A key part of a manufacturing business is the intellectual business they hold. If your product's IP gets into a competitors' hands or someone sends the details to a manufacturing business overseas the impact could be detrimental.

While employing trustworthy staff should be a high priority, do you have the right systems ansecure against an attackd infrastructure in place to protect your important data? Are your servers secure against an attack? Are your employees and suppliers trained to know the signs of a spoofing attempt?

Having a robust IT system, knowledgeable staff, and processes in place is mission critical to being a successful business in today's digital world with the wealth of data businesses and individuals hold.

Losing market share early on in a business’s development and manufacturing process can be devastating and time-consuming if trying to chase up the guilty party without any legal protection.

It’s important to remember that no one else will check to see if your intellectual property has been infringed; it’s your responsibility to ensure that no one else is using your assets.  

The best way to mitigate against this risk is to have a secure cloud-based IT system put in place by your IT provider that promotes easy communication within the business but keeps sensitive data secure from external individuals.

You should also ensure that you have an MSP providing support and solutions in case of failure or an attack.

While there are huge risks when holding data and all businesses are at risk of falling victim to cybercrime there are also innocent risks we must be aware of.

Manufacturing companies must have a disaster recovery plan in case of technology failure. How much would it cost your business for every employee not able to access the IT system?

Having access to IT services can be a lifesaver during these situations, sending field engineers to install new hardware or explore the issue at the site, access to a team of 50 service desk technicians who can answer calls and advise solutions rather than a small IT team scrambling to find the cause and how to relieve it.

It helps prevent these issues from occurring through proactive maintenance and provide quick solutions when you encounter issues.

A support company should offer desk support and be available during your office hours and are able to send out a team when needed, ensure that your manufacturing systems have the best technology available and offer ongoing monitoring.

This can be achieved much easier by a UK based business and they are a huge benefit as a result. We specialise in services for manufacturing limits downtime for your business during switching over services, as we have a thorough onboarding procedure.

Improving your IT systems also maximises your business productivity by putting in place the best tools to do their job.

As an IT company, we are known for our reliable support services for business IT and have UK wide coverage with 5 offices across England and continually expanding our locations.

Many of your office staff or staff not working on the production line may have requested to work from home or remotely which you may be in favour of but not sure where to start.

Your business may have always relied on email, internal phone calls and popping by each other's desks. The good news is having us as your IT services provider can provide solutions and it isn't a difficult process to adopt unified communications and utilise modern workplace principles with the best technology available.

We have worked with 100s of customers to implement solutions to ensure business continuity for a remote workforce and reach their business goals.

As we have mentioned, cyber security should be at the forefront of all business owners minds. With businesses being a huge target of cybercrime, and human error accounting for 90% of cyber attacks.

It should be prioritised that the business educated not only the key stakeholders but all staff around the risk of cyber and how to spot possible attacks. The manufacturing industry is incredibly appealing to cybercriminals.

We would recommend that you arrange compulsory training for staff as they onboard as part of joining your company and then have regular 'top up' training.

We would also recommend all businesses enrol in Cyber Essentials which we can support your business with. Cyber Essentials will help your business navigate cyber security, highlighting which measures to put in place and which includes insurance against attacks.

These business forward solutions ensure the safety of your business and assets. Putting in place a stringent cyber security strategy is crucial to your business management and the safety of your manufacturing company.

We can offer a free consultation to run through the benefits of Microsoft 365 including Microsoft Teams and other connectivity and data integration tools which will enable your staff to collaborate on all Microsoft processes such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint and more.

This will make it easy for your team to share and collaborate on shared sheets and improve productivity.

This can help the management of HR, finance, operations and the leadership team by providing full oversight and greater visibility over payroll, staff records and more.

Managed IT services can put in place the cloud solutions and technology tools that improve efficiency and readiness to work from anywhere, this can be beneficial for roadshows, travelling for work and more.

Offering the opportunity to work remotely to new staff enables your manufacturers to hire the best staff by reducing geographical limits and make significant gains.