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4 Straightforward IT Solutions To Improve Your Small Business

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Small Business IT Solutions|4 Straightforward IT Solutions To Improve Your Small BusinessIf you are running a small business, IT will be an integral part of your day-to-day operations. Do you face any issues within your small business when it comes to IT management? Would you know what to do if there was a potential data breach? Are your systems secure? IT is consistently evolving, but there are several straightforward solutions to help your small business. Follow these steps and watch your business thrive like never before.

Asset Management

You will already be well aware that no business can run successfully without its assets. As this is so, it also cannot run proficiently without an asset management process successfully implemented.

This will ensure that you are using the assets you have to their full potential. Once you have prepared to replace an asset that is approaching the end of its life, you will be able to maintain a schedule and ensure assets are functioning for their entire life cycle. This will ultimately save you money, ensuring that your needs are met with available but unused resources, rather than opting to purchase something new.

Backup and Disaster Recovery Systems

Losing data can prove to be detrimental to a business, and small businesses often suffer worst. Disaster cannot always be averted but having a plan in place can help if the unexpected is to happen. This will save you time, as these issues can take hours or even days to restore, as well as saving you money in the long run.

Implementing a Proactive Process

Being proactive is often overlooked. If you are aware of details such as how quickly servers take to come back once they have crashed, how long support issues take to be resolved and the time it takes to restore lost data, you will be in a proactive, positive position.

Being aware of this is one thing, but if your server never goes down, you may not even need to know. Proactive measures can include:

  • Software updates
  • Hardware audits
  • Preventative maintenance

Apply Security Measures

Managed security services are essential for any small business who wants to keep their data safe. By applying security best practices, you can avoid data breaches. This can be easily implemented by controlling who views sensitive in formation, by having effective password policies, and safeguarding customer information.

Additionally, you should also bear in mind that your company could well get audited. This will mean that you must have the ability to clearly show that there is a process in place that will ensure your company’s critical information is secure. If you can show it can be restored easily at a later date, you will be in the clear. You should keep these 4 process in mind on a day-to-day basis, and always have an IT plan in place. When determining the best processes for a driven and successful small business, explore the many options available.

Having an in-depth plan in terms of IT will help you run your small business efficiently, effectively and with ease.

Mike Purcell Joins StrategyDriven Power & Utilities Advisory Services Practice

StrategyDriven is proud to welcome Mike Purcell as a StrategyDriven Advisory Services Senior Advisor. A highly experienced nuclear power consultant, Mike joins StrategyDriven’s Power & Utilities Advisory Services practice.
 

“We are thrilled to have Mike join our StrategyDriven Advisor Services Team,” said Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Advisory Services Practice Leader. “Increasing demand for clean, affordable electricity combined with an aging infrastructure, retiring workers, growing regulations, rising capital costs, and intensifying budget pressures challenge utility executives and managers now more than ever. We are fortunate to have an industry professional of Mike’s caliber to help our Power & Utility clients meet these challenges. His hands-on knowledge and experience in performance improvement, regulatory inspection readiness, license renewals, and power uprates will be a great asset to our team”

Mike Purcell Joins StrategyDriven Power & Utilities Advisory Services PracticeFor decades, Mike has served in senior leadership roles within the Power & Utilities Industry. His experience includes within the nuclear oversight, quality assurance, engineering, licensing, performance benchmarking and improvement, training, leadership development, and change management functions. Mike also possesses extensive regulatory and licensing experience including inspection readiness activities for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) IP95001, 95002, and 95003 inspections, baseline inspections, license amendments, fire protection program inspections and implementation, license renewals, and extended power uprate activities.

Prior to becoming a management consultant, Mike held numerous influential positions at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), leading nuclear oversight, engineering, and training functions as well as performance improvement initiatives including:

  • Senior Manager, Nuclear Oversight – responsible for performance of the quality control and quality assurance functions and providing oversight of day-to-day plant activities important to nuclear station safety and security
  • Senior Fleet Licensing Manager – led a diverse and geographically distributed team of licensing professionals responsible for all licensing activities associated with TVA’s fleet of six nuclear reactors
  • Senior Manager, Training and Development – successfully integrated the training and development functions across TVA into a single high-performing organization providing pipeline and continuing technical training programs; supervisory, employee, and leadership development; regulatory / compliance training; and organizational effectiveness / culture change programs and initiatives
  • Nuclear Plant Organizational Effectiveness Assessments – participated on teams of highly experienced utility professionals in the performance evaluation of four nuclear plants in the area of organizational effectiveness and safety culture
  • Regulatory Assistance / Recovery Initiatives – Supported multiple Mock NRC Inspection Assessments using NRC Supplemental Inspection Manual Chapters 95001, 95002, and 95003
  • Performance Improvement through Employee Engagement Initiatives – Led employee engagement/process & performance improvement initiatives at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar Nuclear plants in order to identify solutions to close the $30 million gap in operations and maintenance (O&M) costs and increase generation

Mike further shaped the Nuclear Industry’s performance through his involvement with industry groups including:

  • INPO Organizational Effectiveness Industry Peer and New Nuclear Oversight Manager course mentor
  • Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and EUCG Peer Advisor

Mike holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee Technical University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is a licensed as a Professional Engineer by the State of Tennessee.

Click here to read Mike’s complete biography. Mike can be contacted at [email protected].