Reliable, secure IT support for farms, estates, agricultural contractors, food producers and rural businesses across Scotland.
Agriculture is increasingly dependent on technology.
Modern farms and rural businesses rely on cloud applications, accounting systems, mobile devices, machinery software, GPS, telemetry, CCTV, Wi-Fi, internet connectivity and Microsoft 365.
When that technology works, it can improve productivity, visibility and efficiency.
When it fails, it can quickly disrupt the business.
A poor internet connection can prevent access to cloud systems.
A compromised Microsoft 365 account can expose commercially sensitive information.
A ransomware incident can make business records inaccessible.
And as farms introduce more connected machinery, sensors and smart technology, cybersecurity becomes increasingly important.
Stratiis provides managed IT support, cybersecurity, Microsoft 365, connectivity, backup and strategic technology services for agricultural and rural businesses across Scotland.
IT Support Built Around Agriculture
Agricultural businesses often operate very differently from conventional office-based organisations.
Your employees may work across:
- Farms
- Estates
- Workshops
- Offices
- Warehouses
- Processing facilities
- Fields
- Customer locations
- Remote rural sites
- Home offices
Your technology environment may also include:
- Desktop computers
- Laptops
- Smartphones
- Tablets
- Farm-management software
- Accounting applications
- GPS and mapping systems
- Telemetry
- CCTV
- Wi-Fi
- IoT devices
- Cloud applications
- Microsoft 365
- Connected machinery
This means your IT needs to support both the office and the operation.
What Are the Biggest IT Challenges Facing Agricultural Businesses?
1. Rural Connectivity
Reliable connectivity remains one of the most important technology issues for many agricultural and rural organisations.
Employees may need internet access from:
- Farm offices
- Workshops
- Outbuildings
- Warehouses
- Remote sites
- Staff accommodation
Traditional broadband may not always provide the required coverage or resilience.
For some agricultural businesses, losing internet access can affect:
- Cloud applications
- Banking
- Microsoft 365
- Farm-management systems
- Supplier portals
- Telephony
- CCTV monitoring
- Remote equipment access
Your connectivity strategy should therefore be designed around the needs of the business rather than simply accepting whatever broadband is currently available.
What Connectivity Options Are Available for Rural Businesses?
Depending on location and availability, Stratiis can help assess options including:
- Fibre broadband
- Business broadband
- Leased lines
- Fixed wireless connectivity
- 4G connectivity
- 5G connectivity
- Satellite connectivity
- Internet failover
- Multi-site networking
- Managed Wi-Fi
The right approach depends on:
- Location
- Coverage
- Required speed
- Resilience
- Number of users
- Applications
- Cost
- Operational importance
There is rarely one solution that works for every rural site.
Do Farms Need Backup Internet Connectivity?
If losing internet access would significantly disrupt your business, backup connectivity should be considered.
A secondary connection might use:
- Another broadband provider
- 4G
- 5G
- Fixed wireless
- Satellite
In some environments, automatic failover can allow the network to switch to the backup connection when the primary service fails.
The key question is:
What would your business be unable to do if your internet stopped working tomorrow morning?
If the answer includes payments, customer orders, cloud systems or other critical functions, resilience may be worth the investment.
Managed Wi-Fi for Farms and Rural Sites
Wi-Fi requirements on agricultural sites can be challenging.
A domestic Wi-Fi router is unlikely to provide reliable coverage across a complex agricultural site.
Stratiis can help assess and deploy managed Wi-Fi infrastructure designed around the physical environment.
You may need coverage across:
- Farm offices
- Workshops
- Warehouses
- Retail areas
- Accommodation
- Yard areas
- Processing facilities
Where required, networks can also be separated for:
- Employees
- Guests
- Business systems
- CCTV
- IoT devices
- Machinery or operational technology
Cybersecurity for Agricultural Businesses
Agricultural organisations are not immune to cybercrime.
Cybercriminals do not only target banks and large corporations.
Small and medium-sized businesses can be attractive targets because attackers may assume they have weaker security controls.
Agricultural businesses can hold:
- Financial information
- Employee information
- Customer information
- Supplier details
- Contracts
- Banking information
- Business records
- Operational data
They may also depend heavily on email, online banking and cloud services.
That creates several common cybersecurity risks.
Phishing and Email Fraud
Email is one of the most common ways criminals target businesses.
Agricultural employees may receive emails relating to:
- Suppliers
- Feed
- Machinery
- Fuel
- Equipment
- Contractors
- Invoices
- Banking
- Government schemes
- Customer orders
Attackers can impersonate legitimate organisations and attempt to persuade employees to:
- Open malicious attachments
- Click fake login pages
- Provide passwords
- Change payment details
- Transfer money
A convincing fraudulent email can look almost identical to a genuine supplier message.
That is why technical security and employee awareness need to work together.
How Can Stratiis Protect Agricultural Businesses?
Our cybersecurity approach can include multiple layers.
Multi-Factor Authentication
MFA provides additional protection when passwords are stolen.
It is especially important for Microsoft 365 and cloud applications.
Endpoint Protection
Business computers and laptops should be centrally protected and monitored.
Patch Management
Operating systems and applications should be kept up to date to reduce exposure to known vulnerabilities.
Email Security
Advanced email security can help identify:
- Phishing
- Malicious links
- Malware
- Impersonation
- Business email compromise
Security Awareness Training
Employees should understand how to recognise suspicious emails and fraudulent requests.
Training can be particularly valuable for employees who do not spend all day working with technology.
Microsoft 365 Security
Microsoft 365 should be configured securely.
This can include:
- MFA
- Conditional Access
- Secure sharing
- Microsoft Defender
- Administrator controls
- Device management
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Critical business information should be backed up and capable of being restored when required.
Cybersecurity Checklist for Agricultural Businesses
How would your business answer these questions?
Accounts
- Is MFA enabled?
- Are former employees’ accounts disabled?
- Are administrator accounts tightly controlled?
- Do employees use unique passwords?
Devices
- Are computers centrally managed?
- Is security software installed?
- Are operating systems regularly updated?
- Are laptops encrypted?
- Do you have advanced email protection?
- Are employees trained to recognise phishing?
- Are changes to supplier payment details independently checked?
Backup
- Is important information backed up?
- Are backups monitored?
- Are restores tested?
- Are backups protected from ransomware?
Networks
- Is guest Wi-Fi separated from business systems?
- Are routers and firewalls properly managed?
- Are IoT devices separated where appropriate?
Response
- Do you have a plan for a cyberattack?
- Does management know who to contact?
- Do you know which systems are business-critical?
If several answers are no or we don’t know, it may be worth reviewing your technology environment.
Connected Machinery and Agricultural IoT
Agriculture is becoming increasingly connected.
These technologies can deliver real operational benefits.
But every connected system also needs to be considered from a cybersecurity perspective.
Modern agricultural technology may include:
- GPS systems
- Sensors
- Weather stations
- Soil monitoring
- Smart irrigation
- Telemetry
- Livestock monitoring
- CCTV
- Automated feeding systems
- Connected machinery
- Remote monitoring platforms
Businesses should understand:
- What devices are connected
- What networks they use
- Whether they connect to the internet
- Who manages them
- Whether passwords have been changed
- Whether software or firmware is updated
- Whether suppliers have remote access
Should Agricultural IoT Devices Be Separated From Office Networks?
Where appropriate, yes.
Operational devices, CCTV, guest Wi-Fi and office computers do not necessarily need to exist on the same unrestricted network.
Network segmentation can help reduce the potential impact if one device is compromised.
For example, a vulnerable smart device should not automatically provide a pathway to:
- Accounting systems
- Business computers
- Microsoft 365
- File servers
The correct network design depends on the environment, but separation is an important principle.
Third-Party Access to Farm Technology
Agricultural businesses increasingly rely on equipment vendors and software providers.
This can be useful, but external access should be controlled.
Suppliers may need remote access to:
- Machinery systems
- Software
- CCTV
- Networks
- Monitoring platforms
You should know:
- Which suppliers have access
- What they can reach
- How they authenticate
- Whether MFA is used
- Whether access is logged
- Whether old access is removed
Third-party access should not be forgotten simply because it was set up years ago.
Microsoft 365 for Agricultural Businesses
Microsoft 365 can provide a modern foundation for business communication and administration.
Stratiis can help manage:
Outlook
Teams
SharePoint
OneDrive
Microsoft Intune
Microsoft Defender
Power Automate
Microsoft Copilot
This can be particularly useful for agricultural businesses with a mixture of office-based and mobile employees.
SharePoint for Farms and Estates
Agricultural businesses often accumulate large volumes of documentation.
This might include:
- Health and safety information
- Employee documents
- Supplier information
- Policies
- Contracts
- Equipment documentation
- Insurance documents
- Compliance records
- Training information
SharePoint can provide a more structured location for business documents than storing information across individual computers and email inboxes.
Permissions can also be used to control who has access to different information.
Mobile Working in Agriculture
Managers and employees may spend much of the day away from a desk.
That makes smartphones and tablets an important part of the IT environment.
Employees may need access to:
- Microsoft Teams
- Cloud applications
- Documents
- Customer information
- Work schedules
Stratiis can help protect mobile access through technologies such as Microsoft Intune. This can help organisations:
- Manage devices
- Apply security policies
- Protect business information
- Control access
- Manage lost or stolen devices
Backup and Disaster Recovery for Agricultural Businesses
What would happen if your business suddenly lost access to its computers and files?
Could you access:
- Accounts?
- Customer records?
- Payroll?
- Supplier information?
- Contracts?
- Operational records?
A ransomware incident, hardware failure or accidental deletion can all cause business disruption.
Backup therefore needs to be treated as part of business continuity.
Backup Is Not the Same as Disaster Recovery
A backup is a copy of your information.
Disaster recovery is the process of getting the business operating again.
A good recovery plan should answer:
- What needs restored first?
- How quickly?
- Where are backups stored?
- Are backups monitored?
- Are they protected from attackers?
- When were restores last tested?
Simply seeing a successful backup notification does not prove that the business can recover quickly.
Business Continuity for Farms and Rural Businesses
Agricultural organisations should consider how they would operate during different types of disruption.
Examples include:
- Cyberattack
- Internet outage
- Hardware failure
- Power outage
- Microsoft 365 outage
- Office loss
- Supplier failure
Technology should form part of a wider business continuity plan.
For example, if internet connectivity is critical, you may require backup connectivity.
If cloud systems are business-critical, you need to understand how employees would operate if access was unavailable.
Cyber Essentials for Agricultural Businesses
Cyber Essentials provides a recognised baseline for protecting against common cyber threats.
It focuses on areas including:
- Firewalls
- Secure configuration
- Security updates
- User access control
- Malware protection
Certification may also be useful when working with:
- Larger customers
- Public-sector organisations
- Supply chains
- Insurers
Stratiis can help assess your current environment and prepare your business for Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus.
Can AI Help Agricultural Businesses?
Artificial intelligence is likely to become increasingly useful across agriculture.
Potential applications include:
- Analysing information
- Creating reports
- Producing marketing content
- Summarising documents
- Drafting customer communications
- Automating administration
- Supporting decision-making
Microsoft Copilot may also help employees work more efficiently across Outlook, Teams, Word and Excel.
But AI should be introduced carefully.
Is Your Agricultural Business Ready for Microsoft Copilot?
Before introducing AI widely, consider:
- Is Microsoft 365 secure?
- Are SharePoint permissions accurate?
- Who has access to sensitive information?
- Are there clear AI policies?
- Which AI platforms are approved?
- What information should employees never upload?
AI readiness is partly a data and cybersecurity problem.
If employees already have access to inappropriate information, AI can make that information easier to find.
Automating Agricultural Business Processes
Some repetitive business processes can be automated.
Examples might include:
- Holiday requests
- Purchase approvals
- Employee onboarding
- Document approvals
- Notifications
- Maintenance requests
- Contract reminders
- Internal forms
Microsoft Power Automate can help connect Microsoft 365 applications and reduce repetitive administration.
The best candidates are generally processes that are:
Repetitive + predictable + rules-based.
Managed IT Support for Agricultural Businesses
Stratiis can provide proactive managed IT services covering:
IT helpdesk
Remote support
On-site support
Microsoft 365
Laptop and desktop management
Patch management
Cybersecurity
Networks
Cloud
Backup
Connectivity
Business mobiles
Technology projects
IT strategy
The objective is to reduce disruption and keep employees productive.
Supporting Agricultural Businesses With an Internal IT Person
Larger agricultural groups may already have someone responsible for IT.
In that situation, you may not need to outsource everything.
Stratiis can provide Co-Managed IT Services.
We can support your internal team with:
- Cybersecurity
- Microsoft 365
- Helpdesk
- Projects
- Backup
- Networks
- Cloud
- Escalations
- Holiday cover
Your internal IT person retains control while gaining additional expertise and resources.
IT Strategy for Growing Agricultural Businesses
Technology decisions are often made reactively.
A computer fails.
A new site needs internet.
A system stops being supported.
A cybersecurity issue appears.
Over time, this can create inconsistent technology and unpredictable costs.
Stratiis can help create a technology roadmap covering:
Hardware replacement
Microsoft 365
Cybersecurity
Connectivity
Wi-Fi
Cloud
Backup
AI
Business continuity
Future projects
This gives management better visibility of future investment.
Technology for New Agricultural Sites
Opening or expanding a site should include technology planning.
Consider:
- Broadband
- Backup internet
- Network cabling
- Wi-Fi
- CCTV connectivity
- Computers
- Telephones
- Microsoft 365
- Cybersecurity
- Cloud applications
Planning early can reduce delays and avoid installing equipment twice.
What Should an Agricultural Business Look for in an IT Provider?
Do not choose an MSP based only on price.
Ask:
- How quickly do you respond?
- Do you support rural locations?
- Can you help improve connectivity?
- What cybersecurity is included?
- Can you manage Microsoft 365?
- Can you provide backup?
- Can you manage Wi-Fi?
- Can you support multiple sites?
- Can you support mobile devices?
- Can you help with Cyber Essentials?
- Will you help us plan future technology?
The best IT partner should help improve the business rather than simply wait for things to break.
Why Choose Stratiis?
Agricultural businesses need practical technology that works.
Stratiis provides:
- Managed IT Support
- Cybersecurity
- Microsoft 365
- Cloud
- Backup
- Connectivity
- Managed Wi-Fi
- Business Mobiles
- Co-Managed IT
- Digital Transformation
- vCIO and IT Strategy
Our approach is based on four priorities.
Reliable
Keep employees working.
Secure
Protect your users, information and systems.
Resilient
Prepare for failures and cyber incidents.
Strategic
Make technology decisions based on where your business is going.
Switching IT Providers?
Changing IT provider does not need to cause major disruption.
Stratiis can work with your existing provider to transfer:
- Microsoft 365
- User accounts
- Devices
- Servers
- Networks
- Domains
- Backup
- Cybersecurity
- Connectivity
- Supplier information
The objective is to make the transition controlled and straightforward.
Frequently Asked Questions About Agricultural IT Support
Does Stratiis provide IT support for farms?
Yes. Stratiis can provide managed IT support, Microsoft 365, cybersecurity, backup, connectivity and technology services for agricultural and rural businesses.
Can you support remote rural locations?
Yes. The services available depend on the location, but remote support combined with appropriate connectivity and on-site support can be used to support rural environments.
Can you improve farm internet connectivity?
We can assess available connectivity options and help design a solution around your business requirements. This may include fixed connectivity, 4G, 5G, wireless or backup internet services.
Can you provide Wi-Fi across a farm?
Wi-Fi can be designed for offices, workshops, warehouses and other appropriate areas. The exact solution depends on distances, buildings, obstructions and coverage requirements.
Can Stratiis support agricultural machinery?
Stratiis focuses on IT, cybersecurity, networks and business technology. Specialist agricultural machinery should continue to be supported by the relevant manufacturer or specialist supplier. We can work alongside those suppliers where machinery depends on your IT network or internet connectivity.
Can you help secure connected farm equipment?
We can help with the network and cybersecurity environment around connected devices, including appropriate segmentation, internet access and secure remote connectivity. Specialist machinery configuration should involve the relevant equipment provider.
Do farms need Cyber Essentials?
Not every farm is required to hold Cyber Essentials. However, it can provide a useful cybersecurity baseline and may be requested by customers, insurers or contracts.
Can you manage Microsoft 365?
Yes. Stratiis can manage Microsoft 365 users, security, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Intune and related services.
Can you provide backup internet?
Yes. Depending on coverage and location, backup internet may use a secondary fixed service, 4G, 5G or another suitable technology.
Speak to Stratiis About IT Support for Your Agricultural Business
Agricultural businesses are becoming more dependent on technology every year.
But more technology also creates more things that need to be protected, managed and kept working.
If you’re concerned about:
Rural connectivity
Cybersecurity
Microsoft 365
Wi-Fi
Backup
Business continuity
Connected devices
Outdated computers
Multiple sites
Your current IT provider
Stratiis can review your current technology environment and help identify where improvements can be made.
We provide managed IT support, cybersecurity and technology services for businesses across Scotland.
Ready to review your IT?
