As business owners, it’s a given that you should be concerned about cybersecurity. Here are a few more shoulds:

Computers should be protected by an antivirus system.
Data should be backed up at least once a day.
There should be a business class firewall in place.

How vulnerable is your organization?
The challenge of data security is real and requires your attention and efforts as a business owner. And there are costs involved. If you are a small business owner or executive, chances are when you did your budgeting for next year your cybersecurity line item isn't large enough – probably because no one helped you understand where to start.

Forbes recently had an interesting article - "Think you have Cybersecurity Taken Care of? Think Again." The article states that despite the fact that we all know how critical a strong cybersecurity posture is, cyberattacks increased by 32% from Q1 2017 to Q1 2018.

The statistic is scary enough, but couple this with the fact that the bad actors aren't just targeting the large companies that move significant sums of money.

You often need to gather info from a variety of people in your business life. Isn’t it easier when you have a fillable form to enter, instead of printing, entering, scanning then re-entering? When you think fillable forms, you often think Acrobat or web, but did you know that you can create a fillable form in Microsoft Word as well?

To use this feature, first you need to turn it on: In Word, click on File > Options > Customize Ribbon > and then check the Developer tab check box in the right hand column.

I meet with a lot of business owners and senior executives, and a recurring theme that appears in many of these conversations is a desire to improve their business processes. When you break it down, businesses are just a series of processes undertaken to get a job done.

I love finding validation for my business ideas, especially when it comes from such a respected resource as AICPA.  Recently, an article was posted under their "The Practicing CPA" column called "Improving Your Firm's Technology Strategy by Dispelling Myths".  In his article, Donny Shimamoto, brings up 4 points that we come across all too often.

Key Performance Indicators are business metrics used to evaluate factors that are crucial to the success of an organization. They help a company stay on track towards its goals and objectives, analyze performance against its market competition, and evaluate the need for change and/or efficiency in key measurement areas.

Today I am going to talk about two technical frustrations that have easy to do solutions.  These are things that caused me much angst every time my machine rebooted on its own.
Open recently closed tabs in Google Chrome
The first issue, and the easier one, has to do with the fact that I keep a lot of browser windows open.

How many users in your organization have access to data to which they should not? Do you know? What would it take to determine?

When we are asked to perform a risk analysis for a company, the principals are often shocked to realize the state of their data.

The blogs I have written over last couple of weeks have been about avoiding the temptation of “canned” strategies, and aspiring towards palatable organizational goals. Internal business processes are the steps companies can take in order to achieve its goals, and subsequently, fulfill its strategy.