Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is no longer an ‘extra’ security measure only necessary for those working with sensitive information. In days past we were able to lock down our accounts with just a simple password, but the rise of bot-automated brute force attacks has made passwords an imperfect security measure that needs to be bolstered by a full line of account defense measures.
Enabling multi-factor authentication where available is a crucial step in locking down your business’s data. Access management tools like Azure Active Directory (AD) can help organizations not only protect their networks but also make the MFA sign-in process easier for employees using cloud-based apps from several different vendors.
What Are Brute Force Attacks?
Brute force attacks are among the most popular password-cracking methods. This can be attributed to how simple it is to automate the process of password guessing and the relatively low stakes of hackers not getting it right.
Applications or scripts try numerous password combinations based on common words (called a ‘dictionary attack’) or by simply trying billions of password/username combinations until one is correct. When login credentials are identified, the hacker then tries them everywhere and often leaks that information onto the dark web – hence why it is also essential to keep separate passwords for each account. The best way to reduce the likelihood of a successful brute force attack is to make your passwords as long and varied as possible. Thrive’sSecurity Resource Center has some great free tools to help users check the strength of their passwords and auto-generate stronger ones.
Are Strong Passwords Enough?
Some users may think “I already have very strong, unique passwords for all of my accounts. Why do I need MFA?”. This is a valid question, and one Thrive has been asked by clients before. The answer is this – while strong, unique passwords are in fact harder to crack it is not entirely impossible. Managing a password library is nearly impossible by memory, and burdensome by other methods. Password lockers like LastPass are an excellent option for password management, but remember – you’ll need to remember your login credentials for that account separately.
It is also important to keep in mind that brute force attacks are not the only way a password can become compromised. Even strong passwords can easily be discovered using these methods:
Unsecured Networks
If data is shared over an unsecured network, passwords can easily be intercepted and deciphered.
Keylogging
Keylogging malware skims everything a user types – including passwords.
Phishing
A successful phishing attempt tricks users into giving over their credentials voluntarily.
Maintaining a portfolio of strong passwords is a great first line of defense, but that’s all they should be – the first line of defense. Requiring the second step of identification for successful account access ensures that your accounts are secured – no matter if or how your password is discovered.
Why Is MFA Important?
Multi-factor Identification – or MFA – is a second step in the login process where the user has to confirm their identity in another way. This might be using something only you would know – like a mother’s maiden name, or a previous password; or something you possess – like a smartphone or other security token. These are some of the most common forms of secondary identification:
Application-based Identification
Common apps such as Microsoft Authenticator generate one-time verification codes sent to your personal device
Biometric
Apps like Hello Windows or even facial recognition on your smartphone are examples of biometric sign-on.
SMS or Phone Call
A code is delivered via text or automated call.
Key Fob or USB
Users are issued physical tokens that are then used for secondary or tertiary identification
Managing Logins with Azure AD
If you or your company are using Office 365, you’re already using a version of Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) under the hood. Microsoft’s Azure AD is an organization’s central identity control and can manage user access to a range of cloud-based applications, enabling a single sign-on for all work-related apps.
Azure AD inherently offers several forms of MFA but allows users to log into all of their cloud-based apps after a single verification has been completed. This means that a single biometric scan or verification code allows your users to gain secure access to not only their Microsoft 365 account but also the tools they use every day like Salesforce or Quickbooks.
If You Have Azure AD, Turn on MFA Now
A basic version of Azure AD comes free with any subscription to Office 365. The full version of Azure AD (Azure Active Directory Premium Plan 1 and 2) which comes with Enterprise Mobility and Security bundles and Microsoft 365 subscriptions is a complete, top-down network security command center protecting more than just information related to your Microsoft accounts.
To get the most out of your Microsoft subscriptions and to learn more about deploying more secure user and access management, contact one of Thrive’s Collaboration experts today.
Small Businesses are Starting to Embrace Artificial IntelligenceArtificial intelligence has several uses in the business world, many of which utilize machine learning. With greater access to this technology than ever before, small businesses have more opportunities to grow as a result. Let’s go over how SMBs can utilize AI, including how to get started with it.
How Can Today’s Small Businesses Use Artificial Intelligence?
AI is flexible in its design, intending to mimic the cognitive processes of the human brain. Essentially, it is software that can follow patterns and establish its own learning and reasoning processes to solve problems. This is why it’s so useful for small businesses. Here are some ways it can improve operations for SMBs:
Enhancing Cybersecurity
Your employees likely have a routine that they follow, and this routine is what makes their work responsibilities consistent. AI can use data to make predictions, a process which aids in cybersecurity and productivity. AI can take note of a user’s account and showcase when it’s doing something out of the ordinary, like logins at times when the office should be closed or from strange locations around the world. It can also tell if employee behavior is at odds with your security efforts.
Optimizing Customer Service
Businesses prioritize customer service, but the unfortunate fact is that it can be time-consuming. This time is often better spent on other processes and needs. AI systems can aid in customer service through the use of automated chatbots, providing customers ways to get the answers they need, when they need them. This removes some of the burden off your workforce and might just give them time to perform other tasks. Furthermore, it’s a great way to collect data about what your customers want and need.
Finessing Customer Relationships and Marketing Efforts
It takes a lot of effort to sift through the data and insights gathered during the customer relations and marketing aspects of your business and digging through this data can be an incredibly time-consuming and resource-intensive process without the use of AI. AI can examine this data and make conclusions based on it. You can then use these conclusions to make the most educated decisions possible for your organization moving forward.
Artificial Intelligence is More Accessible Than Ever
If you want to learn more about machine learning and other ways technology can make your business’ operations better, contact us.
Automating Cybersecurity with SOARNew threats often develop before the tools to block them are available, meaning that quick identification and mitigation is absolutely vital. Thrive’s upgraded Security Operations Center (SOC) now includes advanced SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) capabilities, enabling the Thrive team to quickly identify cyberattacks and respond to threats up to 98% faster than manual operations.
What is SOAR?
A SOAR platform is a collection of security tools and solutions that investigates, collects, and analyzes data from disparate sources to help users and administrators prioritize threats and automate responses. With a constantly evolving cybersecurity landscape, businesses need to be able to react quickly and efficiently when an attack occurs to minimize damage. By leveraging Fortinet’s industry-leading FortiSOAR solution in our daily operations, Thrive is able to help organizations best protect themselves from the ever-changing array of advanced cyberattacks.
Orchestration
Thrive’s security orchestration brings together a diverse array of security tools that typically would not work together or have the ability to be managed from a single dashboard. By bringing together data from software that covers areas like firewalling, endpoint protection, and vulnerability management, the Thrive SOC can better protect business data and assets from sophisticated multi-pronged attacks.
Automation
While bringing together each tool in a business’s security arsenal is crucial, it is arguably more important to be able to analyze that traditionally siloed data to rapidly make recommendations and automate basic mitigation processes. Tasks that may have previously required human intervention, such as vulnerability scanning or SIEM log analysis, can be automated through standard procedures using a SOAR platform.
Response
Once a threat is detected and an automated response is executed, continual monitoring must be carried out for reporting and future planning purposes. Post-incident response activities are generated from this consolidated view of the event, ensuring that it is reported correctly and that threat intelligence is shared for future widespread mitigation.
Why SOAR?
Streamlined Operations
Automated workflows help to minimize detection and response time when a threat occurs. Each element of SOAR contributes to a streamlined operation – data is orchestrated and aggregated, automated playbooks take care of low-priority alerts and incidents, and incident response provides a more definite plan of action for event handling.
Reduced Impact of Cyberattacks
When detection time and time to action are both minimized, the overall impact on the organization when an event occurs is significantly reduced. The longer it takes to detect and respond to an attack, the more time the attacker has to cause damage to your organization. Real-time monitoring with automatic patching and alerts helps protect your business from all angles.
Easy Integration
Our SOAR can integrate and connect with over 280 existing vendors across network security, endpoint security, cloud security, SIEM, and more.
Improving Thrive’s SOC
SOAR is just the latest addition to Thrive’s advanced Security Operations Center. SOAR brings together Thrive’s suite of cybersecurity solutions like managed NextGen firewalling, unified threat management, and endpoint security and response to help unify, automate, and help businesses recover from cyberattacks.
Contact one of Thrive’s cybersecurity experts today for a free cybersecurity risk assessment.
4 Surprising Statistics about Network SecurityIf you aren’t making cybersecurity a priority for your business, then we urge you to review the following statistics to ensure that you understand the gravity of the consequences. Let’s take a look at some of the ways scammers and hackers are making their way around the carefully-laid defenses placed by businesses and how you can protect your own organization.
First, a quick look at the statistics is in order:
- The global cost of cybercrime is a staggering $6 trillion.
- On average, it takes over half a year to detect a data breach.
- 91 percent of attacks start with a phishing email.
- Businesses faced an average of 22 security breaches in 2020.
$6 trillion makes cybercrime the world’s third-largest economy, which is a little jarring to say the least. Evidence suggests that four percent of the U.S. GDP is swiped by those involved in cybercrime. This is a total of billions of dollars, all stolen by hackers and scammers every year. These numbers are for the United States alone; imagine what is being done on a global scale.
As far as the news is concerned, you would think that data breaches are so high-profile that they are identified easily, but this is simply not the case. The average time to detection, according to IBM, is around 287 days. In data-intensive industries like healthcare and financial services, this number is even larger. IBM provides a timeline for containment as well, a number that sits at around 80 days.
Social engineering attacks were far from the norm in computer-based attacks, but hackers have continued to utilize these attacks to best even the smartest of network security professionals and solutions. Phishing attacks are the primary example of this; it might not be easy to crack a password, but it might be easier to do so if the user whose password you’re trying to steal willingly gives it away because they don’t know any better. This is why phishing has become front-and-center in the cybercrime field.
No business is too small to become the target of a cyberattack, and you should always be prepared to deal with the worst-case scenario, no matter how unlikely it might be. The average business deals with 22 security breaches each year, and you can rest assured that if you fail to protect your business, it will suffer as a result.
Network security can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. We aim to make understanding its intricacies easier and to take the burden off of small businesses. To learn more about what we can do for your business, contact Thrive.
How to Know When You’re Being Targeted by a Phishing AttackPhishing attacks are serious business, so it is important that your team members know what they are, for one, and know how to spot them. To facilitate this, let’s review the signs of a phishing attack—or ideally, a phishing attempt (because by spotting it, you’re more able to stop it).
First, let’s quickly touch on what constitutes a phishing attack.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a horribly common form of cyberattack that is used by cybercriminals to accomplish a variety of goals, whether it’s gaining access to a system or stealing data from your team members. Basically, by posing as a trusted party and communicating with your team members, the responsible cybercriminal leverages the imperfect human element to sidestep your cybersecurity.
Phishing, while perhaps most well-known as an email-centric threat, can take place in many forms and formats. In addition to phishing emails—which themselves come in numerous forms—phishing attacks can also come in the form of SMS messages, phone calls, and effectively any other means of communication.
This makes it crucial that your team is prepared to deal with these attempts—capable of spotting them and properly reacting by reporting their suspicions to your IT resource.
To this end, let’s go over a few ways that your team members can potentially catch a phishing attack before they fall for it.
Signs That a Phishing Attack is Targeting You
There are numerous signs that a message could potentially be a disguised phishing attack. Here’s a basic list, but you can always reach out to Thrive to learn more about any or all of these warning signs:
- A tone that doesn’t match the supposed sender
- Misspellings and other discrepancies in key details, like email addresses, domain names, and links
- Out-of-the-blue messages
- Egregious spelling and grammar errors
- Unexpected or out-of-context attachments
- Excessive urgency behind, or open threats as a consequence of, not complying with the message
- Ambiguous messages that motivate the recipient to investigate
- Unusual requests, or requests for explicitly sensitive information
It’s important that your team is aware of these warning signs and actively keeps them in mind when dealing with any business communications.
We’re Here to Help Keep Your Team Safe!
Reach out to us to find out how we can assist you in maintaining your business’ security against threats of various kinds, including phishing attempts. Contact us today.
Phishing attacks are serious business, so it is important that your team members know what they are, for one, and know how to spot them. To facilitate this, let’s review the signs of a phishing attack—or ideally, a phishing attempt (because by spotting it, you’re more able to stop it).
First, let’s quickly touch on what constitutes a phishing attack.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is a horribly common form of cyberattack that is used by cybercriminals to accomplish a variety of goals, whether it’s gaining access to a system or stealing data from your team members. Basically, by posing as a trusted party and communicating with your team members, the responsible cybercriminal leverages the imperfect human element to sidestep your cybersecurity.
Phishing, while perhaps most well-known as an email-centric threat, can take place in many forms and formats. In addition to phishing emails—which themselves come in numerous forms—phishing attacks can also come in the form of SMS messages, phone calls, and effectively any other means of communication.
This makes it crucial that your team is prepared to deal with these attempts—capable of spotting them and properly reacting by reporting their suspicions to your IT resource.
To this end, let’s go over a few ways that your team members can potentially catch a phishing attack before they fall for it.
Signs That a Phishing Attack is Targeting You
There are numerous signs that a message could potentially be a disguised phishing attack. Here’s a basic list, but you can always contact us to learn more about any or all of these warning signs:
- A tone that doesn’t match the supposed sender
- Misspellings and other discrepancies in key details, like email addresses, domain names, and links
- Out-of-the-blue messages
- Egregious spelling and grammar errors
- Unexpected or out-of-context attachments
- Excessive urgency behind, or open threats as a consequence of, not complying with the message
- Ambiguous messages that motivate the recipient to investigate
- Unusual requests, or requests for explicitly sensitive information
It’s important that your team is aware of these warning signs and actively keeps them in mind when dealing with any business communications.
We’re Here to Help Keep Your Team Safe!
Reach out to us to find out how we can assist you in maintaining your business’ security against threats of various kinds, including phishing attempts. Contact Thrive today.
Boosting Your Router’s Security in 3 WaysYour wireless router handles a lot of the tough work for your business, and as such, it’s important that it’s protected and secured as best as can be. If you want to secure your router, we recommend that you use the following best practices to make it happen.
First, let’s talk about the router. The router is basically a modern computer in its own right. They have their own operating systems and software, and as such, they can be susceptible to vulnerabilities. If you aren’t keeping in mind basic data security practices, then you are already behind the security curve.
Update Your Router’s Software and Check Settings
Your router runs on software that needs to be updated periodically. As your router ages, so too does your network security. When you update your router, you are updating the firmware and other software used to route the wireless signals. Here are some other settings you should consider changing:
● Change network name or SSID – Make sure it is something that is unique but doesn’t necessarily identify you or your organization.
● Turn on automatic firmware updates – As we described already, getting firmware updates is essential to maintain security for your router.
● Enable WPA2 wireless encryption (or WPA3, if your router supports it) – This ensures that only authorized users can access your wireless network.
Disable Dangerous Accessibility Options
Most users utilize the Universal Plug and Play feature and keep their routers on the default settings, something which puts these wireless connections at greater risk of compromise. Another way that hackers will attempt to undermine the security of your router is by using the Wi-Fi Protected Setup feature on your router. It is an easy-to-use feature that helps you connect devices using a static eight-digit pin, even if the username and password have been changed. The PIN is printed right on the router, and if it’s on your router, then that makes it easier to get into. It’s far from the ideal scenario.
Set Up a Guest Wi-Fi Network
A great way to keep your wireless network secure is by limiting who has access to it. So, for example, let’s say you have guests come to the office, and you don’t want to give them access to your employees’ wireless network. You can instead have them connect to a guest wireless network specifically for them. Most commercial-grade routers and many personal routers provide this level of functionality. You can even set the network to turn off after a certain amount of time.
This also helps if your organization operates with a lot of Internet of Things devices. The guest wireless network can keep them from creating security troubles. All you have to do is connect some of your IoT devices to the network so that they don’t accidentally leave anything exposed on your main network.
To learn more about how you can keep your wireless network secure, contact Thrive.
Tip of the Week: How to Design Effective Recovery StrategiesIn business, you need to be ready for anything, including potential disaster scenarios. Therefore, it stands to reason that you have a solid disaster recovery plan in place to help you address them should the need arise. We’ve outlined three disaster recovery best practices you should consider for your business continuity strategy, as well as some tips to help you implement them seamlessly into your own operations.
Figure Out What All Potential Threats Look Like
The first step toward figuring out your business’ continuity plan is to consider the types of disasters you will be facing. This means that you need to perform an analysis of all the potential threats your organization could face, no matter how unlikely they might seem. Granted, you should lend more credence to the most likely of disasters, but you can’t rule anything out. Otherwise, you could be ignoring a glaring hole in your plan.
Basically, we’re not telling you to plan for when an asteroid levels your office, but we are telling you to have a strategy in place to account for physical damage or power loss to your office. Your business continuity plan should be specific enough to address the most likely issues you’ll face, but flexible enough to account for other less likely incidents, too.
Determine Your Business’ Benchmarks
No matter the disaster, your organization will have critical data and systems that need to be recovered. It’s up to you to determine what they are and how you will prioritize them. This will help you when it comes to responding to these disasters.
What it boils down to is knowing your various systems’ maximum tolerable downtime, or MTD. This is how long a system can remain down before permanent damage is done to your business. Knowing this number gives you more flexibility and room for making important decisions in the event of a disaster. Your MTD can also help to inform your RTO and RPO, or your recovery time objective and recovery point objective, respectively. These metrics help you better prepare for a disaster by establishing how often a backup should be taken and how long it will take for you to restore said backup.
Test, Revise, and Test Your Plan Again
Your disaster recovery solution will only be successful if you have multiple people working in tandem to ensure that it happens regularly and effectively. Otherwise, if the disaster renders that one person responsible for the strategy unavailable, you’ll be left in dire straits. On the other side of things, the more people involved means more can get done, and the work is easier to achieve.
This is why it helps to have a hierarchy of people responsible for various parts of your plan; if one key person is unable to pull off the full plan, then at least certain other aspects of your continuity strategy will go off without a hitch. Furthermore, these processes should be written out to make them as accessible and easy-to-follow as possible.
After you have your Small business continuity plan mapped out, you should routinely test it to make sure that it works properly. This will help you in the event you actually need to use it, as you can be confident that the plan works as it should. It will also help you determine where weaknesses in your strategy lie.
Nobody Likes to Think About Business Disasters, But They Need to Be Anticipated
We have plenty of recommendations to provide for your business’ continuity plan, contact Thrive!
How to More Efficiently Predict Cloud CostsThere is no denying the versatility that technology like the cloud can provide, but it often comes with hidden costs that might affect its cost-to-benefit ratio for your organization. Here are some of these hidden costs, as well as what you can do to minimize the impact they have on your bottom line.
Some of these different expenses may impact the fees associated with the cloud provider, while others might affect your ability to implement a cloud and host it yourself. Let’s take a look at these costs to see what your options are.
How Does a Cloud Provider Set Fees?
It helps to have a baseline understanding of how a provider sets its fees. They are based on the three primary costs of a cloud service provider:
- Computing Costs – How much has the provider invested in the hardware needed to maintain their cloud, as well as the operating system running on that hardware? Based on the client company’s usage, the cloud provider will need to have the appropriate hardware.
- Networking Costs – In addition to the investment into the hardware that builds up its network, a cloud provider also needs to maintain it over time. This will incur costs over time.
- Storage Costs – Finally, the cloud provider also needs to cover their own operational costs, in terms of the storage media needed to support their clients’ needs, while also expanding their existing storage to meet their clients’ demands.
While this might seem like a lot to take in, it’s important to consider what your own on-premises infrastructure might cost. There are the capital costs to acquire the required equipment and licenses, as well as the operational costs of powering and maintaining the infrastructure, and that’s not even mentioning the IT staff responsible for managing it. Additionally, downtime could create indirect costs for your business.
A solid frame of reference for the costs of on-premise computing is to multiply the cost of the actual upgrade by three, as every dollar invested will come with an extra two dollars of management and maintenance.
Compared to the costs of managing your own technology, working with a cloud provider is actually beneficial in several ways.
However, This is Not to Say There Aren’t Hidden Expenses with Some Cloud Providers
The cloud is great for several reasons, but you also need to consider the trade-offs of using it. For example, some of the cloud’s costs are not financial. You might sacrifice a lot of time while migrating between cloud providers, and if you need your data while you are in the process of migrating it, you might be in trouble.
Migrating to the Cloud is Easier with Help from the Experts
Thankfully, you can make it less difficult and complicated by working with professionals like those at Thrive. We are happy to help you with the process of data migration, cloud implementation, or whatever else you happen to need to make a smooth transition to the cloud. To learn more about what we can do for your business, contact Thrive.
Thrive Named to Channele2e Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs: 2022 EditionWe are thrilled to announce that Thrive has been ranked #2 in Financial Services and #11 overall among the world’s Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs from Channele2e!
The annual list and research identify and honor the top 100 managed services providers (MSPs) in healthcare, legal, government, financial services, manufacturing and additional vertical markets. Moreover, the research affirms that vertical market MSPs have vastly expanded their managed security capabilities.
Thrive is no stranger to Channele2e’s Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs list, and received awards in 2018, 2019, and 2021 for its impressive level of service and customer dedication, especially within the Financial Services market.
This year’s research revealed several key MSP businesses, security and market trends. Key takeaways include:
- Surging MSP Revenues: Honorees generated a combined $3.05 billion in vertical market annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 2021, up 42% from $2.14 billion million in 2020. The surge involved extremely strong MSP merger and acquisition (M&A) activity; accelerated demand for cloud & cybersecurity services; and successful MSP pivots amid the continued COVID-19 pandemic.
- Key Verticals: The most successful vertical market MSPs are zeroing in on healthcare and manufacturing, with continued strong interest in financial services, legal and government opportunities.
- Managed Security Services: All of the honorees offer some form of managed security services – particularly backup and disaster recovery (96%), endpoint detection & response (EDR, 88%) and managed detection and response (MDR), 82%). Moreover, the MSPs increasingly focus on emerging areas such as Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM, 49%) and eXtended Detection and Response (XDR, 38%).
- End-Customer Reach: The Top 100 Vertical Market MSPs now manage more than 6.1 million users across their customer sites as of 2021, up from 3.1 million in 2020.
- Top 10 Strategic Technology Partners: MSPs consider their top vertical market technology partners to be Microsoft (46%), ConnectWise (18%), Datto (18%), Cisco Systems (15%), Dell Technologies (14%), Ingram Micro (13%), Amazon Web Services (10%), SentinelOne (10%), Fortinet (9%) & Tech Data (7%).
Thrive’s recognition by Channele2e is a testament to the strides the company continues to make in the MSP community. Recently, Thrive was also named Best IT Managed Service at the With Intelligence HFM US Technology Awards 2022.
Thrive is dedicated to driving successful business outcomes with our talented engineering teams and suite of NextGen Managed Services for the Financial Services sector and beyond. Contact us today to learn how Thrive can help you transform your business through secure cloud solutions and digital collaboration and communication solutions.
Businesses are Feeling the Impact of Supply Chain IssuesThe pandemic forced businesses to reexamine the way that they operate, but even though the pandemic is, unfortunately, still ongoing, many have returned to conducting business as usual like they did before it began. One part of business that will not return to normal anytime soon is the supply chain, as these issues will likely persist into the future.
What is Your Supply Chain?
Your supply chain is the network of vendors your business works with to ensure access to products or services rendered. Your various vendors make up your supply chain. It doesn’t just include products, either; it can include activities, people, information, and other resources that let you maintain operations.
A supply chain is incredibly important to the continued success of your business. For example, if your organization makes shoes, then you need access to the materials to make said shoes, like leather, rubber, and otherwise. Another example is the computers you use to provide goods or services to your customers. If there are shortages in the supply chain or if products are unavailable, then your supply chain will be disrupted, which also means a disruption to your operations and a negative impact on your bottom line.
Why is the Supply Chain Having Problems?
There are several reasons why the supply chain is experiencing problems, one of which is the pandemic. People were forced to move essential employees off-site, meaning they needed the technology to make this happen. The pandemic placed a significant strain on the materials required to work remotely, and the goods needed to move entire workforces remotely could not keep up with demand. This is why certain components are hard to come by, even all this time later.
Additionally, there is a labor shortage in the form of crucial workers who make the supply chain work. Countless people have quit their jobs over the past year, including warehouse workers and truck drivers, both of which are essential to the supply chain, creating bottlenecks—which hamper it. The people in these positions are being asked to do more, and they quite simply can’t. These issues aren’t getting better; if anything, they are getting worse.
What Can You Do?
Here are some things you can do to keep the supply chain from impacting your organization to the extent it might otherwise:
Inventory Control
There are two parts of having effective inventory control. First, you’ll need to have an extensive list of your inventory so you know what you have on-hand at any given time. If you don’t, you might find yourself falling behind. The other part of inventory management is mitigating risk by building a surplus. While it’s not the ideal state of things, it’s the way we have to get through the pandemic supply chain problems.
Be Flexible
If you source specific components or products from a manufacturer, they may not have access to the same goods and services they had in the past. They will do their best to get you what you need, but there might be a chance they cannot fulfill the order. Therefore, you should be open to sourcing your products or services from alternative suppliers if necessary. While it’s great to have the established relationships with manufacturers, you also need to keep your needs in mind.
Use Technology Security
Technology Security can help make your supply chain problems less of an issue. Software can automate a fair amount of the inventory process, and the Internet of Things is also invaluable for letting you know which parts of your business might need to be addressed.
Thrive can’t control the supply chain issues, but we can help you address these challenges with complete and total transparency. To learn more about what we can do for your business, contact Thrive.