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Until recently, most businesses were scared of remote work. However, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, our perception of working from home has significantly changed. Nowadays, even large companies have fully remote teams, with many of their members hailing from various countries.
While remote work is excellent for cutting costs and improving everyone’s quality of life, it does come with its fair share of issues. IT problems, in particular, tend to be debilitating for service providers and online shops that don’t have physical premises.
Luckily, most of these problems can be averted by partnering with external tech teams. “Hiring an MSP will almost completely isolate you from external threats,” according to IT Management Solutions, a New Hampshire IT Services company. These companies will safeguard your data and ensure smooth daily operations.
Biggest IT Challenges for Remote Businesses
If you’re a small company that mostly does its business online, you have to tackle all sorts of issues. Among others, you have to manage a team of people who likely live in various countries. There’s also an issue with time zones and different levels of tech savvies.
When we also consider IT-related problems, the situation becomes much stickier. So, without further ado, these are some of the tech challenges small businesses have to tackle:
If you lead a remote team that consists of 5 people living in 5 countries, this means you have to oversee 5 computers. Each employee will have to update their software to keep up with the workflow. Furthermore, through patching, your staff reduces the chance of being a target of cyber attacks.
The best way to tackle the issue is by having a long-term software management plan. With it, you can update all programs across the board without interrupting employees’ work.
Many IT issues have to be resolved quick. Unfortunately, if your team is working remotely, they won’t be as proactive tackling all these problems. Instead, they would wait for a weekend to fix these problems. The problem gets even worse if a staffer lives in a completely different time zone and can’t reach the support center that fast.
Lack of human touch and dependence on communication channels is especially tricky for remote workers. These factors have a major impact on the staff’s morale and, with it, their productivity. The issue is compounded due to glitches and other software issues.
For example, a member of your team might become increasingly frustrated if their live chat tool doesn’t work as intended. In many cases, the issues with communication and project management tools lead to unnecessary backtracking and further dissatisfaction.
Similar to patching, each user has to introduce their own security measures. In other words, each computer needs to have the same program and configuration while employees perform regular updates. Even then, some of your staffers might download suspicious files as they’re probably using the computer for both work and personal needs.
Best Practices for Remote IT Support
The good news is that you can improve your current state in all sorts of ways. Besides hiring a reputable MSP, which is a surefire solution, you can implement other practices for improving device and software protection and usefulness.
Whether you like it or not, you will have to introduce various cloud solutions into your workflow. While office teams might survive with traditional programs, remote businesses must rely on the cloud concept. With these programs, you can easily save data online and allow access to other users.
Another great thing about cloud tools is that they remove the need for complex infrastructure. You won’t need to build your own servers and solutions as all data will be stored on external sources. Although this will reduce your oversight and expose you to provider-related risks, it will make your data management a breeze.
Due to previously mentioned challenges, security is an especially touchy subject. Unless you provide each worker with their personal device, you don’t have any authority over their computer. As such, you can’t tell them how to use it while they’re off work.
However, you can tell them to install certain programs that will keep them safe. Besides your usual cybersecurity software, which you should pay for, the employees should introduce other measures. Two-factor authentication and identity access management solutions are a good way to protect your micro network.
Of course, each employee should also use a password for their device and make sure they don’t leave their laptops in public. That way, they can protect their data from direct, physical intrusion.
We understand small businesses don’t have the money to run a full-scale call center. Nevertheless, you should have one person in charge who would provide support for the entire team. Preferably, this individual would be an IT expert.
With support professional in their corner, your team members will know what to do in case of a breach or other tech-related issue. They can react quickly to treats, update and configure software the right way, and use other, best practices.
Updates are another big issue for remote companies. Even if you hire a professional for this particular task, they might struggle to keep tabs on all employee software. Because of that, it’s best you rely on automated updates.
The programs can patch in the background without staff members having any knowledge of what’s happening. Although you’ll have to relinquish control over updates that you like and don’t like, it beats staying unprotected.
Last Thoughts
Most managers try to micromanage their staff’s software needs, especially if they’re tech experts. However, no matter how much you might try, there will always be some issues you might overlook. What’s worse, all this back-and-forth regarding patches and cybersecurity software will avert your attention from things that matter.
To address the issue, it’s best you hire an MSP. These providers will take care of your entire team, allowing you to focus on your day-to-day business.
