Your technology is essential to your business remaining efficient and your employees remaining productive. Unfortunately, this technology will fail at some point. By adopting proactive strategies, businesses can ensure the longevity and smooth functioning of their IT infrastructure. In this blog post, we will explore how proactive management of IT can keep it running longer, resulting in increased efficiency and cost savings.
Businesses that don’t leverage managed services for their technology infrastructure are leaving a lot of money on the table, but it’s not always easy to see until you break down what the solutions really do for you. In isolation, they might not seem valuable, but when combined, they save your business significant amounts of capital.
It isn’t easy to run a small business, and a lot of this difficulty comes from the fact that, as an owner of a small business, you have some limitations that dictate how your business can be run. For many businesses, one of these is a budgetary one. If you are going to stabilize your costs, you need to know that the investments you make are going to work. One way a managed services provider accomplishes this is through remote monitoring and maintenance.
Even the most technology-literate of your average employees is not going to have the knowledge needed to manage and maintain your entire business infrastructure, and you shouldn’t expect them to, either. It takes a special kind of attention and training to manage complicated enterprise-level technology, but how can you make sure your business has access to these important resources?
If you work with technology, then you are likely to have a good idea of what innovation is and isn’t. Innovation is born from creativity, and while it’s not often associated with business IT, there is something to be said for how technology professionals solve problems in a creative fashion, solving problems with solutions available either in-house or on the market. Today, we are focusing on how this creativity can be an asset and how you can foster creative thought in your office.
Each year we try to come up with a creative Christmas article that ties IT into one of the many holiday fables, but this year we thought we would just forgo the pageantry and talk a little bit about how important our client’s are and what we can do to help take them where they want to go.
How does your business manage its IT resources? Do you have a chief information officer, or CIO, in-house who manages everything related to your technology? If not, who is the one responsible for managing and maintaining your systems? If you don’t know the answer to this question, we have a reality check for you: you need to.
If you don’t properly maintain your technology, then it’s simply not going to be one of your company’s strengths. It’s a simple statement, but it’s one that many modern businesses fail to act upon. A managed service provider can make it much easier to get the technology maintenance your business needs to succeed. Let’s take a closer look at the people who deliver these services to your organization.
We often talk about how some businesses do not have the budget to hire technicians to perform regular maintenance on their IT infrastructures, but what about the one behind the scenes calling all the shots? If companies cannot hire technicians, then it stands to reason that they also cannot afford someone at the executive level who manages their workload. The concept of the virtual chief information officer, or virtual CIO, challenges this notion by providing access to technology leadership for small businesses.
To be adept at a task is to say that the one doing the task is a professional, or someone with substantial knowledge that can be used to effectively complete the task. Cybersecurity is one such area where having a considerable amount of knowledge is of particular importance to help navigate the complex environment surrounding it. How can your organization achieve this level of mindfulness and expertise?
Your business’ software is one of its critical assets, so it really can’t also host many risks to your security and business continuity. Therefore, keeping your software up-to-date and fully patched should be a priority. Let’s go over what patch management entails and why it is so important.
Okay, time for some real talk: There is no denying that 2020 has held a few unique challenges for everyone who runs a business. Economic challenges, political tensions, and an honest-to-goodness pandemic have all thrown us all for a loop. As a result, it is important that businesses all adjust their technology priorities to survive. Let’s discuss these priorities, and how they will need to shift.
Information technology continues to play a more significant role in businesses, and as technology changes, so should yours. IT procurement is a critical part of any business’ success, which means that your business can greatly benefit from a managed service provider. They have the know-how to procure all of the best technology. Today, we will discuss how your business can acquire the IT it deserves.
Many businesses are capitalizing on the vast amount of benefits Managed IT services can bring to the table. These service providers are able to assist your business in obtaining, and managing the technology that you rely on. Working with one of these providers can help your business simplify data management practices, as well as make them much more secure. Today we will go over how they are able to do so.
Old-school business information technology support isn’t necessarily wrong, but it most definitely isn’t cheap nor efficient. IT support strategies are developing in ways that some time ago, would have thought to be unheard of. Your business no longer needs a full on-site staff designated to maintaining network security or updating software. In part two of our five-part series, we discuss how your business can have the support it needs through managed services.
Downtime is a killer for any business. When a business is forced into confronting its technology support deficits, it usually means that they’ve been dealing with too much broken technology and downtime, and the costs associated with it. One way your business can avoid losing huge chunks of time to broken technology is to add a professional help desk to support your IT administrator.
Do you know what can completely kill a business’ momentum? Downtime. Businesses of all types look for a myriad of ways to save themselves the headaches that come from significant downtime. One way that is sure to reduce an organization’s downtime is by having conscientious IT management and support at the ready. One problem with this is that it's typically costly to hire a team of IT professionals with the experience and knowledge to keep your technology up and running.
Businesses these days rely on technology in order to function properly, but what happens when this technology doesn’t operate as intended? If your organization doesn’t have a dedicated help desk on-premise, you’re probably suffering from unnecessary downtime and technology troubles with no recourse.
There are various types of user accounts that your employees and administrators can use to access their workstations, but one of the biggest points of contention to consider when planning out data access is the use of administrator accounts. Specifically, you want to avoid handing out administrator account access to users like it’s Halloween candy.
Your business deals with all types of troubles, but one trouble that can be extraordinarily costly is when your organization's technology doesn’t work properly. That’s why many businesses hire an IT staff who work to mitigate technology-related problems. One issue you should be cognizant of is cost. Typically, IT professionals have training, certifications, and experience and demand an above average salary. If you have a small or medium-sized business that is working with tight margins as it is, it can be extremely difficult to take on new personnel costs; especially ones that don’t directly result in bringing revenue through the door.
