If you are a business owner then there are many potential pitfalls that you have to be aware of. These can be financial, communications, security or technology based but no matter what they are they all require planning to make sure they are carried out properly. Thanks to these technological advances in communitcations and information systems, businesses have had to face the reality that although they offer many new opportunities they also present a number of new challenges and threats.

Business owners often feel under pressure to keep up to date with developments in information technology systems. However these sort of advancements might not always be a good thing for a business, as sometimes they can be unnecessary and end up turning out to be a bad investment or a bad debt. To make sure that this doesn’t happen it is important to put together a well thought out plan for new investments.

If you require financial investment towards a new information system or other technologies then putting together a business plan will help you layout all the costs and potential depreciation of the system. This is vital when seeking an investment, as you need to show that it is feasible for your firm to purchase the technology and that there are no risks to the investor. You may feel writing a business plan in house would be the best idea but usually using professional business plan services works out better as the writer comes to the table with a fresh eye. Using one of these writers can often save you time and money thanks to the wealth of experience and knowledge that professional business plan writers have amassed over the years.

Businesses often keep different types of back ups as a method of preparing for potential data loss. Although most information is now stored on computers and networks it is still important for some physical documents to be held. A lot of businesses don’t have the space to cope with storing large numbers of written documents. It is because of this that many companies are now using the services of secure document storage companies. Many of these firms offer offsite secure document storage and offsite media storage. The secure document storage consists of paper based documents being stored in bar code numbered containers that are easy to manage. The media storage is for data that is stored on tape or disk and is there as an emergency back up for when computer systems go down or important data is lost.

Businesses that utilise information technology and hold personal data are required to follow the data protection act. All private and public operations that use information technology or hold any potentially vulnerable data, could be attacked by hackers or criminal gangs. Using information assurance and good data centre design and resilience methods you can help to manage the potential risks that are faced from hackers. It is important to have a data centre design that has a good solid cabling infrastructure as well as good internal and external security but you also evaluate the human elements. To gain information assurance accreditation you need to make sure that your business complies with legislation regarding the management of the risk associated with the process, storage and transportation of information.