PROFESSIONAL CONSTRUCTION SERVICES OVERVIEW
Timothy Guim President & CEO PCH Technologies
street from our office. Because of our location next to the courthouse, our litigation team is very attractive to the companies that find themselves in the MCL court for their mass tort litigation.” After an uncertain 2020, the first half of 2021 also demonstrated a fast-paced recovery on the employment front for both financial activities and professional and business services in the state. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported a total 248,300 employed professionals in financial activities in May 2021, a 4% increase compared to May 2020. Professional and business services presented an even greater increase, going from 612,800 people employed in May 2020 to 656,100 people in May 2021, a 6.6% increase. New work modalities also helped reshape the professional services landscape both in how they work and their business lines as companies across the United States made a decisive shift from remote-byforce to remote-by-choice. The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) shows that 42% of Americans employed in 2020 worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and 25% were still doing so at the time of the survey (November 2020). Businesses that wanted to add a work-from-anywhere perk to their workforce soon found that capitalizing on
What are some common mistakes you see businesses making in terms of IT? The first thing companies tell their employees who are working at home is to turn on a VPN. The proper thing a company should do first is receive a third-party IT risk assessment. This will show you where your holes in security are and what are your weakest points when it comes to your network. Of course, this is going to be different for every business. A financial institution has certain things they need to protect, a hospital has patient data, a construction company has critical data that is vital to maintain their operations in the field. There are different levels to it and I think it’s very important that people understand how necessary a risk assessment is. Where is the data located? And what if something were to happen with your data that could affect your revenue? That is really the thing that people skip when they don’t have an overarching plan for IT and cyber risks. How necessary is it to have cyber insurance? Five years ago, I would not have been as concerned about having cyber liability insurance but, these days, it is absolutely critical to have cyber liability insurance and to understand, when you read the policy, what is covered and what is not covered. I’ve seen a lot of situations where there is wire fraud: an imposter will pretend they are the business owner to the CFO and say, I need you to wire me $30,000 right now, I have a great deal. The CFO will then wire that money through email transactions. On some policies, I’ve seen that, because they willingly wired the money, they were not covered. What is your outlook for the next 12 to 18 months? There is so much opportunity in this area right now. Regarding cyber, we’re in a growth position with our current clients as well as helping new businesses. Legislation is coming that will require businesses to be properly secured, which will help us help more people. I know we just had our best year yet, and I don’t see it slowing down in 2021 or in 2022 www.capitalanalyticsassociates.com
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