Better business with best practices

For the small business, the onslaught of new technology and implementing technological changes can be a bear to overcome.

In most cases, there is only one person who handles the day-to-day technical administration tasks while also performing another job (i.e. bookkeeping, errands, etc.)

This person is usually tasked with keeping everything up and running and “fixing” any issues that arise throughout the day. In most cases, there is little or no documentation on any changes to the systems or steps taken to resolve problems.

This scenario is very common and can help smaller shops be efficient with their technology overhead, but the lack of documentation follow up can be a problem.

If smaller businesses do not utilize a set of “best practices” they can end up paying more in the long run.

What does “best practices” mean exactly? A best practice simply means the best way to do a specific task.

In the IT world there are many best practices. Most companies that have any size IT staff, (just one or several hundred members) will utilize a set of best practices, or internally referred to as Policies and Procedures.

In recent years, public companies have been mandated to comply with several different controls around IT assets. You may have heard of SOX which refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that mandates all public companies to abide by a strict set of controls surrounding financial reporting information.

The push to comply with a strict set of controls has many companies re-visiting their current practices and constantly tweaking their efforts towards utilizing “best practices”.

OK, so what does all of this mean to the small, privately-held, business owner?

Take advantage of the abundant amount of information surrounding the SOX compliance movement. There are many different controls that are relevant to any business; whether you have one computer or one thousand.

Building a set of policies and procedures that is relevant to your IT infrastructure is a great way to protect your investment and ensure you get the most out of your assets.

In next weeks’ column, I will discuss a few of the “best practices” I am referring to and give you a few resources to go to for more information.