Early this month I attended a presentation by Christopher Luxon – Air New Zealand’s Chief Executive Officer. This was a fascinating presentation and included a cool new Promotion video targeting Australians, as well as many great facts and figures presented. A few I noted ranged from their $2.6 Billion Operating Revenue; through the $310 Million spent on Sales and Marketing in Regional New Zealand; over 11,000 Staff employed; 6,700 Flights into Hawke’s Bay last year; to a 9% Reduction in Fares from Napier. This massive company is clearly excelling in what they do, having been voted “Best New Zealand Company” AND “Best Australian Company!” with a clear focus on Customer service and growth.

What struck a note with me however, was Christopher’s statement that he and the executive are “Relentlessly, continuously dissatisfied with the company!” Amazing? Yes, but this encourages a continuous drive to improve in all areas with an example of cost reductions of 3.5% last year on substantial growth.

The point was made that some savings need investments to realise the savings (over $210 million for a new Dreamliner) and this is where ProcessIT may be able to assist Your Business. No, we can’t supply cheap aeroplanes, nor do we supply software to Air New Zealand, but we can help you manage your business better through the use of Custom Software that tracks and analysis Your Business Processes, so you too, can “relentlessly, continuously” monitor your progress, identify bottlenecks and help improve the efficiency of your staff and plant. Whether you need a small add-in to track a single process or require complex business logic and calculations we can build you a solution tailor made to your needs.

See some Custom Software ideas here then you can Contact ProcessIT now to book your FREE Initial Consultation and drive fly your company forward…

 

Tech Tip – Ransom-ware attacks

As I am drafting this newsletter I am receiving warnings from all over of the WannaCrypt, WannaCry, WannaCryptor, or Wcry Ransomeware virus and variants that is / has impacted a huge number of Windows users world-wide.  This nasty programme encrypts your PCs hard drive and demands you pay to unencrypt it and get your data back! – Very nasty indeed.

There are two big issues here:

1/. Keep your computer’s operating system software up to date.

-The security hole this exploits was patched in March for Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista. The 15-year-old Windows XP, now no longer supported, remained vulnerable but Microsoft have even released an update for this too.

2/. Keep Regular, Frequent and Tested Backups.

In the event of an encryption or other data loss, just Format the drive to delete everything and reinstall from scratch! -Sure, this is time consuming and a little tedious to restore all your settings and preferences but well worthwhile. Please let me emphasise the “TESTED” part. I was using a backup system that was supplied by the PCs manufacturer and attempted to “Restore” a file to another machine. The restore failed as it only allowed restoration to the ORIGINAL PC!!! -This would have been alright in the event of a ransomware attack but would not cover a Hard Disk Failure! Others I have seen have been happily backed up every Hour but on investigation there were NO FILES SELECTED to backup!

And remember; You are the first line of defence, so;

• Beware of email attachments and web links from unknown sources.
• Beware of unexpected files, attachments or web links, even from people you know.

 

Until next time, keep safe out there…

 

Regards,
Brian Henderson & James Dickinson