Technology management is a challenge for small businesses, especially those that have limited resources at their disposal. There are a lot of decision makers that are under the impression that they cannot afford to take proper care of their technology, so they put it off until their technology starts to fail. So, we ask you this question: if not now, when is the appropriate time to take care of your technology?
It can be a challenge to keep your business technology and solutions in proper working order. This goes doubly for businesses who don’t have time or resources to handle day-to-day management, let alone implementing new solutions that can improve operations. Thankfully, outsourcing gives small businesses like yours the opportunity to better manage their technology, and it’s all thanks to managed services.
While browsing our website, chances are you will come across the term “managed service provider” or “MSP” more times than you can count, and that’s typically how we would describe our business model. However, we realize that this term might not necessarily mean much to you—at least, not without some context. Today, we want to clarify what MSPs do and how we can revolutionize the way you conduct business.
We work with a lot of businesses, but one in particular may surprise you. Let’s talk about how our services made a certain organization’s critical processes a lot easier to manage during their busiest time of year:
IT support can be challenging to handle for small businesses. They might understand the importance of IT, but their actions often do not speak to this. Some small businesses fail to invest properly in IT support, or they simply do not know what to look for in the services they need. Thankfully, you have us to help you make the right call for your business IT.
One of the biggest challenges facing small businesses is IT. More often than not, SMBs lack the strong IT leadership and plethora of resources that enable larger organizations to effectively manage their technology. While there are countless mistakes that SMBs can make regarding technology management and implementation, we’ve selected four that stand head and shoulders above the rest. These are the most costly mistakes your organization can make regarding its technology management.
Revenue generation is the name of the game for every business and sometimes technology is looked on as more of a hindrance to profitability than a tool to cultivate it. To turn this notion around, a business needs to make strategic investments that will return some type of benefit, whether that be the availability of alternate revenue streams, a boost in productivity, improved collaboration, and more. Today, let’s take a look at some ways that businesses can invest in their IT and improve their profitability as a result.
Today’s business has to do more with less. This goes for all of its resources including the technology it uses. Runaway IT budgets can put a lot of pressure on the technology to do more than it can. To get the most out of your business’ technology investments, consider the following strategies.
Regardless of a business’ size, technology can help it to resolve most operational challenges it is contending with. For instance, global toy producer The Lego Group shared their own story about how improved IT solutions helped it to address some significant issues it had. Let’s go over what The Lego Group did, and then see how their process could translate to your business.
When your business has computer problems, productivity tends to decline. Unfortunately, IT, for all its benefits, has to be constantly maintained. One of the best ways to maintain your technology, or fix issues when they arise, is to lean on an IT help desk. Let’s take a look at the ways an IT help desk can benefit your business.
All a business’ technology is important to its operations, but based on its industry, certain priorities are bound to arise. A recent survey cast a light on some of these priorities, giving us a view of what small to medium-sized businesses are concerning themselves with. Let’s review some of the trends this survey revealed to see how well your priorities match up.
Professional services have a reputation for being the important kind of work that has to be learned through experience. However, that reputation doesn’t usually cover these businesses using very much technology, because for a very long time, professional services didn’t.
Patches are one of the most important aspects of your technology. As with anything, technology is constantly changing, so shouldn’t your software? Today we will discuss three tips, sharing advice on optimizing your patch management process.
Technology is something that experiences rapid change, and while it’s usually beneficial to businesses, change can often bring with it a set of growing pains. You might be able to get more done and reach more customers, but it might stretch your resources, frustrate employees, and force new processes upon your organization. When this change comes, will you lament the good old days, or will you seize the opportunity to improve your business as a whole? When it comes to technology, the answer might make or break the future of your organization.
Unlike the office environment, the technology used in retail has been relatively stagnant. The times are changing, though. It’s been a long time coming, but the technology used in the retail environment is finally evolving to meet the growing needs of organizations. Unfortunately, this has been met with the challenges of implementing said technology in the industry.
Sometimes it might feel like your technology never works as you want it to. You might try to open up a software application only to find an error message that keeps you from being productive. The error doesn’t go away no matter how many times you reload the application. How can you eliminate these issues that threaten to derail your productivity throughout the workday?
Your business, like all businesses, relies on a lot of moving parts to function. That’s the reality. What isn’t the reality is that you have no control over whether these moving parts will break down, and that you have to just sit and wait for it to happen, reacting when it does.
Commerce has been fully embraced by the Internet, with online stores slowly phasing out many brick-and-mortar establishments. While you may not be in too much danger, depending on what you offer, you may also have the opportunity to leverage this trend in your favor. Below, we’ve outlined a few factors to help you decide if e-commerce is the right fit for you.
Technology is critical to the success of your business. You rely on it for productivity, efficiency, and security. Your organization can’t run as intended without constant access to important data and systems. If a business can’t afford to maintain and implement adequate technology solutions, they will often pay untrained employees to do what they can, but this comes with too many risks to be effective.
IT support is one of the most important parts of any modern business simply because it’s just not feasible to run a business without any form of technology at its core. For example, most businesses rely on email and other forms of communication, whereas stores might require access to a point-of-sale software to sell their wares. Either way, it’s critical to the success of most businesses, and where there’s technology, there is bound to be someone who needs to manage and maintain it.
Network security is more than just a conscientious attempt by your staff to protect your organization’s digital assets. It’s making sure that your employees know how to handle dangerous situations, implementing preventative IT measures to eliminate potential issues entirely, and having the right technology experts on-hand to handle tough problems that can’t be solved by a few pieces of technology.
It’s inevitable that your organization will face some hard decisions, but no choice is as painful as pulling the plug on the one thing that you’ve dumped your heart and soul into; your business. There is a plethora of problems that could cause a business to consider shutting its doors, but often there is a solution. If technology-related costs and downtime are your main problems, managed IT services can help.
It’s not unheard of for organizations to experience immense technological trouble that brings future potential problems into question. Surprises like these can spell trouble for businesses that are unprepared, especially considering the major damage it could cause to your budget. This forces you to ask yourself if you know what your current plan for IT covers, and what you want your provider to do to eliminate unexpected billing surprises.
Business owners have a lot to worry about. However, keeping workstations, server units, mobile devices, and various software solutions in good working order doesn’t have to be a concern--that is, if you outsource these responsibilities to the right IT professionals.
Think of your business technology like a car. Sure, it’s a great way from getting from one location to another, but if it breaks down, you’re in big trouble financially. Even worse, you’re stuck without a vehicle for a certain amount of time. Can you imagine purchasing new hardware and losing precious productivity due to downtime?
The advantage of managed IT service is that it allows businesses to secure the IT support they need, without having to take on the responsibility and expense of managing these services. When coupled with the development and deployment of computing resources, it becomes clear that outsourcing IT is the smart way to go for small to medium-sized businesses looking to do more for less.
IT can be a tricky concept to the business owner, and we all know how touchy technology can be at times. It can be working one minute, then completely incapacitated the next. This unpredictability is one reason why the concept of help desk support was created. It’s an important way to assist individuals when they need help most.
