Business Contingency Planning....

Preparing for something unexpected is called contingency planning.  From the business perspective, unexpected event or situation can be financial crisis, market share of company going down, or it can also be large order, high market demand etc.  So anything that disrupts the company’s day to day operation by something unexpected is known as Business Contingency.  When businesses creates a plan or are ready to cope with any unexpected situation, it is known as business contingency planning.  Some of the threat usually covered in contingency plans is crisis management, business continuity, assets security, mismanagement and reorganization.

Crisis Management:  Some of the crisis that company run into includes natural disaster, terrorist attacks, fire in the warehouse, on the job injuries or even unhappy customers. Any plans to deal with these kinds of crisis are Crisis Management.

Continuity Plan: Business continuity plans cover a range of situations, including the death of a key executive or managers, threat to shut down of business, or other financial situations. Continuity plan generally involve insurance policies that provide cost of keeping the company in operation, and the cost and hiring consultants that can help solve problems.

Asset Security:  This includes the theft or destruction of intellectual property such as trade secrets or computer programs. A security plan attempt to block any negative contingencies that might occur is asset security.

Mismanagement: Fraud, theft, operational errors, mismanagement and personal scandal are all mismanagement crisis. Companies create a system of checks and balances to prevent such problem.

Reorganization: After any unexpected event happened, companies contingency plan also covers how the company will re-establish normal operations and reorganize to limit. It is very important to reorganize the new challenges that might come.

So what happens when Business Have Contingency Plans?

    A Contingency plan is a question and an answer to the questions. Contingency plan is also “What if Scenario”.  So what can a management do when they have a contingency plan? Here are few lists that a management can do:

Ø  React Quickly

Ø  Stay Ahead of Competitors

Ø  Lead with Confidence

Ø  More Accurate Forecasting.

Duff, V (n.d.) What is Business Contingency Plan?. Retrieved from url : http://smallbusiness.chron.com/business-contingency-plan-1081.html

Hill, Brian (n.d.) what happens when business have contingency plans? Retrieved from URL: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/happens-businesses-contingency-plans-20616.html

How to avoid online scams when selling your cell phone or tablet?

With the new phone being released every other month, a lot of you might be thinking to change your phone. Especially this week apple released a new iphone 6 and iphone 6 plus, many of you like me are thinking how you can sell your old phone and get the new iphone. I know most of you go to Amazon, eBay or some other online site to sell the phone. Unfortunately, some of you might be the victim of online scammed. So it is very important to take few extra steps, be cautious and sell the devices to the right person.  I found this article, which tells us some excellent tips to take into consideration.

1.      If you are selling it online, make sure to look closely at the official email from Amazon, PayPal, eBay or another entity. If the email consist of misspelled words or grammatically incorrect, the email is very likely not the official email from Amazon, or eBay. It is most probably fake.

2.      If you have sold before, compare previous, “your item just sold” emails to the ones you just received.

3.      Look at the sender’s email address.  Make sure its official email address.

4.      Before taking action, verify the transaction by logging into your account at the site you are selling through.

5.      If someone contacts you outside of the official Amazon, eBay or other seller messaging system, be wary. There’s rarely a good reason for this.

6.      If you want to avoid the risk of scam altogether, just sell your gadget to Gazelle, USell, or similar company. You might not make as much money as selling it yourself, but you don’t have to worry about fraud.

Originally published: Network world.com.

Martin, James A.  (n.d.) “How to avoid online scams when selling your iphone or ipad”. URL: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2682701/tablets/how-to-avoid-online-scams-when-selling-your-old-iphone-or-ipad.html

4 Quick Tips to Safely Store your Data in the Cloud

Cloud storage is a great way to store your information and access it wherever and whenever you want. It provides ease of access for information. Data that are stored in cloud can be accessed anytime and anywhere. With the increasing cyber threat there is also a threat of your information being hacked or leaked by someone else. So it is very important to take a appropriate steps to avoid any security risk. Below are five simple steps that will help to protect yourself and your data.

1. Play Smart with Password: First and foremost keep your password safe from prying eyes.Often time we create a simple password to make it easy so we don't forget. Keep in mind if they are easy , they are easy to guess as well. There are hackers constantly trying to get your information. So it is very important you create a complex password. Throw in few random numbers, create something that is not easily guessable.

2. Don't reuse or share passwords: Don't use the same password for all the accounts, online banking to your email. If you have the same password for your outlook and gmail, the hacker now has access to your One Drive (outlook) and Google Drive (Gmail) cloud storage. Do NOT share your password with your friends, even if you trust them.

3. Backup your data: Backup, Backup and Backup, its one of the important piece of advice any IT professionals are exposed to for years. its very important to backup your data. If you are storing information in Drop box, then back up your data to one more places like Amazon cloud drive or icloud or Google drive. It is very important to have your information backed up if any thing happens to your primary device.

4. Be Alert and Play it Safe: Last but not least, it is important to stay alert while browsing internet. Do not make a mistake of clicking on some random advertisement. By clicking you might risk of your device exposed to some viruses. Make sure to log off from your online bank, email account or any other website that has your information. Never save your password and user information on the browser. Its very important to browse safe.

Below is the Video that gives you few tips on cloud storage (Source: ESET You tube video)

Reference:

Fenlon, Wesley (n.d.), Retrieved from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/5-ways-to-keep-your-information-secure-in-the-cloud.htm#page=5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t_S7fX2hGU

How to Prevent Cybercrime

Internet has become a must needed tool in today's world. Life has become almost impossible without internet. We use internet for almost everything, communicating with friends and family, reading news, watching movie, online banking, online shopping, working remotely , the list goes on and on. The internet has made our life much easier. But at the same time, it has also created a big question on our privacy. Internet has created lots of opportunities for criminals to gain our personal and financial information. We hear every other day, the news about data breaches. Criminals are finding all different ways to hack our personal information.
Here is small list that will help us prevent from cyber crime.

Avoid Scams:
You have probably heard all sorts of scams about how you won the million dollar, or how you can become millionaire in with few hundred dollar. There are all kinds of deals that are really good to be true. You have to be aware all of these messages are Scam. There are criminals somewhere trying to steal your personal information like credit card, Social security number , date of birth etc. Beware of strange gifts. Do you research before throwing any information online. Lastly, when you are in doubt, play it sage.

Securely Dispose of Your Personal Information:
Do you not throw the document that has some personal information in a trash. There are multiple ways to dispose those documents. Common ways are document shredding and electronics recycling. They are very effective ways to dispose some of your sensitive information.

Secure Your Browser: 
Make sure you are using a secure browser. Look for "https" at the beginning of the URL. Avoid using unsecured or public wireless network.

Keep Your Password Private:
It is very important that you create a complex password. When creating a password make sure it consist of at least  one upper case, one lower case, one numeric and one alpha numeric character. Do not use your name or some dictionary word as your password. Make a habit of changing password on a regular basis.

Don't Over Share on Social Media:
Keep your Social Media sharing limited. Watch what you are sharing. Make sure to go through the privacy settings and determine what is good amount of privacy protection. Never Ever post your personal information like Social Security Number, date of birth, other family information in a public place.

The Above mentioned tips will not guarantee that your account will not be hacked but these tips will help safeguard you and your family.

Reference: 

Boreli, S. (2014, January 21). 5 Tips for Keeping Your Personal Information Secure Online. Retrieved from http://www.bbb.org/blog/2014/01/5-tips-for-keeping-your-personal-information-secure-online/ 

Prevent cybercrime For everyone Safety Center Google. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/safetycenter/everyone/cybercrime/