it’s a big deal as many older workers will find themselves being replaced with machines and with less time available to learn new skills, it could create problems for society. For younger workers, this shift won’t be as dire. 

What Will Companies Do?

You know that companies will almost always make the decision to benefit their stakeholders. In the small business sector, this isn’t as evident as it is with enterprises, but it will still be an issue. Businesses have some responsibility when figuring out what to do with their workers. Here are two ways the modern business will deal with the rampant escalation in their automated efforts:

• Employee retraining - The first one is obvious. You have workers that are put out by your new automated tools, retraining them to do something else for the business should be a priority. This builds a positive company culture and while some employees won’t take to it as well as others, it is a positive strategy that will get your workforce the skills they need to help your business move forward.
• Employee redeployment - This is the strategy of taking employees with specific skills and building workflows that take advantage of them. Changing workflows to support your employees is a strategy most businesses should already be doing, but if you plan on dispatching more automation, it will become more important than ever. 

Automation is here to stay, and with innovations happening in quick succession, you need to be ready. If you would like to talk to one of our IT professionals about getting new automated tools or how to fit them into your business, give Digital Seattle a call today at (206) 709-9556. 

Hardware Failure

Technology does not last forever, and you cannot expect it to either. Your components will fail eventually, so do your part now to prepare for such an event before it occurs. Monitoring solutions these days are excellent at predicting hardware failures and other such events, so consider implementing a solution like this to keep hardware failure from becoming a problem for your business.

Natural Disasters

If your business is not in a disaster zone, it can be easy to think that your organization won’t suffer from one. Unfortunately, even disasters are not limited by geographic locations; certain disasters are more prevalent in disaster zones, but others aren’t exclusive. Businesses are susceptible to hurricanes, tornadoes, structural fires, power surges, earthquakes, and so on, so you’ll need to have a strategy in place to address them from both data and human resource aspects.

Hacking Attacks and Security Breaches

It’s hard to tell when your business will be struck by threats, especially those infiltrating through the Internet. Regular backups can keep threats from derailing your organization’s operations by giving you an out in the event you need to “go nuclear” on any threats that breach your infrastructure.

User Error

People make mistakes, so you need to be ready for the fallout of these mistakes, too. Sometimes they can be so bad that you don’t have any other choice but to use a data backup to resolve the issue. User error can be avoided through adequate training as well as access control for critical systems and important data.

The biggest way to keep disasters from becoming issues for your business is to take proactive measures now and be ready for just about anything. One such way you can do so is by implementing data backup and disaster recovery of your own by working with Digital Seattle. Our solutions are designed to be automated and hands-off on your part, meaning you don’t have to risk things going even more wrong in the face of issues. To learn more, reach out to us at (206) 709-9556.

First of All, Don’t Panic

If you suddenly get a message from a ransomware attacker claiming that the files on your computer have been locked down, first of all, don’t panic. Ransomware is scary, but there is a chance that the attacker really hasn’t infected your device. Some recent threat actors have been able to make a quick buck with “fake ransomware” attacks, where the threat is so dangerous that they can make money just from the panic these attacks can create.

Also, you absolutely should not pay the ransom without first consulting your trusted IT resource. You don’t know if the situation is out of control just yet, so it’s best to not make any impulsive decisions. Paying the ransom only proves that ransomware is effective and further funds future ransomware attacks against other businesses like yours.

Contact Your Trusted IT Resource

Regardless of the extent of the attack, your business needs to contact its trusted IT resource to accurately gauge its impacts. Depending on how bad it is, you might be able to get away with restoring a data backup to a point before the ransomware attack struck. If the hacker is using double-extortion methods, however, this might not be possible. Either way, you don’t want to take action until you have had a discussion with your IT resource about what to do. There is almost always another option available, so you want to know what these are before you commit to any one in particular.

Implement Proactive Measures for the Future

Obviously you don’t want to suffer from another ransomware attack in the future, so it’s best practice to prevent these types of threats from infecting your infrastructure in the first place. You can do so with comprehensive security measures designed to keep threats out of your systems. Furthermore, we recommend that you implement multi-factor authentication and train your employees to identify threats. Doing so can keep your employees from making silly mistakes due to social engineering attacks, as well as limit user access controls in the event someone does slip up.

Digital Seattle can help you implement any measures needed to keep ransomware at bay, including cybersecurity training for your business’ employees so they are more cognizant of the threat in the future. To learn more, reach out to us at (206) 709-9556.