Top IT Challenges Faced By Startups

The allure of operating a startup in an emerging market is easy to grasp, but most entrepreneurs neglect the unique risks they’ll be facing. And that’s why they’re unprepared to take adequate measures when challenges arise. While the challenge of raising funds remains the top concern, IT challenges are another major consideration for all these startups. This is reflected in the news with headlines like “Are Indian online startups taking security for granted?” emerging frequently.

So what are the top IT challenges faced by startups in emerging markets? Let’s take a look:

Network Threats

It’s safe to say that most startups heavily rely on the health of their IT servers and network, and it is an eye-opening fact that downtime has become a major concern. Overlooking one or two loopholes gives adversaries the opportunity to enter your company’s network and wreak havoc.

And before you know it, all the customer data that you acquired in the first year is going up on the black market. Maintaining good network health is the key to preventing such mishaps.

Startups need to have pre-planned measures in place to safeguard their company network and maintain uptime. Ottawa IT support and reliable IT services in emerging countries provide companies with options such as network emergency response and server maintenance. These are the kind of services startups need to prevent and minimize network damage, especially if there’s no in-house IT support team.

Supporting a Remote Workforce

Startups in emerging economies are starting to embrace the concept of managing distributed teams, but they’re unequipped when it comes to supporting a mobile workforce. The founders are clueless about using the right tools to manage a remote team and often rely on legacy applications.

While they do use some decent applications like Skype, they’re not able to address the main challenges of leading virtual teams, such as getting coworkers to collaborate and overcoming cultural differences.

The solution? Keep yourself updated with the latest trends in remote working. A quick Google Search would give you plenty of ideas about which tools to use and for which purpose. You can even subscribe to newsletters to keep an eye on the developments that help address the challenges of managing a distributed team.

BYOD risks

Ovum conducted a research on employee BYOD use in emerging markets and found that 57.1% of full-time staffers use some form of BYOD in 17 different markets. The same report found that much of this activity is unmanaged, and 17.7% of the respondents said that their IT departments do not have the adequate knowledge to manage the trend. 28.4% revealed their IT departments completely ignored BYOD.

Unmanaged BYOD is a great risk to data integrity, and the repercussions of losing confidential information via a personal device can be dire from a legal and financial perspective. Therefore, startups need to understand how BYOD is happening in their firms, and create a risk profile to manage risks accordingly.

It’s also essential to write a BYOD policy that addresses the risks of bringing and using personal devices at the workplace comprehensively. It should address compliance aspects such as when corporate data should be deleted from a personal device and what type of encryption should be used when data is transferred between devices and company servers.

These challenges hinder the growth of startups in emerging markets, but steps in the right direction can streamline business operations and supercharge productivity.