4 Ways Your Small Business Can Improve IT Processes

Maintain Sanity and Security For Your Business Without Breaking the Bank

When dealing with IT management for business support and growth, many small businesses are forced to do more with less, which can actually result in poorly-designed security measures.

Simple and effective steps and strategies that are also budget-friendly can have a huge impact on a business’s position in their industry market and allow leaders to focus on more pressing business matters.

The following tips provide examples of how several organizations are taking such aggressive results-oriented action:

 1. Improve Security Methods

Businesses often require employees to remember several different and complex passwords, which also need to be changed regularly according to company guidelines. To remember the passwords, employees often write them down and then store them somewhere to refer to later. These methods create a higher risk for security breaches for the business.

At All Star Automotive, in Baton Rouge, employees in every position throughout the company needed to log in to several different applications to perform their jobs. Each employee needed to remember log-in credentials for nine or more applications, which became frustrating. The solution? Single sign-on.

By implementing a single sign-on solution, employees no longer have to remember several different credentials. They simply log in once and the single sign-on system takes over the log-in process thereafter, initiating an automatic log in to all the applications and systems for which the employee is authorized.

 2. Reduction of Helpdesk Tickets

The IT department is often inundated with calls from users requesting help with issues that are simple, but are time consuming. This takes time away from other more technical projects that the IT department could be focusing on.

At Lifestyle Hearing, based in Canada, user accounts for employees needed to be created and controls put in place by the IT department. By automating their account management system, the human resources department now has controlled access through a web-based form to create an account that allows the company to easily enter the employee’s information, define their profiles and which systems they need access to.

Since HR now handles all account management tasks, the IT department has saved substantial time and is able to focus on other issues.

3. Timely System Updates and User Management

Managing end-user accounts for up-to-date access and accurate information can be difficult. These tasks are often performed manually and consume a large amount of time for IT employees.

At Springs Global of Fort Mill, South Carolina, information in the IT database was often inaccurate because information would only get changed when someone had noticed a difference and made the appropriate modifications.

To alleviate these issues, an automated account management solution was implemented to synchronize their HR system, Cyborg, with Active Directory each evening. This, in turn, populates other internal systems such as SharePoint, help desk software and the Exchange Global Address List. With changes made each night, employee information is now current and up to date.

 4. Delegation

Account management can be a time-consuming task for IT employees, and can take them away from working on higher level projects. Though the task could be handed off to other to the least experienced employees within an organization, this can cause a security risk.

Springs Global faced this situation and wanted to find a way to provide help desk administrators the ability to perform certain active directory tasks without giving them elevated rights. By automating its account management, the company now uses a “forms” system that allows HR employees to make minor changes, but not have elevated rights in the domain so that the systems remain secure.

This is done through several digital forms that allow HR employees to easily enter only the requested information in order to reduce error and ensure security.

By taking these four actions, leading organizations in a variety of market sectors have actually streamlined their efficiency and achieved measurable results, while saving time and money and securing access to their critical information.

These simple solutions mean long-term improvements for any organization making the changes and can improve overall operation of IT throughout a system.


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Reduce your talent-related costs with automated access-management solution

HR professionals at retail organizations know all too well that employee turnover can be extremely high - sometimes in excess of 70%. This means that talent might get hired, on-boarded and leave the organization in a matter of months – and the IT department doesn't even know about them. This is a very costly process and retail organizations have found that automated access-management solutions can help bring this expense down.

Many global retail organizations have implemented identity and access-management solutions as they realize an account management solution can automate the provisioning process, eliminating many hours of work and unnecessary costs.

In addition, many retail organizations use automated access-management solutions to improve the security of their networks. What's very interesting is that they're assigning their HR department to manage these solutions. Here's why:
Reduce your talent-related costs with automated access-management solution

• Once talent leaves the business, they're able to make changes to his or her profile as all accounts connected to that person are automatically disabled.

• This helps to ensure that employees who are no longer with the company can't access anything on the network once they've left. Since HR is the first to know about the turnover of talent, it makes sense to have this responsibility assigned to this department.

Managing information about your talent is as simple as entering their information into a form where the access-management solution automatically creates all his accounts in all the systems and applications he needs to work in. HR representatives are able to see quickly which employee has access to exactly what applications and what changes employees are making in the network, and are then able to work with talents' managers to make any needed corrections to access rights, if needed.

By using automated access-management solutions, HR departments are better able to manage employees and their on- and off-boarding while reducing the load on the IT departments. Since high employee turnover rates often require a full-time IT staff member to manage these tasks, automating the process allows for fewer IT positions to manage this. IT folks can then be reassigned to higher priorities or you can reduce their positions reduced, meaning the resources can be used in other areas of the business.

Organizations without such solutions or those without a plan to manage the process of automating this portion of the hiring process face several issues because of the high employee turnover rates.


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No need to be skeptical about BYOD with these 5 measures

Many organizational leaders remain skeptical of implementing a BYOD program because of the horror stories they hear about data breaches, access to the technology and employees taking advantage of the program. But like many landmark advances to the way business gets done, BYOD and the number of programs is likely only going to increase as it is one obvious solution for creating efficiency throughout a business environment.

There are several options for securing a successful strategy. The following five ways can ensure a successful BYOD strategy and free leaders from the problems that may sometimes cause:

1. Set up a BYOD policy from the beginning
By setting up a set of rules from the beginning, employees will know exactly what is expected from them so that there is no confusion about what using their own devices in the workplace means. This also will allow organization leaders the ability to define any repercussions should employees misuse or take advantage of the use of BYOD.

2. Use an IAM solution to register devices

In addition to all of the employee accounts, admins also will have to set up and register all employee devices. In the beginning especially there will be a large influx of new devices that need to be added, which is extremely time consuming if it is done manually. An IAM solution allows admins to easily add the new devices by simply adding them in Active Directory.

If desired, they can also allow end users to register the devices themselves. End users simply fill out a web form that is set up for a work flow request, which will then be automatically be sent to the appropriate manager or department for approval.

3. A process for disabling users

Allowing employees to use their own devices can lead to a security risk once the employee is no longer with the company. Since employees will be keeping the devices, they may potentially still be able to access the company’s network. An automated account management solution will allow managers to easily disable the user from all systems and applications with just one click, ensuring that the network stays secure.

4. Set guidelines for the types of devices allowed

One of the top issues with BYOD is that there are many different types, brands, operating systems, etc. for devices. When employees register their device with the company, they then expect the IT department to support it and resolve any issues with the device, which can be a headache for IT. An organization needs to set, from the beginning, which types and brands of devices they are going to support. They can then use an IAM solution, which easily can monitor and ensure that only these devices are registered and used. When a user then tries to register a device, only those which the company supports will be able to be registered.

5. Security for compliance and audit needs

It is important that the organization ensures that BYOD also meets audit and compliance needs. IAM software will help the organization to ensure that on their device users only has access to the systems and applications which they are supposed to. This information can then also be easily accessed when it comes to audit time.


For more information, please visit our website: www.tools4ver.com