The election is (maybe) over but the pandemic is not. We may soon have vaccines, but they might not be available to everyone for another six months. The holiday season is almost upon us, but Thanksgiving and Christmas may have to be orchestrated differently this year. If I keep thinking about these types of things, I will get a headache. To keep my own spirits up, I like to think about the fun parts of owning a small business.

I have a crackerjack team of outstanding IT technicians. We are excellent at troubleshooting, fixing, projecting, and prognosticating. We help steer our IT clients when they budget and plan their growth and development, and we can fix a printer. It is our job to know what might happen next with computers and networks and global commerce, so we spend considerable time learning what is happening in Computerworld now and what will happen next week and next month. We share values and common goals, and that makes a workday very productive.
I hope you can say the same. If not, are you looking forward to the workforce changes you need to implement? Having the right employees can change the pace of your business.

At Aptica, we have had to review our resources in light of rapid changes in technology usage and cybersecurity. It does not appear likely that business will return to the models we used up until March of this year. Brick and mortar stores and office buildings will house fewer on-site workers, so there is greater demand for top-tier IT service for remote employees. Cybersecurity must now extend beyond just a network in a building. Employee cybersecurity training must become ongoing. Company data should be accessible on a carefully vetted who-needs-to-use-it program that can change with a 1- minute phone call. We are upgrading our tools and our training for this. We are also upgrading our client engagement services because of the immediacy of security.
You are probably working on your budget revisions for 2021. Your technology should rank right there with employees when you gauge your productivity demands for 2021.

Factoring in some days off to celebrate holidays, we still have about 30-32 business days left this year. It has been so these last two quarters, but I still do not believe we should just coast from now until the end of Q4. In early January I will weigh what I achieved against all these incredible obstacles we have faced, so I will stay with my forward-thinking business plan until it is the day to start a new one. It seems to me that this behavior is a product of what I watched when I grew in this area. There were wars and recessions, but regionally my predecessors appeared to keep their focus on their contributions to both the local economy and the culture. I can’t see why to do it any other way myself.
Aptica will be providing our usual 24/7 monitoring of clients’ networks, our vendor-liaison duties, our backup and recovery planning, our cybersecurity upgrades, and all our IT management services for the rest of 2020. On Day 1 of 2021, we will continue to do all of the above. If this sounds like something that would help your business, give us a call. It always starts with a conversation.