Levelling up your Small Business
Keeping it Simple
Levelling up is a very vague term, it can cover a huge gameat of your business, we will stick to IT technical subjects in this article and focus on a few idea's that tie back into other published articles.
Making the bed
I can't stand bits in the bed and crumpled sheets. Neat and tidy is the way forward. This is a philosophy you SHOULD be using with your computers. Neat and tidy computers are productive computers, how do you go about this?
Clean Slate
Start off with a clean machine. Transfer your data off the computer (In this day and age you shouldn't have much data on your business machines, that's an article for another day).
Erase/Wipe the computer and re-install the operating system
It's also at this point you should consider correcting any mistakes you may have made. Did you intent to sign in with that Apple ID, etc...
Machine Build
A clean slate then leads onto a machine build. This is a simple idea and consists of a few steps;
- Determine the software NEEDED for the machine to do the day to day work of the people it's needed for.
- List those requirements out, some software will be common to all, this you can call the base of the build.
- The other software can be group into functions, Design Build, Office build and Finance build as examples.
- Agree to those builds and the "software loadout". This way everyone involved knows what's going to be on the machines. Remember this isn't a static thing and evolve over time and will need to review periodically
- Profit! Only install the software that's needed to run the machine
A machine build makes your computers a more consistent experience and a known entity. You can determine that a clean built machine is a working machine. If a machine has a problem, wiping it and building back up to those specifications means anything else that is added/amended is a cause, which makes for quicker support
Machine building by hand is a slow process, even with these machine build concepts. There are plenty of options for speeding this up. In the MDM article, this is briefly mentioned. Many MDM solutions include tools that allow a machine to deploy software automatically, greatly speeding up the build process.
Lock down
Do you implement password policies? Why not? An insecure password is a easily comprosmised password. Many systems allow for minimum password lengths to be implemented. Using an MDM for your machines allows for that to be controlled
Enable the Firewall
Setup disk encryption
Make users standard users not Administrators. This prevents staff from installing software on the machine. It's also possible with the use of MDM tools to allow a standard user to install software OR make them a temporary Administrator (And acknowlegde and log that fact).
Lean and mean
Your computers are your productive assets keeping them in trim reduces support and therefore waste. Having a Designer be able to jump between machines and know that they can just get on and do their work is a massive safety net.
Effort in equals effort out. Investing in the infrastructure pays back the investment, even if on the surface you think you just spending money, you aren't, your maintaining and improving the business. The return on the investment is higher AND the longevity of your devices increases.
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