In today’s technologically driven world, businesses of any nature can’t survive without IT.
Everything is about moving forward in mining operations. Mining companies can’t afford to not invest in IT because it can help them improve communications in the mine site, make collaborations easier between departments, enhance task coordination, improve staff productivity, and accelerate work with automation. These positive effects alone could improve mine site operations tenfold.
Success starts with innovative operations. The company that invests in IT can stay ahead in the mining game and continually grow using proactive technology.
Let’s have a look at how a mining company can gain a competitive advantage with the help of an IT support service provider.
IT shouldn’t only be imposed on the technologically savvy. As your mine site takes on a new technological approach, all departments involved must also do their part in helping technology operate the way it’s supposed to. Not only to boost productivity but also to protect precious data from harm.
Information security is no longer just handled by IT guys. All staff and personnel are now responsible for keeping company data and assets safe. In fact, one of the most common causes of data breaches in the mining and resources industry is human error from using weak passwords to becoming phishing scam victims.
Sadly, this disaster is mainly due to the lack of awareness of cyber security and risks. Without a security awareness policy implementation, you’re pretty much welcoming cyber threats to mess with your data.
A mining company’s first defense against cyber risks is administering a security awareness policy. Even holding a monthly or quarterly security awareness seminar could save your company from disasters.
Knowledge is power!
As a part of a security awareness policy, it’s critical to know what you’re up against and whom. This is so everyone in your organisation is conscious of what dangers these cyber risks bring and how they could defend themselves and the company as a whole. Here are the most common types of cyber-attacks in the mining and resources industry:
Ransomware is malicious software that invades your computer when you or someone from your team clicks on a deceitful link or downloads an attachment from a phishing email.
Once the worm has its way into your computer, it will take over your data and encrypt all of your files, such as emails and corporate documents holding them hostage. This inability to access important company data can lead to a halt in mining operations, loss of client and employee information, system failures, and your hard-earned reputation.
Unless you either pay the ransom to remove the encryption or establish a reliable backup solution beforehand, then your data is pretty much good as gone.
If you’re only using Microsoft 365’s limited backup and restoration features, there’s a tiny chance that you’ll recover all of your data. But if you have a dedicated Microsoft 365 backup (ideally by a third-party application) you’ll be able to recover all your encrypted data fast and without hassle.
Integrating IT initiatives into your company is never an easy task. The more challenging the industry, such as mining and resources, the harder it is to shift their operations to digital technologies. But if done right, it will increase overall company productivity, improve work quality and collaboration, and lower costs.
Here’s when the IT roadmap comes into the picture.
The IT roadmap bridges the gap between IT and business processes creating an open communication channel between executives and the IT department. A tailor-fit roadmap will maximise technology and bring the organisation to new heights with a strategic technical approach.
IT roadmaps factor technology into the executive decision-making process. It brings in a plethora of benefits to everyone, from CEOs to team leaders.
We all want a hassle-free IT environment. But of course, issues can happen and sometimes, unexpectedly. In this case, your well-planned IT roadmap should also contain a backup plan in case incidents occur so you can get everything up and running in no time without the expensive downtime cost.
A company CIO should know the current state of the organisation and what it wants to be in the future. Knowing these will help you tremendously once you start laying out your organisation’s technological roadmap.
IT plays a significant role in your mining company and operations. Without a strategic plan, your technological changes might bring more bad than good. Whether your goal is to change servers or switch service providers, you’ll need to consider how the transition will change your organisation as a whole.
To do that, you will need to do the following with your virtual CIO:
Data loss is a threat not just for companies in the mining industry, but any industry that relies on IT for their everyday operations.
It can happen anytime on any device for different reasons. One way to stay ahead of the game and protect your precious data is to implement backup and restoration in your mining IT protocols.
Instead of storing your data in one place, you can have a copy of that data in another location that can be immediately retrieved. So whenever (intentional, accidental, or natural) disaster occurs and your locally stored files were destroyed, your mining operations can still run as if nothing happened.
I guess you could consider backup as insurance that would protect you from data loss and costly downtime.
Data is a mining company’s biggest asset – and it’s only critical that you keep this asset as secure as possible. If not, the functionality and profitability of your mining operations will be massively affected by data loss or any cyber risks.
Data protection is the main sauce in the backup pasta, but there are a few other reasons why you should have it.
IT systems with automated backups take the stress of manually backing up data. This makes management and restoration of mining data seem like a walk in the park. All you need to do is decide how often you want your data backed up, and you’re set for success.
Data corruption and hard drive failures happen to everyone, even to the most technologically savvy.
Data backup (whether cloud or offsite storage) will save your data and protect you from high downtime costs, which can be a frequent occurrence in the mining and resources industry. With a reliable backup, you can sleep well at night knowing your data is completely protected from both accidental and intentional threats.
You call the shots as to how often you’d like to backup your mining data and how much of it you want to store. You can scale up or scale down depending on your business needs. The process is painless, quick, and proactive.
Start gaining a competitive advantage by getting to know your IT with a complementary health check from us. We'll personally show you a plain English report of your current IT status and vulnerabilities as well as how you could mitigate your risks.