How to Make Sure Your Company Data Is Safe

When starting a business, especially if your budget is tight, one does the utmost to be as cost-effective as possible.

Being cost-effective includes: hiring interns for admin tasks, finding the cheapest place for office space, and sometimes dumping a lot of functions on a few people (caution: if you don’t have a plan to bring in more employees soon, then this will be catastrophic and will result in employee turnover!)

But there’s an essential part of starting a company that new business owners should not overlook. And that’s data secrecy.

While the dot-com era opened a vast gate of knowledge and fast communication to people everywhere, these advanced telecommunication networks brought cyber warfare front and center of the new-age battlefield.

Now, the public worries about their data getting attacked by domestic hackers and foreign ones.

So how can you ensure the data of your company is safe and sound?

Take these three-pointers into consideration to get you started!

1. Have Employees Sign an Agreement

You just shook your recruit’s hand and made him take an oath of confidentiality?

Well, in a world of extreme honesty and trust, that would be enough. But we don’t live in such a world! That doesn’t mean that trustworthy people don’t exist, but what makes you so confident that ALL your employees are?

So nodding and shaking hands just doesn’t cut it!

You need to make them sign a confidentiality agreement stating what kind of consequences violators will face if they go against the contract. For instance, they can be sued by the company, serve time, or even be stripped of their licenses if they are certified professionals, like lawyers.

Making employees sign confidentiality agreements is crucial to prevent data leaks to other companies, especially to your competitors.

2. Hire an IT Specialist

We live in a world that’s dominated by everything tech and robotics. So if you’re not looking to employ a computer specialist, just because you don’t need them for now, you’ll be setting yourself up for failure.

Why?

Because just about anything you do in your office is done on a computer. Gone are the days when assistants had to search for files tucked away in cobwebs dating back to the 1980s.

This is the era of technology! And if you’re not in the club, you’re on the bench.

So don’t be a benchwarmer and get yourself an IT specialist. They can help you organize your files on PCs, teach older technologically impaired employees a few tricks, and maintain utmost secrecy of company data through utilizing updated software.

3. Use Cloud Storage

You might have heard about cloud storage through your buddies who use iPhones. Their data, from pictures, music to videos, is stored in the “cloud.”

The cloud is a server where you can store your data so no one can get a hold of your photos on your phone. It’s password-protected and confidential.

That’s for your phone. But what about your company data? Like your financial reports, for example?

Fortunately, with the current acceleration of new software development, there are ways you can use cloud accounting services to backup all your financial data and stop a stranger or a vengeful ex-employee from accessing sensitive information!