For nuclear companies, which have a need to prioritise discretion, IT and technology can be your best friend when it comes to working effectively with employees. By leveraging the potential of all technical aspects of your business, you can gain an edge internally and externally, maximising efficiency and productivity. This issue, Michael Douglass, Director at Yellowbus Solutions Limited outlines how to utilise IT solutions to increase productivity.

Be proactive, not reactive!

This can help you to reduce any issues or downtime within your business. By being proactive with your IT, you can ensure that all systems can run faster for longer, resulting in increased efficiency of equipment. Regular maintenance of IT equipment & infrastructure is essential to check for any potential issues – this means that you can always be one step ahead of the game, ensuring your technology doesn’t let you down when you need it most.

Take responsibility of IT and create partnerships

It is essential that there is a dedicated team or member of staff responsible for the IT and technical strategy for your business – and this doesn’t mean breaking the bank. Smaller businesses who may not have the capacity or budget for an in-house IT Manager can turn to outsourced IT services providers, who can work with all of the dedication of internal staff, bringing experience, but without the associated costs. By building partnerships with vendors, managed service providers, internet service providers and other outsourced providers, you can leverage all of their skills, technology and services, leaving you to do what you do best – work on your business, minimising the risk for things to go wrong or be missed.

Have an ‘IT Road Map’

If you don’t already have an IT Road Map in place, it is highly recommended that you create one. An IT Road Map makes it easier to get business owners, managers and directors on board with utilising IT within their business, without over-whelming and over-complicating. Having this in place means that you can help all members of staff understand IT and how it can improve the business, highlighting the benefits and not the features in a jargon free manner, to aid the business plan, and aligning goals with technology, ultimately speeding up business progression.

Don’t just work harder, work smarter

When it comes to IT there is no need to complicate things, instead, it should be used as a way to make business life easier. By taking advantage of various tools, you can make your working day easier and processes much more efficient, such as project planning tools. By using systems in this way, you can improve staff productivity or bring employees together to collaborate in their work.

Take a different perspective

It’s a common struggle for many business owners and managers in the nuclear sector to struggle with improving internal processes, focussing on working ‘in the business’ rather than ‘on the business. Often, it helps to take yourself out of the equation, and ask the following questions:

• Is there a way to improve this process?

• Can technology be used to streamline this process?

• Is this process easy for anyone in the business to follow?

By positioning your thinking ‘outside of the business’ and asking these questions, it is much easier to see a process from a different perspective and therefore streamline it from all aspects.

Treat technology as a business advantage, not a cost

Many businesses treat IT as a ‘cost’ to the company, implying it as a drain on resources with a similar effect of a utility bill. Often, the nuclear industry resists taking on new technology, leaving updating and upgrading business IT systems and machines until the very last minute. This approach to IT and technology regularly has a very negative impact, and can be false economy. When new technology becomes available, it should be viewed as a way to advance your business, or improve an internal process, rather than over using older technology resulting in business efficiency decreasing.

Go hosted

Using hosted services such as the Cloud can hold great benefits for your business (see last issue of Nuclear Connect), offering flexibility, increased collaboration and improved monitoring. By utilising hosted services to your business advantage, you can:

• Reduce CAPEX costings of IT projects

• Speed up IT and infrastructure rollouts and migrations

• Mobilise staff and offices faster and more efficiently

• Reduce your carbon footprint by utilising less IT infrastructure onsite

Is your business IT secure?

Without your staff and data, you essentially don’t have a business. This is why it is particularly important for nuclear companies to use IT security technology to your advantage and to ensure your business data is protected and secure. Putting simple systems and protocols into place such as antivirus, encryption, security policies and offsite disaster recovery means that you can rest assured your business is protected from outside threats.

New technology is ever evolving to improve businesses, processes and ways of working, ultimately to make life easier and efficient; isn’t that what everyone wants? As Cyber essentials recognised suppliers to the Nuclear sector, Yellowbus Solutions Ltd are here to answer any of your questions on this or any IT related topics. You can contact Michael Douglass directly and in confidence on 01925 838386 or via michael.douglass@yellowbus.uk 

For further information about Yellowbus Solutions Ltd, their services within the nuclear sector, and how they could help you, please visit www.yellowbus.uk/nuclear