Most cannabis businesses spend a good deal of their time, energy and resources managing their operations rather than keeping an eye on growing risks and daily tech needs. As a result, it’s common for important technical elements to be overlooked or skipped altogether. In the rapidly evolving cannabis industry, where businesses must consider compliance, employment trends, products, delivery, and a host of other factors in order to successfully compete in their respective industries, tech strategies are more crucial than ever.
Here’s a look at the most common technology mistakes cannabis businesses make:
Not Segmenting Network
Although network segmentation can be done physically or virtually, the results will be the same. By restricting network communication, your company or organization will reduce the likelihood of cybercriminals launching an attack.
Not Implementing Firewall
You can prevent unauthorised access to your computers and network with a robust firewall. It guards against the compromise of your data. Additionally, it offers you increased security against malware and viruses. A firewall will not permit anything suspicious or malicious to access your private network if it detects it trying to do so from the internet.
A firewall is a core part of the security system for your business. Your network is vulnerable without it. A firewall controls the incoming and outgoing network traffic based on security settings that you can manage and refine. It keeps disruptive and destructive forces out. In light of this, if your dispensary does not use a firewall, a cyber attack could easily succeed, resulting in the loss of your sensitive data. Along with disrupting business operations, this would also decrease productivity and possibly damage your reputation and brand.
Not Using MDM
To say the least, unmanaged mobile devices such as tablets are a huge security risk for your cannabis business.
The biggest benefit of mobile device management is the enhanced security it offers to the entire cannabis store or dispensary. With an MDM solution, security can be installed on each and every device connected to the enterprise network, and protocols can be defined to specify what should be done when a security issue is discovered.
MDMs can authenticate users, control remote access to highly sensitive data, and even allow remote data wiping for lost or stolen devices. Additionally, MDM can be used to ensure that devices have the most latest software updates that could fix known security flaws.
The other benefits of implementing an MDM plan include cost savings and improved workflows and flexibility.
Not Having An Outage Plan
The cornerstone of every risk management approach is having dependable backups.
An incident that has a negative impact on your cannabis business is referred to as a risk. For example, the risk of having equipment or money stolen from your cannabis store due to lax security measures.
Loss of business-critical data due to a power outage, accident, natural disaster, or the actions of a malicious hacker is a risk that affects all businesses.
Downtime is a costly affair. Depending on your cannabis business, it will vary just how expensive downtime is, but it can cost thousands of dollars each minute on average for all businesses. It costs your cannabis business money every minute that it is out of operation.
The impact of an outage might be detrimental to client loyalty. When access to an essential commodity or service is limited, customers don’t like it. They may end up searching for your competitors on Google every minute your services are down. Therefore, your goal must be to recover from an outage as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
Using Consumer-Grade Hardware
You run the risk of network outages and revenue losses if you use consumer-grade hardware. To keep the expense of the hardware low, a lot of the consumer-grade hardware available in the market uses inexpensive internal components. For less demanding environments, this might be acceptable, but for cannabis businesses that depend on technology, a small upfront saving could end up costing a lot in the long run.
Additionally, if you use consumer-grade hardware, you can miss out on updates that safeguard the network from imminent threats and security meant to secure cannabis businesses and keep them compliant.
Inadequate Internet Bandwidth
The number of employees, the number of devices connected to your network, the number of devices that will need Internet connectivity, and the kinds of applications those devices run should all be taken into account when calculating your bandwidth needs.
Not Using Managed IT Services
Cannabis businesses can profit greatly by using IT managed services. Costs can be significantly reduced while MSP. Most providers impose an upfront price and then a recurring fixed monthly fee, giving consumers a fixed monthly expense and greatly simplifying financial planning. Additionally, IT managed services enable business owners to cut the cost of internal staff as well as the resources, technology, and equipment needed to complete the task.
The managed service provider will provide the knowledge, skills, and experience to their service that will enable increased accuracy and decreased risk and liability. Especially since they have to ensure compliance with numerous industry standards and government requirements.
An MSP will have the resources, technology, and tools necessary to increase efficiencies by streamlining numerous processes and procedures. This may then result in more flexibility and understanding, which will lay the groundwork for more solid decision-making based on accurate, up-to-date data and statistics.
Bottom Line
Most cannabis business owners expect a lot when it comes to technology. Everything from laptops and POS systems to WiFi, barcode scanners, and software solutions are taken for granted when they work and vilified when they don’t. To keep your cannabis business compliant and efficient you need to avoid the abovementioned common IT mistakes that other cannabis companies are making.
Contact our expert tech team to help you build out a robust IT infrastructure and tech processes.
