This is a very important message for all equity principals, partners, directors and practice managers. If you outsource some or all of the IT services and IT support for your Perth professional services firm, this blog contains very important information that will be extremely beneficial for you to know now that could prevent you from making a very big, expensive mistake that may cost you your personal and professional reputations, your best team members or employees in what is a very tough labour market, your firm and your family’s livelihood if you don’t make a tough decision now.
Last week I attended a conference virtually and one of the speakers is a very successful business owner, who is the CEO of a large publicly traded company. I know you think because he runs a large publicly traded company that he wouldn’t know what you’re going through as a small to medium professional services firm equity principal, partner or director. Naturally, along with his role as CEO, he has also previously coached many small, family business owners to help them turn their struggling businesses around.
This is not the first time Marcus Lemonis has presented at this conference. However, he had the courage to tell a story that many small to medium firms and businesses have not had the courage to do so, which I applaud, it would help if more did so. His large public company in February of 2022 suffered a ransomware attack. In it the attackers demanded a US $27,000,000 ransom.
What he said next was not a surprise to me. Naturally, I believe you will be shocked. He went on to say it was not the ransom or recovery costs that were the most devastating things to his company. Obviously, and it goes without saying, this is a very large sum of money.
It was the severe psychological and emotional turmoil and trauma that his leadership team, their legal team and the internal IT team suffered in negotiating with the ransomware group and resolving the attack to get the company operational again. It took 2 solid weeks of negotiating with the ransomware group. Further the public scrutiny they faced with people asking what they were doing previously to stop this from happening took its toll.
As an equity principal, partner, director or business owner can you afford that amount of lost time for yourself and your team?
So, what if you think you can afford that amount of lost time? It will easily burn out great team members or employees going through an experience like this. Especially, in what is already a very tough labour market to find replacements when they decide they’ve had enough.
Now what if your firm was to lose 3 of your top employees because of a similar experience. Ask yourself
- Do you think you could replace them at short notice and have them producing quickly?
- Could your firm survive that?
So, what can you do to avoid making the same mistake?
Obviously, you want to work with a cyber security specialist to make sure you can confidently prevent a cyber attack against your firm in the first place. What would be worse is selecting a company and then still suffering a cyber attack due to the wrong advice given. The IT services or IT support company you chose to support your firm or business should be able to offer a guarantee on their services as a way of giving you peace of mind.
Naturally, choosing an IT services or IT support company based solely on the cheapest price is a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.
As I wrote about in my recent book, Protect Your Legacy How To Confidently Protect You And Your Firm From The FINES, LAWSUITS, CUSTOMER LOSS, RUINED REPUTATION & PR NIGHTMARE Resulting From A Data Breach And Cybercrime.
You want to ask yourself the following questions
- What will it cost me and my team in time, wages, and fees to find a solution ourselves?
- What will it cost me, my team, and the firm in reputation and livelihood damage when we suffer a cyber attack due to the failings of our existing system or supplier?
Then consider the value of investing in our monthly services
- What benefits do we get from concentrating on our strengths, not finding an IT solution on our own and not just “trusting” our current IT “guy” or company has it covered?
- Where can I re-invest time and money saved from a cyber-attack into the firm’s growth or to use that money saved as a profit distribution?
Would you like to have us conduct our proprietary 23-point IT systems assessment, so we can help you avoid making a similar big expensive and emotional mistake? Complete and submit the form on this page or call our office on +61 8 6244 2556.
Not ready for the assessment and want to learn more about how to avoid suffering emotional and psychological turmoil and how to protect your reputation and family’s livelihood, for your professional services firm? Click here and signup for our free on demand training titled How To Confidently Protect Your Legacy, Reputation and Livelihood Without Having To Stop Practicing Your Profession” In it you’ll discover how to make smart decisions with technology and how to not suffer the devastation and embarrassment of reputation damage or emotional turmoil due to a cyber-attack.