14 DAY TRIAL // Intel released a report in which they observe the way small and medium businesses in the UK protect their data and their advancements toward cloud-based systems.
According to V3, the results come from the Intel Small Business Index which is based on the answers provided by 3000 IT managers and employees from companies with fewer than 250 staff members.
It turns out that one of the main impediments for small organizations is the lack of funds, this preventing them from renewing their computing devices in the near future. Since this forces many of their employees to rely on personal gadgets to perform tasks, these practices usually tend to create a lot of security holes due to the deficiency of proper policies.
Another problem highlighted in the report is the poor understanding of cloud-based services. In many cases staff members didn't know they were already utilizing such systems in their everyday work.
"SMEs represent probably half of the overall IT spend in the UK, so it is a very large piece of the market. It is really important for Intel and the industry to understand what's important for that community: what are the business issues and the investment and disinvestment choices they are making," said Intel UK Managing Director Graham Palmer.
Palmer believes that instead of solving issues as they emerge, companies should plan a development strategy which even if it's more expensive, it could be more efficient on long-term. He is confident that vendors can always offer reasonable solutions that will surely help a small firm get on its feet from an IT point of view.
One of the educational challenges of the industry is represented by the fact that “over a third of IT decision respondents did not know they had legal responsibility around protecting customer data.”
As the costs for securing digital assets is not so high anymore, firms that want to, can easily take the steps that will result in a proper protection of their and the customer's data.