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News and Insights from the entrust IT Group

The State of Ransomware in 2025: A UK and Global Perspective

The Sophos State of Ransomware Report 2025 report highlights an evolving threat landscape that remains a major risk to organisations worldwide. While there is some positive news — costs and recovery times are trending down — the report makes it clear that ransomware is still as much a people problem as it is a technical one. For leaders, the findings underscore that cyber resilience requires more than strong defences; it demands investment in people, processes, and culture.

Business Process Audit: Unlocking Efficiency in Multi-Site Operations

For UK multi-site businesses—whether in retail, hospitality, logistics, or services—the business process audit is a strategic lever for profit improvement, compliance assurance, and sustainable scalability. Done right, it is not a “tick-box” exercise, but a deep, forensic look at how your organisation actually runs compared to how you think it runs. In this guide, we’ll cover what a business process audit involves, the level of depth possible, and the efficiencies and savings it can unlock for multi-site leaders in the UK. What is a Business Process Audit? A business process audit is a structured review of an organisation’s core and supporting processes to evaluate their effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance with internal standards, legal requirements, and industry best practice. Unlike a financial audit (which focuses on numbers), a process audit looks at workflows, decision points, technology use, and human interactions—mapping them against strategic objectives. For multi-site companies, the objective is twofold: Standardise best practice across all locations. Identify bottlenecks, duplication, and waste that erode profitability. What Does It Cover? A well-designed business process audit will be tailored to your sector and scale but typically includes: Operational Workflows – From procurement to delivery, mapping every step for time, cost, and value contribution. Compliance & Risk Controls – Ensuring processes meet UK regulatory requirements (GDPR, Health & Safety, employment law) and internal governance. Technology Integration – How ERP, CRM, EPOS, and other systems interact; identifying manual workarounds and shadow IT. People & Role Efficiency – Analysing role clarity, task duplication, and alignment with skill sets. Customer Experience Impact – Evaluating how processes affect speed, service quality, and satisfaction scores. Data & Reporting Flows – Verifying accuracy, timeliness, and usefulness of management information. For C-Suite leaders, the audit’s scope can range from broad diagnostic to deep dive in a single function (e.g., supply chain optimisation or finance process automation). How In-Depth Can a Business Process Audit Go? Depth depends on objectives and appetite for disruption: Level 1: Light-Touch Diagnostic – Interviews, site visits, and process maps for top-line issues. Useful for identifying “quick wins” with minimal disruption. Level 2: Functional Deep Dive – Time-and-motion studies, data analytics, and system log reviews. Suited to functions with known underperformance. Level 3: Full End-to-End Audit – Enterprise-wide mapping of all core processes with quantitative KPIs, benchmarking against best-in-class peers. This is transformational in scope, often preceding a reorganisation or major tech investment. For multi-site firms, Level 3 audits frequently uncover inconsistencies between locations—a top cause of uneven customer experience and margin leakage. Efficiencies a Business Process Audit Can Uncover Process Standardisation – Aligning procedures across all sites to ensure consistency and scale benefits. Elimination of Redundancy – Removing duplicated steps, paperwork, or reporting loops. Time Savings – Automating routine tasks, reducing hand-offs, and speeding up approvals. Cost Reductions – Lowering operational expenses via smarter procurement, leaner staffing models, or reduced wastage. Improved Compliance – Reducing risk of fines, reputational damage, and operational disruption. Better Use of Technology – Replacing manual interventions with ERP/CRM integrations; cutting reliance on spreadsheets. Data-Driven Decision-Making – Streamlined reporting gives executives real-time insight for faster, better decisions. One UK retail chain, after a six-week business process audit, found 22% of finance team time was spent on duplicate data entry due to poor system integration—automation delivered an annual saving of over £350,000 without headcount loss. Why It Matters for Multi-Site Businesses Multi-site organisations carry complexity by design—geographic spread, varied local management, and legacy systems make process drift inevitable. A business process audit identifies these drifts early, stopping inefficiencies before they harden into culture. For the C-Suite, this is about more than cost-cutting. It’s about: Strategic agility – Processes that can flex to market change without chaos. Consistent customer experience – Every site delivering the same brand promise. Investment readiness – Clean, standardised processes make tech roll-outs and M&A integrations smoother. Implementation and Next Steps Step 1: Define scope and objectives – Align on whether you’re looking for targeted fixes or transformational change. Step 2: Choose an independent auditor – Internal teams often miss embedded inefficiencies due to familiarity bias. Step 3: Act on findings – The audit is worthless without rapid implementation of recommendations. Step 4: Make it cyclical – Re-audit every 18–24 months to keep process discipline sharp. entrustIT's vCIO services can help entrustIT's Digital Transformation service provides you with our board-level consultancy in every corner of your business. Our consultants cover your processes among finance, HR, sales, distribution and more. Read more about our digital transformation services here

entrustIT at the South Coast Tech & Innovation Awards 2025

entrustIT Shortlisted in the South Coast Tech & Innovation Awards 2025

entrustIT, a leading South Coast MSP, is proud to announce that we have been shortlisted in three categories at the South Coast Tech & Innovation Awards 2025, hosted by The Business Magazine.

New Year, New Support - Your IT Support Review Guide

Did you know that the average employee spends 22 minutes a day dealing with IT-related Issues? Do you have 100 employees? That’s 42 hours a day, 210 hours a week and around 840 hours a month wasted. Throughout our 17 years of experience, we’ve heard one thing the most, people just want their IT to work, a simple request, that most businesses are still striving for.

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Hybrid Working Increasing Motivation and Productivity

In recent years, remote working has become increasingly popular, with more and more businesses adopting flexible working arrangements. This trend has been driven by several factors including technological advances and changing attitudes towards work-life balance. Nevertheless, the answer is yes, according to recent studies. in fact, research has shown that remote working can boost productivity by up to 40% and increase employee job satisfaction and morale.

What is Remote Cloud Monitoring

According to a recent survey, 94% of enterprises use cloud services. As more and more companies turn to the cloud for their IT needs, cloud monitoring has become essential for ensuring the smooth and secure operation of their cloud-based infrastructure and applications.

New Year New Support 2023

Can you believe we’re coming to the end of 2022, where did the time go? This is the first full year we’ve had unrestricted since the start of covid-19, which has given most business owners the opportunity to find their feet once again. Entering 2023 many business owners will be investing heavily in their IT to give themselves and their staff the tools they need to be as productive and successful as possible. There is no better time to review your IT support than the new year.

IT Risk Assessments - This is Why You Need One

Do you feel confident that you allocate enough time and resources to your business's security infrastructure? With a cyber-attack attempt taking place every 39 seconds and over 73% of UK businesses being affected by a ransomware attack each year, conducting IT audits and risk assessments have never been so important. Read this blog to get a deeper look at why you should conduct IT risk assessments and how we can make your IT expansions/changes easy.

4 Workplace Tech Trends in 2022

Over the last several years, technology within the business has gone from an avoidable luxury to a mandatory need. Many employees expect to be able to work securely from anywhere, on any device, with tools that enhance their work experience and effectiveness. Organizations addressing these challenges are turning to digital workplace technologies like the cloud that help streamline costs, create a seamless delivery of apps and data, whilst still working across multiple locations and maintaining the security of their endpoint devices.