You do not need to be an IT expert to run your business, but you should be able to answer a few essential questions about the systems you depend on every day.
If you cannot answer them confidently, there are gaps that need attention.
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Who can access your critical systems, and should they still have that access?
Consider your accounting software, CRM, and email platform. Do you know exactly who has login access to each one?
Access often expands over time. A contractor is added, a former employee is never removed, or permissions granted for a one-off project are never reduced. Eventually, more people have access than you realise, including some who no longer need it.
This is not about distrust. Every unnecessary login creates a security risk. A compromised credential can provide a way in, and a former employee whose access was never revoked may still hold the keys to your business. The more unreviewed access you have, the harder it becomes to contain a problem when something goes wrong.
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If something breaks right now, who is responsible for fixing it?
Choose any critical system in your business. If it failed today, would you know who is responsible for the response and how to contact them?
If the answer is “it depends” or “I’m not completely sure,” you have found a gap. When several vendors or team members are involved, accountability can easily be missed. Everyone assumes someone else is dealing with it, and nothing gets done.
Downtime costs money, and uncertainty over who to call only makes it last longer. The right time to define ownership is before something breaks.
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When did you last evaluate your backups?
Most businesses have backups, but far fewer know whether those backups will actually work when needed.
Creating a backup is only the first step. The real question is whether it can successfully restore your data when it matters. Too often, backups are set up once, ticked off the list and then forgotten. An untested backup is not a safety net; it is an assumption.
Many businesses only discover this when it is too late. If you cannot remember when your backups were last tested, you are relying on guesswork rather than evidence.
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Where is your business data stored today?
This catches many people out. Business data rarely stays in one place; over time, it spreads.
New tools are added, files are shared in email threads, and documents end up in shared drives, project management apps, and personal folders. Some data sits in cloud platforms you use every day, while some remains in tools you may have forgotten signing up for years ago.
Without a clear view of where your data is stored, you cannot be sure who can access it, whether it is protected, or what would happen if one of those tools failed. That uncertainty makes it harder to protect data consistently and answer basic questions from clients or regulators.
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Which vendors can access your systems or data?
Vendors are often added quickly and quietly: one integration, a new app, or a tool recommended by someone on your team. Each one may come with some level of access to your systems or data.
Vendor access is not the issue. The risk comes from not knowing what they can view, change, or do with your data. Third-party access introduces risk from outside your business, yet it is often reviewed less closely than anything else on this list.
If you listed every vendor with access to your systems today, would you know exactly what each one can see or control?
If these questions are hard to answer, it is time to act.
These are not obscure technical questions. They are the basics: access, accountability, backups, data, and vendors. If the answers are unclear, you have a visibility gap, and problems can sit hidden in those gaps until they become expensive.
Midyear is a suitable time to step back and review what has changed. As your business grows, systems evolve, vendors are added and access expands. The risk is assuming everything behind the scenes has kept pace.
In our first conversation, we ask questions like these to help identify where the answers are unclear. No pitch deck and no package comparison. Just a clear view of what we find and where the gaps are.
