Best of British Business: Cyber-security for Britain’s SME backbone

Management

Sponsored by Sota

Ben Smoker, CEO, Sota

For more than three decades, Kent and London-based IT managed service provider Sota has helped British organisations navigate successive waves of technological change – from the early days of the PC revolution, through the rise of the internet, to today’s AI-driven economy.

As the only technology and cyber-security provider selected for the Best of British Business campaign, Sota represents a new kind of UK digital infrastructure company – one deliberately built for resilience, accountability and long-term impact. Those qualities matter more than ever in today’s cyber-landscape, particularly for small and mid-sized organisations that increasingly find themselves on the frontline of digital threats.

A cyber-problem hiding in plain sight

Cyber-crime is no longer a challenge reserved for large enterprises or global brands. It has become a national issue affecting organisations of every size, across every sector.

Attackers have evolved rapidly, using automation and AI to scale their operations. SMEs, often operating with lean IT teams and constrained budgets, have become prime targets, not because they are less important, but because attackers assume they lack the defences to detect and respond in time.

“Cyber-risk is no longer a question of if, but when,” says Ben Smoker, CEO of Sota. “The challenge for many SMEs isn’t understanding the threat; it’s that true enterprise-grade protection has historically been out of reach.”

For years, smaller organisations have been forced into compromise. They invest in basic tools such as antivirus, firewalls or compliance checklists and hope those measures will be enough. Too often, they are not.

What’s really at stake when security fails

When a serious cyber-incident occurs, the impact is immediate and far-reaching. Data can be encrypted or stolen in minutes. Operations can stop overnight. Customer trust, built painstakingly over years, can be damaged in days.

For many SMEs, even a short period of downtime can be catastrophic.

This is why cyber-security cannot be judged by how it looks on paper, but by how it performs under pressure. When something goes wrong, organisations need clarity, speed and accountability, not just alerts and dashboards.

That reality sits at the heart of Sota’s approach to cyber-security.

Built on British values and long-term thinking

Founded in 1989 by the Cowham family, Sota has grown alongside the UK’s digital economy. From the beginning, the focus was on helping customers make technology work for their business, not selling complexity for its own sake.

Today, that philosophy remains unchanged. Sota is still British-owned, with the Cowham family continuing to shape the business’s long-term direction.

“That long-term family commitment has given Sota the freedom to think in decades, not quarters,” says Smoker. “It allows us to invest properly in people, capability and innovation, and always put customers first.”

That long-term view has enabled Sota to build deep expertise, operate its own infrastructure and earn trust through delivery rather than hype. That approach has also seen Sota recognised among the world’s leading managed service providers, ranking 10th in the UK and 160th globally in the MSP501 awards.

Outcomes first, always

Cyber-security is not about deploying the most tools or chasing the latest buzzwords. Too many businesses discover too late that their cyber-protection stops at detection. Alerts arrive, but no action follows. Responsibility is unclear. Recovery is slow.

Sota takes a fundamentally different approach. Everything it delivers is designed around the result: rapid response, decisive containment and clear accountability.

“If a customer is trusting us with their most critical systems and data, we have to be accountable for what happens,” Smoker explains. “That means owning the outcome, not just supplying the technology.”

This accountability is reinforced by the way Sota operates. Rather than relying on long chains of third parties, Sota designs, delivers and runs the environments it protects, removing ambiguity when it matters most.

Fixing what’s broken in enterprise cyber-security

True managed detection and response (MDR) has traditionally been priced and packaged for large enterprises. SMEs have been left underserved, overexposed and overpromised.

SotaProtect MDR was created to redress that imbalance.

Rather than overwhelming customers with complexity, Sota focuses on making advanced protection practical, accessible and effective for real-world businesses. The goal is simple: to ensure that when attackers strike, SMEs are protected by the same calibre of capability that large organisations rely on, without the traditional cost and complexity barriers.

“Attackers assume smaller organisations don’t have enterprise-level protection,” says Smoker. “Our role is to challenge that assumption and level the playing field.”

Why Best of British matters

The Best of British Business campaign celebrates organisations that combine heritage with innovation, and growth with responsibility. Independence. Resilience. Long-term contribution.

Those values are deeply embedded in Sota’s culture, from its family ownership and British roots to its customer-outcomes-first approach and commitment to accountability.

Being recognised as part of the campaign is not about an award badge. It is recognition of a business that has quietly and consistently helped UK organisations adapt, modernise and stay secure, long before cyber-security became a boardroom headline.

“Sota embodies what it means to be Best of British,” Smoker concludes. “Independent, resilient and relentlessly focused on helping UK businesses thrive today and into the future.”

As cyber-threats continue to escalate, UK businesses need partners they can trust – partners who understand their pressures, share their values and stand shoulder to shoulder with them when it matters.

That is what Sota has delivered consistently for nearly four decades. And it is why this recognition is not just timely; it is well earned.

As part of the Best of British Business campaign, Sota showcases how UK businesses can achieve enterprise-grade cyber protection without enterprise barriers – discover how SotaProtect MDR supports that mission.