Set your business up for success in 2025!
It is the start of a new year, and no doubt many business owners/directors already have a plan of where they would like to see their business performing in 12 months, and what achievements they would have liked to achieve by that time. But the big question is... do you have the support and solutions in place to help you achieve those goals? And what obstacles will you have to overcome along the way? To ease you into the new year we wanted to help businesses understand some of the key considerations for 2025 for their Business Support, IT Infrastructure and Cyber Security.
Partnering with a trusted MSP
Having a trusted supply chain is just as important as how you run your business day to day. That is why it is essential to have a trusted Managed Service Provider by your side to be able to not only support you when you need it, but to work with you to understand how your business operates, what your pain points are, work to understand your business goals, and proactively work in the background to ensure that your business IT infrastructure runs smoothly.
Unlike many other Managed Service Providers, we publicly showcase our customer service satisfaction (CSAT) scores on our website for everyone to be able to see, just check the bottom of this page. Throughout 2024 we averaged a CSAT score of 98.3%, more than 20% higher than the average of 78% for the IT Support and SaaS industry.
Every one of our clients has regular meetings with our account management team, ensuring that we understand what each of our clients evolving pain points and need are, allowing us to work with them to provide solutions for their business that can lead them into the future. We handle the complex IT & Cyber Security, you handle what you do best, the day to day running of your business. As trusted partners, we are here to help you accomplish your goals.
Digital Transformation & Modernisation Projects
Is your business one of the more than 54% still using Windows 10? Did you know that Windows 10 will become end of life on October 10th of this year? We have been supporting clients who still have Windows 10 devices over the past year to ensure that they have hardware lifecycle management plans in place to migrate older unsupported devices over to new Windows 11 before the end-of-life date.
This is just one example of how we are supporting businesses with their hardware modernisation projects. But it is important to consider that Digital Transformation is more than about upgrading older hardware. We work with businesses to understand their pain points, where they would like to see improvement, and help them improve their overall business operations through innovative new solutions.
Whether that be helping businesses in the logistics industry to improve route management through AI & Machine Learning, supporting businesses in manufacturing to implement digital stock management services, helping businesses in the real estate industry to centralise their data management solutions with enhanced security and redundancy, or ensuring that a local charity has the support and security they need to help them succeed, whilst also introducing new solutions and services that will allow them to better support children and families across the local region. These are just a few examples of how we have supported businesses to revolutionise their operations through digital transformation projects, ensuring that they have the solutions and support in place to help them succeed.
Modernising Business Cyber Security Solutions
In 2023, cyber attacks on UK businesses more than tripled from 2022, from 2.39 million to 7.78 million. With the 2024 cyber breaches survey due to be released in April of 2025, we expect to see this number rise again.
Just last year, only 31% of UK businesses undertook a Cyber Security audit to see if they had the modern comprehensive solutions in place to keep them protected from cyber security threats. Whilst we upgraded our minimum cyber protection level with our existing clients to combat these evolving threats and have worked very closely with businesses throughout the Doncaster and wider South Yorkshire region to educate and improve their cyber security, it is clear to see that there is a lot more work to be done throughout the UK to improve business cyber defence.
But what does a Comprehensive Cyber Security Strategy involve?
This article covers the essential pillars in more detail. But in short it involves.
Regular Audits: Still not filled out the form yet? What are you waiting for? Cyber Security Audits should be conducted at least once a year to ensure that your cyber security policies and strategies align with protection from the latest threats. Each of our clients receive continuous audits as new threats, vulnerabilities and solitons are discovered.
Endpoint Management: Whether it be business devices or “bring your own” devices, managing business endpoints, including who has access to what, what software users can use, and ensuring that regular security patches and updates are installed is an essential part of ensuring your business runs smoothly and securely.
Advanced Endpoint Detection & Response: Did you know that traditional signature based anti-virus is only 30%-50% effective against the latest cyber threats? Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) uses AI, Automation & Machine Learning to monitor for unusual, suspicious and malicious activity, blocking it in its tracks!
Network Edge Security: When you think of network security you think of a traditional “firewall” box sat inside a cupboard somewhere.
But how does that protect your remote users? Newer solutions such as remote connected AP’s (Access Points) create a secure tunnel to your business network anywhere in the world for complete coverage, and solutions such as SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) provide device security at the “edge” of the internet, ensuring that no matter where your devices connect from, that they follow your business security policies and can connect to your business infrastructure.
Dark Web Monitoring: When is the last time you updated your passwords? Do you use them for more than one service? If so, you could be open to threats without knowing it. Data breaches occur every day, with user credentials being leaked on the dark web for anyone to use to access your accounts. Understanding what data is out there ensures that you can stay update your credentials to stay protected.
Password Policies & MFA: What must be long and always have extra protection? Your passwords to your digital accounts, that’s what. “WordPa55” will take cyber criminals no more than an hour to crack, much less as it is a commonly used password, but “W0rD-2M¥_P@5$” takes 2 million years using current technology. But it is important to consider that if these credentials are leaked on the dark web, only 1 thing will protect you... Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA/2FA). MFA forms an extra layer of defence for your online accounts. Without this unique extra layer of protection, even if cyber criminals gain access to your credentials, they cannot access your account.
Backup Policies: Do you know how often your business data is backed up? What about all the data on your employee devices? If you were the subject of a cyber attack or some form of disaster struck your business and you lost access to all your essential data, how long would it take for your business to recover? Robust backup policies aim to minimise these disruptions, backing up your data regularly, whilst also ensuring that you can get back up and running as quickly as possible.
Security Awareness Training: Do your employees know the difference between a phish and a fish? Unfortunately tour employees are the most vulnerable part of your business cyber defence. Regular training on signs of phishing, malware, ransomware, and even a Rubber Ducky, could protect your business from potential threats.
Business Continuity Planning
Whether it be Data Backups and Recovery Planning, High Availability Redundancy, or just simply ensuring that you have backup internet connectivity available if your primary line goes down, planning for the worst is an essential part of ensuring that your business can continue to operate when the unexpected hits. We understand that for many businesses, even an hour of down time could cost them many thousands of pounds. Ensuring that your business can continue to operate in an emergency involves a multi-phased holistic approach to business continuity planning.
But this is not all, check out this article or fill in the form below to find out more.
What if:
Your internet line goes offline?
Can your business continue to operate without internet? Do you have a backup connection? Is it set to automatically fail over? All these questions are considerations as part of your business continuity strategy.
We can provide secondary connections through a different line provider, 4G/5G mobile network failover, and even satellite internet connectivity to ensure that if your primary line becomes unavailable that your business can still connect to the internet.
Your business is targeted in a ransomware attack or suffered a hardware failure?
Do you have a backup of all your business data? Are those backups segmented away from your primary network and read only to prevent them being targeted as part of the attack? How much data could you afford to lose? A day? An hour? 10 minutes? These are essential questions that should be asked as part of your continuity strategy.
At TwentyFour IT, we work to understand your business needs, providing backup and data redundancy solutions in line with your continuity strategy. Whether that be through continuous cloud backup, cloud to cloud backup, regular backups to cloud or off-site data centre storage, high availability live replication and much more.
These are just a few of the examples of considerations your business should have as part of its continuity strategy in 2025. We work with businesses across the UK to ensure that they have robust continuity strategies and solutions in place to meet their needs. Fill out the form below to ask us about your business continuity plans.
Set your business up for success in 2025
By partnering with TwentyFour IT Services in 2025, our team can work with you to understand your business needs and what you would like to accomplish this year, putting plans in place to help you achieve those goals. Fill out the form below to speak with us about your IT Support, Cyber Security and Business Continuity plans for 2025. And if you switch to us in 2025, we are providing 10% off the first 12 months of billing to celebrate 10 years of the TwentyFour IT Services brand.