No matter what size a business is, it uses the internet or internet related products and services every day. While casual users are dependent on the internet for entertainment, knowledge, etc., businesses today depend on the internet for their day-to-day operation. Online presence is a must, and every small thing can give you can edge. To stay ahead of the pack of your competitors, you should use a VPN for your business.
Risks Small and Medium sized Businesses Face
Small and medium sized businesses contribute a huge chunk of the global business sector today. This is because opening up a business is simpler today as compared to before. You require lesser capital and have a lot more areas to get into. All this is possible leveraging the global reach and ease of operation through the internet.
Working from remote places has its benefits, and so does using the internet to store files. But these are double-edged swords. You can have a distributed workforce today, but communicating with them and ensuring authorized access to company files is not as simple as it seems. With malicious users putting their entire attention to getting past business security systems and stealing your business data, you have to be overly cautious. Since SMEs don’t always have a good IT support staff, and since everyone today has sensitive information that can be misused, SMEs are at greater risk than other businesses.
Why VPNs can Help SMEs
There are a lot of reasons why your business can use a good VPN.
1. Security
You have a workforce that uses the internet for business for almost the entire time they are in the workplace. There is a high chance that some of your employees don’t know much about internet security or accessing and using data securely. This is where VPNs come in handy. Your connection is encrypted, providing a secure channel for communication. You never have to worry about identity theft or data breaches. This also proves helpful if your employees have to travel a lot for business related purposes.
2. Defeat Rival Spying
Surviving in the corporate world is a cut-throat business. Everyone tries to up their game in order to leave their competitors behind. Some even try to spy on their rivals’ activities to see what kind of methodologies they use. This enables them to counter your tactics better. However, if you use a VPN, you can prevent this from happening. VPNs hide your online activity, so your rivals cannot see what you are doing. Moreover, if you want to take the game to them, you can use VPNs’ location spoofing technology to spy on your competitors from seemingly distant locations.
3. Better Management
Business VPNs allow you to give VPN accounts to your employees to ensure safer access to business data. You can give different accounts to employees, and even interchange these accounts as you see fit. It gives you more protection and flexibility.
4. Location Testing
There are many different kinds of businesses today. Some of them involve giving search results or other information to users based on their location. Location services play a huge role in businesses today. However, it can be a little difficult for you to see just how well your location-based services actually work. Your IP address reveals your location, and the service will show you results based on it, just as companies like Google do.
With a VPN, you can test your location-based services with much more ease. VPNs allow you to choose the location you wish to appear using the internet from. You have access to servers from all over the world. Connecting to a particular server makes it look like you are using the internet from that location. Therefore, you can use different servers to see how good your location-based services are.
5. Bypass Censorship and Restrictions during Travel
It’s mentioned in earlier points how your employees might travel to different parts of the world for work-related reasons. This might involve going to places that are notorious when it comes to free and unrestricted access to the internet. Countries like China, Vietnam, etc. censor the internet heavily. To allow for free access to the internet and services that your employees need on a daily basis, you can use a VPN. Although some countries block and condemn VPN usage, there are VPN services like ExpressVPN and IPVanish that offer stealth servers and protocols to hide the fact that you are using a VPN.
Anything that can improve your business’s productivity and security is worthy investing in. These investments pay huge dividends in the long run. Subscribing to a good business VPN is definitely one such investment. You should do proper research about VPNs before opting for one, for they have some caveats as well. There are many websites that give reviews about VPNs which you might find helpful, so that’s something you can look into.
