The possibility of being targeted and attacked by cyber criminals is a problem that everybody has to face, but some are at more risk than others. According to a Cybercrime study, around 43% of cyber attacks are targeted solely on small businesses, with only 14% of accounted SMEs prepared to face such attacks. 

If you’re running a small business, this is undoubtedly a concerning statistic, not least because 60% of small businesses actually go out of business only six months after an attack takes place. But this is why it is so important to integrate strong data policies in 2023. 

A lot of the time, the reason these businesses have to close up shop is because the data that has been breached belongs to their own customers. With sites like Incogni now giving power to internet users to choose what happens to their data, consumers around the world are more aware of data usage and how it is being used. They have the ability to protect their data and take it back into their own hands, and if companies do not have the same ethic as them, then they will look elsewhere to do business. 

The lack of this ethic has historically been revealed by these cyber breaches, but, similarly, you need to take your business’s future into your own hands. The way to do that is ensuring a data breach cannot be reputationally damaging, and the way to do that is through a strong data policy, and a building of trust between you and your customers.

Developing and Implementing Data Policies 

There are a few key things your company needs to focus on when developing and implementing a strong data policy.  The first is building a data governance team – an internal team that will work to manage data governance and attain support across all departments and operations. This policy must be in line with GDPR or any local governance policy. 

You also need to establish performance metrics, ensuring that you have a way to monitor adherence to the policy, and review the performance regularly.  Establishing data quality controls and a data catalogue will help you to stay on top of how your business is operating, and it will also help you to stay up to date with the latest cybersecurity methods – with cyber attackers upgrading their tools and tactics year-on-year, cybersecurity is a constantly evolving field that you have to keep your finger on the pulse of. 

Communicating Data Policies with Customers

Next, you need to communicate this policy with your customers. This is mainly done through transparency. When a consumer interacts with your business, they need to quickly become aware of your cybersecurity goals – how you are going to use their data and what you are going to do to protect it. 

You also need to update your communication along with your security – if there are new procedures or changes to the policy, this needs to be communicated directly with your consumers, ensuring they know that both your interests are still aligned.

Awareness and Education For Businesses and Their Customers

The important thing is not only to be aware and educated on privacy policies – and how to implement them – but to communicate this awareness to build trust. 

When it comes to this landscape, business transparency is important for several reasons, but cybersecurity is perhaps the most pressing. If a consumer knows that you are doing everything you can to protect data, then they will know that you’re prioritising their safety and privacy, this will build a rapport between you that will be hard for any cyber attacker to break. 

An essential aspect of business culture is the ability to communicate and trade with people and organisations globally. Due to the COVID-19, digital tools to facilitate this are increasingly important.

CART, or Communication Access Realtime Translation, comprises a wide range of services intended to improve accessibility for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, as an alternative to the use of a sign-language interpreter. 

In instances where the resource is not broadcasted live, captions can be created to accurately depict and distinguish between speakers for the benefit of those who cannot hear. In live sessions, such as virtual meetings and online courses, ensuring accessibility for those who would require captioning can prove to be much more difficult.

Read more about the role CART services play within professional and academic settings below.

When are CART Services Required?

In an increasingly digital world where remote work and long-distance education are growing ever more common, CART services are proving themselves to be more vital to businesses and learning organisations than ever before.

Live communication offers a wide range of benefits over pre-recorded audio, but the process of turning speech into text must be as fast – and as accurate – as possible. For a human, recording every word spoken, and keeping up with a number of different speakers, is incredibly difficult, and accuracy will suffer as a result.

The average native speaker, for instance, will talk at a rate of 100 words per minute (wpm), while the average typist will achieve a rate of around 40 wpm. During a live event, lesson or meeting, any shortfall will hinder accessibility for those who are hard of hearing, or deaf.

Advanced CART transcription software is capable of attaining 95% accuracy for live audio within twelve seconds, enabling those who are unable to hear the speaker to follow a livestream with minimal delays.

Within eight hours, a full transcript with >99% accuracy can be provided, ensuring that your event is compliant with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), and that resources from the event can be accessed by anyone in need of them. 

When Do You Need CART Services?

Any time that you host a live event, whether it is a remote meeting or virtual course, relying on speech alone will exclude a (potentially large) portion of your viewers. Of course, even if your event excludes only one person from participating, this is one too many – which is why every business or educational institution will find that CART services are integral to accessibility.

Hearing impairment affects people of all age groups, which means that hosting events without any CART services in place automatically dismisses a significant portion of the population. In a broader sense, both academic and professional settings must be prepared to cater to those with disabilities, and utilising a rapid, AI-based speech to text software will ensure that your event does not exclude those for whom captions remain essential.

CART services are as integral to the execution of large- and small-scale virtual events as your microphone, and should never be overlooked – particularly as our emphasis on digital meetings, lessons, courses and events continues to grow.

Startup Management: How to Setup a Successful Online Business

It’s best associated with the American Dream, but it’s much more of a global thing. Owning and running a successful business is the foundation and essence of a small green pasture in lots of people’s minds, whether it’s pursued or not. ‘A little shop on the beachfront’ or ‘an office on the highest floor of the tall building in Manhattan.’ Now though, shopfronts can be digital. This improved access to building a store means the first step towards success, of any sort, is more attainable. As such, here are a few tips to setting up a successful online business.

Business Plan

Let’s assume that there’s a product or service which has prompted you to set up the business, that it’s decided or heart-set-upon. As such, aspects, or even the cornerstones, of a business plan have naturally followed. Importantly, the market research should be well underway. Knowing why and how similar products or services have been successful, or not, provide invaluable lessons: for instance, in assessing how they’ve priced, delivered, and marketed their product or service.

It’s important to keep the plan lean. Keeping it simple allows you to see the essentials and remind yourself of the key targets. There’s an added benefit to a simpler, bullet-pointed plan: there should be plenty of white space surrounding them, which shouldn’t be intimidating, but, rather, allows for improvisation. (Improvisation is a fancy word for problem-solving. Ornette Coleman, a famous avant-garde jazz saxophonist, even while working a genre where ‘improvisation’ was its fundamental trait, didn’t believe in true improvisation was possible: it’s all about structure. ‘Improvisation’ and problem-solving should be considered the same thing.) There is less rigidity, allowing for measured risks and experimentation.

Insurance

Insurance should be a priority. It’s an easy means for future-proofing your business. They guarantee that anything unfortunate that happens will have less lasting damage than it might otherwise have had. Finding online insurance for a business is quick too. Costs change depending on a variety of factors: location, type of business, how many employees, experience, etc. However, they can be personalised to fit your needs, ensuring you aren’t paying for any extras which are unnecessary.

Website or Landing Page

Having a website is great, but not an absolute necessity. It might be money better saved, rather than spent developing one. E-commerce websites and apps are workarounds, for instance. Shopify, eBay, and Etsy, for instance, offer convenient means of opening a store. The host site takes a percentage of the revenue on each sale, which is the only cost. (These costs vary across the market. For example, Etsy looks increasingly likely to continue upping and upping their percentage of the revenue.) Not only that but these sites can give you access to a wider audience as they’re global websites, and the search functions might result in you being discovered. Moving to your own website, in time, where you have more control and no go-between, makes sense so long as it is worth the investment. Growth could force your hand, as working from an ecommerce site can appear less professional.