When you think of professional services, you may think about smart people doing important things that took them years to learn how to do. You may not, however, consider them the kind of people that lean on their technology to make their businesses work. This is because for the longest time, technology wasn’t a major part of the professional services landscape.
Do you know what drives me crazy? It’s the fact that, of all the lists of things you can do to improve your business and boost your productivity and optimize something or other… it seems there's not much to be said about how your employees factor in.
It has reached the point that, if you have a business, you had better have a backup prepared. Otherwise, the digital data that modern businesses like yours rely on is vulnerable to loss. Of course, depending on the age of your business, you may have data that no longer applies to your operations. That’s why we’re going over how to select the data you should continue to back up.
Businesses generate and collect a huge amount of data - some of it, practically useless, and some, critical to your business and its operations. It is this latter group that makes it so important that you have a comprehensive backup plan ready to go.
Any healthy market economy relies on innovation. The simple act of making bright ideas even brighter helps boost economic efficiency and growth, creating a higher standard of living. Business processes are being transformed through information technology. Here, let’s look at how some of these shifts are shaping up.
Today, large companies typically use their data to help them make more educated business decisions. This strategy can actually benefit smaller businesses as well. However, they often don’t think they have enough data to facilitate analytics or BI (Business Intelligence) platform. Let’s take a look at how small businesses can use their big data.
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.
Computers sometimes appear to have a mind of their own. For businesses, this is less than ideal. If the support structure is not in place to take control of your business’ infrastructure, your business' profitability may be negatively impacted. In this five-part series, we will discuss how being proactive keeps your technology in check.
So your small business needs a new server. What are your options? Do you know what they are? Today, we’ll try to shed some light on how you should look at the server-buying process and what your organization’s options are.
Small business owners have a lot on their minds and a ton of responsibilities that the average employee doesn’t have. Small businesses often force business owners into taking on various roles that may or may not fit their specific skill set, including CIO or CTO. Of course, the Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer are responsible for technology-related decisions, but the reality of the matter is that you only want technology professionals in these roles… not just professionals who happen to be the most knowledgeable folks in your office.
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.
All businesses need some type of communication infrastructure, especially considering how connected today’s workplace is. Today we will look at some of the best communications solutions out there for businesses of all sizes and industries, including many that you may (or may not) have already implemented for yourself. You can use this knowledge to fuel improvements to your own communications infrastructure.
The value of productivity cannot be understated, especially in the workplace. While there are many methods people use to increase theirs, we wanted to share a specific approach with you for our tip: sprinting.
Technology has enabled businesses to do more with less, although this isn’t always the best thing. Many small businesses simply feel that they don’t have the technology solutions that properly resolve their challenges. However, these solutions exist, and offer all the robust functionality that many businesses seek.
When considering a business’ strengths, there is a tendency to focus on its more quantifiable aspects - it generates x dollars in revenue, or leverages advanced solutions a, b, and c. While these kinds of competitive advantages are valuable to have, it is also important to recognize how critical one of your more qualifiable strengths can be: your company culture.
Whether they are expected or not, there will always be situations when your business incurs some damage or loss due to natural disasters, downtime, or other issues. You might find that a little preparation could have kept some of the disaster at bay, and it could honestly save you a ton in terms of lost time and resources. In fact, it could save your organization from the brink of disaster.
Business can be tricky, especially if you’re good at it. It’s important to know when to be comfortable with your position without starting to feel complacent. If you fall into this trap, you’ll be running the risk of hindering your organization’s growth, potentially blocking any future successes.
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.
One industry that most people wouldn’t necessarily consider to be IT-rich is manufacturing. With automation becoming a major point of emphasis for many businesses, IT has taken on a larger role for today’s small and medium-sized manufacturers. Today, we will take a long look at what the manufacturer’s IT needs are, and what solutions they use to help steer their company forward.
Technology training is something that all employees have to go through at some point in their career, whether they are a CEO learning how to use a new solution, or an end user that uses it every day. However, we know that your employees don’t necessarily have time to sit down for training, as they likely have other responsibilities that must be tended to. How can you make sure technology training is a valuable investment on your part?
