While businesses have become much more reliant on technology in the past thirty years (now, not having a website or some IT infrastructure is considered questionable, to say the least), that doesn’t mean tech literacy is the foremost business skill you need.
It counts, and it’s essential, but many business virtues lead to success out of this. After all, a fantastic IT system facilitates success, but it never guarantees it. It’s more about what you do with it all.
So, if you’re a non-techie feeling somewhat awash in AI integration press releases and cybersecurity warnings, you may feel a little out of your depth. But don’t worry, because in this post, we’ll lay out five essential tech-focused business concepts for non-techies, allowing them to keep delivering their value while never feeling incapable or ignorant in the changing landscape of business:
Understand Those Cybersecurity Fundamentals
You don’t need to be an elite white-hat hacker, but grasping cybersecurity fundamentals is vital for anyone in business nowadays. The best IT Service Management will help protect you against threats and bake in good practice, but they’ll also be happy to discuss their methods and basic practices with you.
Take the time to learn how to create strong, unique passwords for all your accounts and enable two-factor authentication wherever possible. Make sure your team gets into this habit, too. From there, focus on understanding principles like least-privilege access and data encryption. Using a reliable VPN service is a good start and is intuitive to understand. Moreover, make sure you and your team are aware of phishing scams, social engineering attacks, and other cyber threats. Unfortunately, hackers can be effective, as we’ve seen with publicized ransomware attacks.
Cyber risk impacts every facet of business, so you must familiarize yourself with security best practices.
Understanding Why Cloud Computing Is So Ubiquitous
Cloud computing has made technology much more accessible for non-technical professionals. With the cloud, you can use robust services and platforms without starting from scratch and maintain or update any underlying technical networks.
That includes apps like Google’s G Suite, Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce, AWS, and others that allow you to consume what you need through a simple subscription. The cloud also removes much of the traditional IT management overhead, so non-techies should embrace that cloud mindset and allow their business to scale.
Depending on the IT-managed service you opt for, they will recommend one option based on their preference and skillset. Many businesses use Microsoft 365 Enterprise, but that’s far from your only option. For example, if you work with freelancers often, then Google Docs might be preferential for mutual free and easy collaboration.
Concerning cloud computing, you’ll be able to understand the norms of how your IT systems are developing and, ultimately, how they
App Development Or Use Doesn’t Have To Be In-House
Application development was the main focus of hardcore coders back in the day. But in recent years, this new category of “no-code” platforms has sprung to life, and they use visual, relatively simple templates to build apps with minimal hand-coding involved.
The most common are tools like AppSheet, but there may be particular ones for your industry. As a non-techie, getting hands-on experience with some of these low-code tools could provide much more promise to you. Of course, you can also use simple app development services to help develop a robust solution for you or help you integrate more readily into the mobile marketplace by creating an app for your team or the general public, but that’s up to you.
Upskill On Basic Tech Competencies
While you may never need to learn how to code, it’s still essential for any non-techie to upskill and get at least moderately hands-on with the core tools that your business uses every day. Make sure you know how to navigate stuff like cloud storage/filing systems comfortably, update your company website via the CMS (a blog is an excellent place to start), collaborate using online productivity suites, analyze data with spreadsheets, publish using multi-social media management tools, and more depending on the niche you’re part of. You could even read our website to familiarize yourself with these utilities.
You can also use helpful tools like SEMRush to determine your SEO profile (how optimized you are for search engines) and leverage companies providing content to raise your natural backlink authority. Having the basics to hand can help you converse easily with the rest of the team, especially if you have people to manage.
Befriend Your IT Department
Sure, you might outsource your IT, but you’re likely to have at least one person in a moderately sized business that serves as the connection for keeping your network administered correctly and liaising with the team. They might be the person who books equipment for an onboarded staff member, for example.
As a non-technical person, building positive relationships with your IT coworkers and asking them questions when necessary is wise. By getting to know them, their roles, and the services/support they provide, you can more easily reach out to the right person when you have an issue.
Having those people in your corner makes getting guidance, even for basic concepts, more accessible and ensures your needs are addressed. They’ll appreciate you making an effort to understand their world, too. They might even offer sound management advice, such as if you’re trying to revolutionize your candidate interviews through remote meetings, they can help you understand the software you need to use for quick competency tests.
With this advice, you’ll be sure to enjoy the best possible professional development despite not being a techie yourself.
