Today, technology is the lifeblood that keeps your business going. When your technology goes down, you not only risk losing money, you also risk damaging your company’s reputation for delivering value. Your communication with customers crawls to a stop and leaves your company financially exposed and potentially vulnerable to malicious threats. Who do you turn to for help?
Last July, the Manhattan Beach Chamber faced that scenario. They sent a message to their members that their technology was down and that the best way to reach them was through their personal email addresses. As a member of the Manhattan Beach Chamber, Alcott Enterprises received this message which also stated that their entire email system had been down for several days. While this was a notification message, we read it as a silent cry for help.
After reading the Chamber’s message, we reached out immediately to see if help was already on the way. Alcott Enterprises is an information technology managed services firm assisting small and medium-sized business with their technology needs. As a general principle, every minute your system is down or not fully functioning, you are not making money. After speaking with Mark Lipps, President, and CEO, it was clear they had what we call a “mission critical” issue and did not know where to turn. Within 15 minutes, we were on site diagnosing and addressing the core issues. A few hours later, we had the Manhattan Beach Chamber business back to normal.
Through conversation with Michelle Winn, Director of New Memberships and Member Retention, she mentioned that the Chamber was going to be renovating their office space. During our onsite evaluation, it was clear that the Chamber was working with outdated systems, and that their technology was not suited to handle their business requirements. The Chamber, like so many other businesses, had reluctantly conceded to a new business norm where outdated systems and broken technology regularly disrupted overall productivity and created potential security issues.
For many business owners, there is a misconception that off-the-shelf consumer technology products can support small or medium sized businesses. These technologies may work for your home, but they are not designed to handle business requirements, nor do they have the security capability to protect your business. Studies have shown that more than 71 percent of cyber-attacks occur at companies with fewer than 100 employees. Often small business owners assume that they are safe because they are just the “little guy.” However, hackers prefer small businesses because they traditionally do not employ robust security systems and typically do not notice a threat until it is too late. Studies also show that 60 percent of business fail within six months after a security breach or hack. This same research demonstrates that the average cleanup cost for a small business is approximately $690,000 with over a $1 million price tag for midsize companies. With the Manhattan Beach Chamber being the epicenter of local commerce, we felt it was necessary to protect their infrastructure and systems with an industry-leading security solution.
As part of the Chamber renovation, Alcott Enterprises contributed a complete network overhaul. We began our work by removing the legacy networking equipment, then manually removed and replaced deteriorated network cabling with our partner company Shadow Systems. With the updated network cable infrastructure installed, Alcott Enterprises redesigned the Chamber’s network, donated an industry leading firewall and security appliance, two network switches, and a wireless access point; providing up-to-date security features and allowing room for future growth. Also, Alcott Enterprise is donating ongoing network, computer and systems support.
Alcott Enterprises is an information technology managed service firm that provides 24x7 IT solutions and support to small and medium-sized business throughout the South Bay and greater Los Angeles area. In 2014, Alcott Enterprises was founded by Jordan Alcott and is Managing Partner and CTO. Mr. Alcott grew up in Torrance, CA and brings over fifteen years of industry experience. Mr. Alcott has lead organizations focused on building and implementing current best practices in cloud computing, mobile technology, cloud networking, and other IT functions across all industry verticals. Mr. Alcott’s experience covers working with startups to Fortune 500 companies and supports a range of clients requiring HIPPA, FEDRAMP, ITAR, NIST, PCI and/or SOX compliance.
Sources Sited
[1]Small Business Committee. (2015, April 4). Small Business, Big Threat: Protecting Small Businesses from Cyber Attacks…
[2]Miller, G. (2017, March 24). 60% of small companies that suffer a cyber-attack are out of business within six months…
