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Restaurants: Stop Paying Commission on Online Orders [Workshop]

REGISTRATION REQUIRED: We provide online ordering solutions so you can save the commission on online orders.  It is easy to use, affordable, and give customers what they want online, where they want to be.

A recent survey found that less than 10% of restaurants using delivery apps said it was very profitable and 21% said it was not at all profitable.  How can you get online ordering to work for you?

About this Free Event

Restaurant kitchen with chefStop Paying Commission by Having Your Own Online Takeout and Delivery Solution

How much are you paying in commissions for takeout orders made online?  Even if you don’t want to have your own delivery service, you can save the commission on takeout orders.

What will you learn?

  • How importing is online ordering?
  • What do delivery apps promise and what do they deliver?
  • What do you lose working with the delivery app marketplace?
  • What does the online app look like and is it easy to use?
  • How much could you save on commissions?
  • What is the special offer for Small Business Week?

When: Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Where: Calgary Chamber of Commerce

Address: 600 – 237 8th Avenue SE, Calgary, AB T2G 5C3

Cost: FREE

Contact: Dwight Stewart, 403-455-5969







Small Business Week in Calgary is a great opportunity to learn about new strategies and tools available to help you grow your business.

We hope you can make it!

#SBWyyc #foodorderingapp #gmb #yycevents #calgaryevents #calgarychamber


Office 365 Helps Solo Entrepreneur Scale His Brand

We’re excited to show you how #Office365, a productivity tools that lets you do your best work, gives Bryce McDonald what he needs to do his best work.


He is a solo entrepreneur who relies on an extensive network of vendors and partners to help him scale DAY 1 Wake, his wakesurf board making business, out to the world. No matter your size, business or industry, Results Matter Cloud Services can help you work easily and flexibly, just like Bryce. Check it out!

These tools need to always be up-to-date. They also need to have the information that matters most to you, available and accessible – anywhere, anytime.

Facebook Data Breach: 3 Things to Do Now

facebook-app-results-matter-cloud-services-source-pixabay-lobo-studio-hamburg

The security breach was announced on September 28 by Facebook and affected at least 50 million users. The attackers exploited bugs in the platforms “View As” privacy feature, which occurred in July 2017, when Facebook introduced a new video uploader.

The uploader feature appearing as active in the “View As” feature and created an access token, which was not supposed to happen. Access tokens provide a key to keep users logged into their accounts and to provide access to other platforms. This is a convenience to reduce the need to enter login credentials.

What to do now? Reconsider the use of the Facebook login feature. Using the login feature of platforms or reusing the same password across various is not work the risk taken for the small amount of convenience.

Check your privacy settings and credential recovery options on Facebook and your other platforms. Ensure you know how they are configured and update them. Facebook had a security update post in their developer’s blog suggesting user visit the “Security and Login” tab on the sites settings menu to review platforms connected through Facebook.

Change your password to something hard to guess and unique.  This breach apparently did not get passwords but access tokens instead. It will do no harm to update your password on Facebook and your other platforms.

Enable 2FA (two-factor authentication) using a third party app like Google Authenticator or Authy, both of which are free. Two-factor authentication requires you do something to verify identify beyond supply a password. There is the option to receive an e-mail or text message but using an app may reduce the risk from the 2FA messages being intercepted.

Turning on notifications for every login to your accounts across platforms could seem like over kill, in the beginning. It does settle down once you establish the pattern of where and when you login. Knowing that helps to keep you informed.

Sources

  • https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/when-facebook-gets-hacked-everyone-gets-hacked/d/d-id/1332953
  • https://www.fastcompany.com/90245345/facebook-data-breach-4-simple-steps-to-stay-safer-right-now
  • https://www.fastcompany.com/90219499/att-gets-sued-over-two-factor-security-flaws-and-23m-cryptocurrency-theft
  • Image: Pixabay, LoboStudioHamburg

The Importance of a Basic Backup Strategy

Are you prepared with a basic backup?

It doesn’t always take someone malicious to hack your computer system, but regardless of the reason, if a business is shut down for any matter of time, revenue is lost. The first step in running any business is ensuring there are basic backup plans in place.

Picture this; a freak September snowstorm sends the city into panic. Tree branches are breaking from the weight of the snow, and one just happens to fall on the power line closest to your downtown office. The power goes out and your building is plunged into dark.

Power goes out, operations stop. All your files are now gone and without any way of getting them back, you’re starting at the bottom again.

When breaches occur, for any reason, operations and finance are the first things to be affected, and the network outages caused usually have long-lasting impact. Most businesses cannot come back from even three days spent at a standstill.

So what can you do?

By following the 3-2-1 rule, when it comes to a basic backup strategy, your company will be laughing during the next storm.

Your backup plan should be thought of like this; there should be 3 total copies of data, 2 of which are local, but on different mediums, and at least 1 copy that is offsite.

The local copy is what users rely on for primary access.

  • One of the easiest ways to create a backup is to store copies on any network attached storage, an external hard drive, or a USB drive.

Backup local copy to a local avenue.

  • Gives user immediate, instant access to whatever data needed, despite if it’s been deleted, overwritten, or lost.

Store a copy of all files securely offsite.

  • This helps in the aforementioned disaster. Regardless if something happens to the physical place of business, all data is still safe and secure.
  • There are many cloud-based solutions, which store information on remote servers which are accessed through the Internet.

Regardless of how you are backing up your data, the first step in protecting your business is having that backup plan. Every minute your team is without access will cost more than just revenue.

Take a look at how much it would cost your business if your systems were unavailable.  Try our online calculator yourself or give us a call 403-455-5969. The results might surprise you.

 

 

 

 

Backup vs. Business Continuity

Using RTO to Better Plan for Your Business

Conclusion

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Making sure your business can continue operating in case of a disaster is just as essential to small businesses as it is to the largest enterprises. For that reason, business continuity using data backup is an essential solution that small businesses should deploy.

Data backup solutions come in all different flavors. Cloud-based solutions are increasingly popular, but they provide only a partial answer. On-site solutions also have their weaknesses.

The answer is a hybrid cloud. It provides the best of all worlds: you can recover data swiftly from a local device for the most common causes of data loss, but you have all your data safely stored in the cloud for more extreme events in which the local device is destroyed or unavailable.

Executive Summary

Small businesses in general don’t have the same IT budgets and staffs as larger enterprises. Yet just like larger organizations they need to protect their data and make sure they can get back to business rapidly after a disaster or other event that compromises their data and systems.

We will discuss what’s at stake when it comes to not just protecting, but also managing, your data (hint: your business). We’ll explain why it’s important to think in terms of business continuity rather than simply data backup. And we’ll look at how to calculate the all-important Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) so that you can get what you need from your business continuity vendor.

Small businesses in general don’t have the same IT budgets and staffs as larger enterprises. Yet just like larger organizations they need to protect their data and make sure they can get back to business rapidly after a disaster or other event that compromises their data and systems.

We will discuss what’s at stake when it comes to not just protecting, but also managing, your data (hint: your business). We’ll explain why it’s important to think in terms of business continuity rather than simply data backup. And we’ll look at how to calculate the all-important Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) so that you can get what you need from your business continuity vendor.

Data backup versus business continuity: what’s the difference?

Although overlapping, these terms represent uniquely different mindsets when it comes to data protection.

Data backup answers the questions: is my data safe? Can I get it back in case of a failure?

Business continuity, on the other hand, involves thinking about the business at a higher level, and asks: how quickly can I get my business operating again in case of system failure?
Thinking about data backup is a good first step. But in case of failure, you have to get that data back and restore it quickly enough so your business doesn’t suffer. For example, if your server dies—and remember, hardware failure is the No. 1 cause of lost data—you wouldn’t be able to quickly get back to work if you only had file-level backup. For you to start working again, your server would need to be replaced, all software re-installed, data re-installed and then the whole system would need to be configured with your settings and preferences. This process could take hours or even days—and in the meantime, your users can’t get their jobs done.

Calculate your RTO and RPO easily with our online tool.

What To Look for in a Business Continuity Vendor

When comparing vendors for a backup solution, small businesses say that reliability (33 per- cent) and price (29 percent) top the list of factors that drive their choices. But they should consider other factors as well.

  • Superior Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) — Think in terms of business continuity rather than simply backup, and calculate how much downtime your business can endure and still survive (RTO) as well as how much data you can afford to lose (RPO). Choose a vendor that can guarantee top RTOs and RPOs.
  • Hybrid cloud backup—As discussed above, taking a hybrid approach fixes the vulnerabilities that a cloud-only or local-only solution possess.
  • Image-based backup—Make sure that the backup solution takes images of all your data and systems, and doesn’t simply copy the files alone.
  • Instant local and off-site virtualization.
  • Screenshot backup verification. What good is a backup if it’s not working?
  • Images saved as VMDK for faster recovery times.
  • For more information contact us by e-mail or call us at 403-455-5969.