When it comes to protecting a business, many business owners think simply of alarm systems or various ways to lock up and secure their business’ premises at night. In the modern world, however, nighttime intruders may be the least of your concerns. Today, businesses have far more to protect than just the physical property they own or the goods they sell. Here are three ways that modern businesses need to protect their business.
Employees
Hiring the wrong employees can spell disaster for a company. From employee theft and fraud to employee scandals that reflect poorly on the company, the behavior of your employees can have a strong impact on your business. While a resume can tell you what kind of experience a potential hire has, it can’t tell you what kind of experiences previous employers had with that person.
Strict labor laws in some states may also prevent many previous employers from being able to be fully candid about a former employee’s performance. Before hiring any employee, it is important to hire a security risk management company to conduct a thorough background check. Security companies not only have much greater access to information than you do, but they are also trained to spot certain red flags that you might miss.
Online reputation
From negative reviews to unfavorable comments on social media to even fake news items, there are any number of ways in which disgruntled employees, unhappy customers or even competitors can sabotage your business. Those are just the ways in which individuals can quickly and easily throw a little dirt on your reputation. If your business becomes embroiled in any kind of legitimate scandal, it can be the death of your business if not handled properly.
An online reputation management company can help you both monitor your online reputation on an ongoing basis as well as help you recover from a scandal. In the days of newspapers, scandals often quickly passed as soon as a new, juicer story developed. In the modern world of internet databases and search engines, however, salacious details remain readily available unless you do something directly about them.
Data theft
No matter what kind of business you run, today’s businesses must worry about protecting far more than their own physical assets, they must also protect their customer’s data. Some businesses also need to worry about protecting their own digital proprietary assets, including things like their own internal communications or e-mails. There are any number of ways in which what is on your business computers can be used to harm you or your customers.
While cloud computing was once considered far less secure than private, in-house dedicated servers, that is quickly changing. Not only are cloud servers monitored 24/7, but they generally have in-house staff available to do security updates 24/7 as well. This means your business information may be far safer in the cloud today than it is sitting on your very own private server.
