Using a VPN for small businesses is extremely important while keeping in view the current exceptional situations worldwide. Modern small businesses are flexible and dependent on a mobile workforce, which creates additional security challenges.
By keeping the company network secure, a VPN helps to protect business data and an internet connection, which ensures the highest tier of privacy and security. For small businesses having limited resources, its cost effect easy to manage.
Business VPN vs Consumer VPN: The Main Differences
It seems that business VPNs are the same as consumer VPNs but there are key differences. Business VPNs are designed to protect the privacy of business and it becomes possible with business VPN to control the access rights of users. They have an additional layer of surveillance and hacking.
Business VPNs provide dedicated IP’s which means they have dedicated servers for business users only. Designed for multiple users and universal accounts make it possible to control permissions and scale team with just a few clicks.
Before digging into deep the benefits of Business VPNs, I want to share my recommendation that is Nord VPN Teams. They are a pioneer in business VPN and trusted by millions of businesses.
It is the first and top-ranked business VPN that offers dedicated servers. I recommend their advanced plan most. They offer 20+ dedicated server locations, dedicated account managers and priority support always remain available to hear from customers.
In 2020 remote work has radically changed the way small business operate. Small traditional offices not turned into BYOD or BYOPC environments. Securing these networks from threats become more difficult. Remote workforce required adequate protections from cyber threats so getting a business VPN is critical. Here are key benefits that you and you team will enjoy while using a business VPN.
Key Benefits of Business VPN
- Remote Access to Resources
- Business VPN Gives You Access Control
- Provide You Highest Tier Cyber Security
- Secure File Transfer
- Geo Graphic Independence
- Keep Anonymity Intact Over Public Network
- Affordable and Cost Effective
- Business VPN Bypass Geo-blocking
- Increase Business Performance
- Network Scalability Becomes Possible
- Escape Data & Bandwidth Throttling
- Speed Up the Communication Process and Save Communication Cost
A VPN offers small business users the ability to use an encrypted connection to securely access online resources, protecting their own – and their customers’ – sensitive data from prying eyes.
1. Remote Access to Resources
Your resources are available on your local office network, like printers and other IT resources. Employees in your office can have unrestricted access to all of the resources, but what for the remote workforce?
Yes, they can, too; you need a remote access VPN to allow them logging into your local network to access all the resources. Using a VPN means your remote workforce can log on to your office network from anywhere, just internet access is required. Then they have the resources that they need to perform their job while at the same time, the incoming connection to your local network and data will remain fully secured.
2. Business VPN Gives You Access Control
Who gets access to what? It’s simple and easy. Without proper access control, the right people can’t have enough and rightful access to the job and resources. When wrong people get too much access, the resources become limited for people with the right job.
The business VPN can authenticate the users with their credentials, authorizing the appropriate access to keep the resources reserved for the right people. It can be credential-based access or IP based. You can control the level of access associated with the credentials and can add or remove the applications/resources anytime.
3. Provide You Highest Tier Cyber Security
By applying a VPN across your networks you can make the whole network more secure and robust. Your company might not require site-to-site tunneling or may not need remote access. You still have similar threats like large businesses. Like other small businesses, you might also have resources on the cloud in the shape of apps or data, or maybe both. The remote workforce needs to access both to improve that or to input new data.
In such a situation, a VPN service keeps the workforce more secure without any significant investment. There is no need for data center grade hardware, but just developing a business VPN service, the connection becomes secure whatever your remote workforce is logging in.
Private tunneling, remote access to your servers, Dropbox, MS Office 365, access to other resources in your office become fully secured, and there is no requirement of maintenance.
With a good VPN service, you can prevent the attacks that seek to alter and steel the business data and can make your private network to conduct transactions as well as to establish communication.
4. Secure File Transfer
A VPN helps the remote workforce to share files securely. VPN allows setting permission who can see which files that ensure compliance and only give access and sharing where it is necessary. File sharing over the public internet through VPS is secure, and now one can steal the information as data travel in encrypted form.
5. Geo Graphic Independence
Geographic location or traveling to other countries may restrict internet access. In this case, your remote workforce may be blocked to access the resource essential to complete their job. If you provide them VPN, then surely they can get access to the resources wherever they are.
Corporate organizations are getting broad benefits from VPN but now its stretching towards small businesses. Travel is crucial in some companies, and with a VPN, there will be no restriction on private resources.
6. Keep Anonymity Intact Over Public Network
Your local ISP cannot know about your activities and your data will remain completely secure. As you know well, apps and different online services track the user information and that information is further shared that loses privacy.
But when your remote workforce uses VPN their identity will remain hidden behind the VPN and now one can track their activities.
7. Affordable and Cost-Effective
Investing in a VPN service is the best IT investment that an SMB can make. Over the private internet and leased line accessing your local network and transferring data cost you a lot but having a VPN will reduce this cost significantly. The basic business plan of our recommended VPN service providers cost less than 10 dollars.
With a reliable VPN, your remote workforce will get military-grade encryption to transfer data and access local network with secure authentication.
8. Business VPN Bypass Geo-blocking
VPN’s also allow to access geo-blocked content. You can set your location where the content is not blocked and can easily get access to the content. Like there are many media services and digital resource which are not available in all of the countries, With the help of VPN while selecting a different location server you can easily access that geo-blocked resources.
9. Increase Business Performance
Modern business performance depends on the speed of connectivity, a business VPN allows communicating quickly through the static access points among teams and among the local office. They give two benefits timely job completion and timely reporting that make small businesses more efficient.
10. Network Scalability Becomes Possible
Creating a dedicated private network involved high cost and budget enhancement is required as an organization grows. Sometimes it becomes a major hurdle in further expanding. A VPN allows to use of the existing public network already available and creates a secure environment that provides better reach and quality.
11. Escape Data & Bandwidth Throttling
Imagine you are uploading a chunk of data, and your ISP detects that you are uploading a certain amount of data. Conversely, your internet service provider slows down your services. Using a Business VPN is an excellent way to keep your data free from the prying eyes of your internet service provider. Usually, ISP’s place a data cape on your service package to provide better speed, but it can hit you badly when you have to upload data.
Providing VPN access to your remote workforce will keep them free from this hazard, and VPN also speeds up the data uploading process.
Full administrative controls over the network give the ability to ISP providers to limit the bandwidth; every user experiences it from time to time when some websites become too slow and need to reload them multiple times to perform a single task. When one member of your remote workforce complains that he is unable to browse or internet speed is not acceptable, and hence he is unable to perform specific tasks.
AT this point where you need to understand, only a business VPN is a solution that can rule out the bandwidth throttling. A VPN thwarts the sluggishness by encrypting your device’s internet data.
12. Speed Up the Communication Process and Save Communication Cost
With a VPN, you can avoid renting expensive capacity lines that achieve connectivity between office locations. You can connect and communicate through the public network. Long-distance phone calls still cost a lot, so instead of connecting via remote access servers and dial-up networks to access a company intranet, your cloud connects to your local ISP point.
So a VPN is a cheaper leased line alternative.