As an SDG company, it’s important to take steps to protect your business. If you need clear and practical advice on how you can do that, here are some helpful tips.
Implement contracts
Always have contracts in place to protect your company. Any terms and conditions should be used to your advantage, and the contracts you sign should reflect the terms that might have changed. Any terms that are changed later down the line should be documented. Keeping a digital paper trail is also wise while maintaining credit control. Contracts also give you a great deal of legal standing when it comes to business protection, and they remain the best way to protect your company against unforeseen problems that could disrupt your operation.
Protect business information
Your team is the backbone of your company, with that being said, you also need to make sure that they are not putting your business at risk. Identify which of your employees have access to private business data or information. It’s important to take steps to protect yourself contractually here, by asking your team members to sign a confidentiality agreement or as it is called in the USA. An NDA is a great way for you to keep business information confidential.
Even when running an SDG company, having business information leaked can slow down progress, especially when it comes to the development of intellectual property. Two-way confidentiality agreements are useful when sharing information with another business, and want to ensure that neither side is going to expose trade secrets. Teaming up with other businesses is often the best way to reach goals faster and more efficiently, but not if it compromises your company.
Trademark intellectual property
Understand the intellectual property that’s important to your business operation. You also need to assess whether or not you own that property. If you do but have yet to trademark it, immediate attention is required. Hire trademark lawyers and make sure that you have contracts in place for those who deal with IP ownership. You may also want to register your IP rights at the Intellectual Property Office. This can, of course, only be done when you have the trademark for it. Other things that need to be trademarked include your business name, so that someone can’t emulate your business, or ruin your reputation by stealing your company information. If you believe that your IP is being infringed, you can then take action against this and enforce your rights. Not trademarking property, whether it’s an idea, slogan, symbol, design or name, opens you up to huge problems later down the line, which will undo the progress you have worked so hard to make.
Monitor restrictions
Another important step would be to update restrictions regularly. This is especially the case when an employee is promoted. Practical steps can be taken here to ensure data security, such as implementing traceability and making sure that your team is up-to-date on what their role is within the company. Ex-employees should also be monitored to ensure that they are maintaining any contracts that might have been signed, upon their termination. An example of this would be to not work for a competing company within six months. It could also include sharing company data or information, which could prove to be integral to achieving SDG or objectives.
GDPR
It may also be worth exploring policies for fair trade, equality, anti-slavery and social media. This becomes even more important as your company grows. The GDPR came into place in 2018, with it designed to protect personal information. All businesses within the UK and EU have to comply with this, and it involves information you may keep on staff, customers, account holders and even CCTV footage. Customers also have the right to be “forgotten”, which means that they can ask you to remove all information about them from the system.
Small businesses also need to be registered with the ICO, with rules applying to data on the cloud, mobile phone, spreadsheet or paper files within the office. As an SDG business, it’s important to ensure that all of your data is stored properly and that you are taking steps to ensure your success over the long term.
As an SDG, it’s more than possible to protect your business if you take the right steps. By focusing on your legal protection first, you can protect your brand while ensuring that you can maintain your position within the current market. From there, you can then move to other forms of protection that complement the processes you already have in place.
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