{"id":22140,"date":"2025-05-05T17:51:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T17:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/?p=22140"},"modified":"2025-05-05T17:53:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T17:53:28","slug":"why-smb-manufacturers-are-struggling-with-it-and-how-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/why-smb-manufacturers-are-struggling-with-it-and-how-to-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Why SMB Manufacturers Are Struggling with IT\u2014and How to Fix It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask most manufacturing leaders what’s holding back their technology, and you’ll hear a familiar list: aging equipment, outdated software, and<\/span> insufficient skilled talent. While all those reasons are valid concerns, they are often symptoms of a bigger issue\u2014unchecked IT complexity.<\/span><\/p>\n

For small and mid-sized manufacturers, this complexity doesn’t show up overnight. It creeps in over time\u2014one new vendor system here, a production-line add-on there, maybe a cloud app someone in accounting decided to use without looping in IT. Before long, your environment becomes a tangled mess of legacy systems, shadow IT, siloed data, and tools that do not talk to each other. When <\/span>you’re<\/span> trying to run your business lean and deliver on time, that mess becomes a liability every time.<\/span><\/p>\n

You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See<\/span><\/h3>\n

It’s not uncommon for small and mid-sized manufacturers to underestimate just how sprawling their IT environments have become. In fact, according to a study by Ivanti<\/a>, <\/span>over 52% of IT professionals admit they do not have complete visibility into all the devices connected to their network. Visibility is a significant problem\u2014especially in manufacturing, where every endpoint could be a potential entry point for attackers or a failure point for operations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take asset tracking. <\/span>If your IT team can’t tell you exactly what’s running, what’s patched, and what’s expose<\/span>d\u2014h<\/span>ow can you secure it? You can’t<\/span>. And<\/span> that is how ransomware slips through the cracks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Downtime Is the Enemy\u2014And IT May Be Causing It<\/span><\/h3>\n

You already know downtime is expensive, but the scale might surprise you. A 2024 report from Siemens<\/a> estimates that <\/span>unplanned downtime costs industrial manufacturers over $50 billion annually. While equipment failure is often blamed, a growing percentage of outages now originate from IT-related causes\u2014like outdated firmware, missed updates, misconfigured systems, or delayed response times due to overwhelmed support staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

In many small to medium-sized businesses, IT is treated as a cost center, not a strategic asset. So, budgets stay flat while systems grow more complex. Internal teams are stuck in fire-fighting mode, and the cycle continues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cyber Risk Is No Longer a Future Concern<\/span><\/h3>\n

In the past, small manufacturers might have flown under the radar. Not anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to IBM’s 2023 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, <\/span>manufacturing was the most attacked industry for the second year, accounting for nearly a quarter of all incidents. Why? Because manufacturers are increasingly digital, often under secured, and deeply reliant on uptime, they are prime targets for ransomware.<\/span><\/p>\n

The majority of attacks don’t come through a zero-day exploit. They walk in through the front door: old machines, unmonitored endpoints, or a phishing email someone clicked because their inbox wasn’t protected and they lacked the necessary training to spot suspicious emails.<\/span><\/p>\n

So What Can Manufacturers Do?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Let’s take a moment to be realistic\u2014hiring a large in-house IT team isn’t always feasible. But doing nothing isn’t an option either. The good news? You don’t have to overhaul everything overnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Start by simplifying. Consolidate tools. Eliminate redundancies. Centralize monitoring so you know what’s happening across your environment. And if your internal team is stretched thin, look for an IT partner who understands manufacturing\u2014someone who won’t just sell you licenses but will help design a support structure that works with your production realities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Managed IT services<\/a> can give smaller manufacturers enterprise-level visibility, faster response times, and proactive monitoring without the overhead. It’s not about replacing your team. It’s about giving them the support they need to be strategic, not reactive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/span><\/h3>\n

IT shouldn’t hold your production line hostage. It should be a lever for growth, streamlining operations, reducing risk, and helping you compete in a global market where agility is everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

If things feel harder than they should <\/span>right now<\/span>, <\/span>maybe<\/span> it’s<\/span> not your equipment.<\/span> Now is the time to examine your IT environment more closely.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Want more insight on simplifying IT and strengthening your cybersecurity strategy? Check out our latest podcast episode on IT and Manufacturing at info.secur-serv.com\/podcast<\/a>.<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask most manufacturing leaders what’s holding back their technology, and you’ll hear a familiar list: aging equipment, outdated software, and insufficient skilled talent. While all those reasons are valid concerns, they are often symptoms of a bigger issue\u2014unchecked IT complexity. For small and mid-sized manufacturers, this complexity doesn’t show up overnight. It creeps in over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[92],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-22140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-strategy","category-managed-it-services","tag-manufacturing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22140"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secur-serv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=22140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}