Directive Blogs
It can be difficult staying productive with all the things that happen day-in and day-out around your business. When your team is productive, it helps you stay focused and organized, and it can make a big difference in how successful you are. This week we break down just how keeping productivity levels high can make or break a business.
“Toxic” is a buzzword that is often used nowadays, but when it is used to describe a business’ work environment, it needs to be treated with deadly seriousness.
If a workplace is a place people don’t like to be, many drawbacks will ultimately impact operations. Therefore, it is to your benefit to keep your business as positive a workplace as possible.
Let’s discuss how to tell if your company has a toxic workplace and, if so, how to resolve it.
It’s easy to put your website at the farthest corner of your to-do list, but smart business owners know that doing so could put them at a disadvantage and even get them in hot water. Let’s take a quick look at one key consideration you should make to keep yourself on the up-and-up: cookies and the laws surrounding them.
DISCLAIMER: We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. Seek out representation if that is what you are looking for.
Collaboration is at the heart of any effective business. Most organizations today are trying to make the most of their limited resources, and one of the ways to do this is with a solid collaboration strategy. Here’s how you can do the same to avoid siloing tasks and squandering your workforce’s potential.
Your business works with a lot of vendors. Each of these vendors requires your time, energy, and resources. Do you have the assets to handle all of them yourself, or would it all be better spent elsewhere on more profitable tasks and projects? Today, we’ll highlight your business’ vendor management options.
Projects are a big part of the small business model. Whether they are projects to improve organizational efficiency or productivity or projects that are completed for customers, strong project management is extremely important. Scope creep happens when a project becomes less efficient because the demands of the project keep changing. In today’s blog, we will try to define scope creep and how to prevent it from being a problem for your business.
While your business might last into the near future, your IT is more challenging to upkeep and preserve over time. You’ll have to consider reworking and restructuring your infrastructure to ensure that it stands the test of time. Let’s review some warning signs that it might be time to do just that.
Productivity is the measure of which an employee and a business is judged by, and for that reason, when productivity starts to lapse at an individual or organizational level it needs to be addressed immediately. In today’s blog, we’ll go through some of the problems that an organization can see when productivity drops.
No matter your industry, size, or business model, satisfying your customers is crucial. Your business' survival depends on your ability to do this effectively.
To achieve this, it is essential to leverage every opportunity to deliver for your audience. One way to do this is through modern business technology, such as customer relationship management (CRM). Let's explore what a CRM is and why it's beneficial.
With so much focus on digital marketing nowadays, it can certainly be tempting to focus solely on these efforts… often, to the detriment of other forms, like print. We wanted to take a few moments to correct this temptation and talk about how print marketing, specifically in the form of printed newsletters, still has a lot of value to offer businesses… particularly, managed service providers.
Many business owners considered allowing their employees to work from home like opening Pandora’s box; once opened, there was no going back. Unfortunately, for these administrators, they were faced with the very real prospect of losing their business if they didn’t allow it. Millions of people started working from home in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but now that public fear has diminished, how have companies reacted? Let’s discuss some remote work statistics to get an answer.
Technology frustrations can cause major setbacks for today’s businesses. IT challenges of all kinds can disrupt operations and impact productivity. Fortunately, managed IT services can help solve these common business IT headaches. Therefore, businesses can access a team of experts ready to tackle these issues head-on by outsourcing their IT management to a managed service provider.
There has been a lot of talk about ways to get more productivity from your staff. One idea floated a few years ago was reducing the number of days people work to four. Now, if you think, “How does working one less day improve worker productivity?” you aren’t alone. This week, we will take a look at the benefits of a four-day workweek.
Effective teamwork is indispensable for business success. Collaboration stands out as an extremely important consideration, yet devising a strategy that expedites project completion and enhances service delivery poses challenges. This week, we get into modern collaboration practices and how technology can help you improve collaboration.
Running a business can be tough and result in a lot of frustration from staff, management, and customers. Sometimes that frustration can boil over and cause consternation among the core elements that need to function for a business to be successful. This week, let’s look at an issue that can really hurt your business.
You might have noticed that some of your younger workers are leaving your business much earlier than you might expect them to. This could be because of a phenomenon called “shift shock,” which examines employee engagement and satisfaction. Let’s consider how shift shock could potentially harm your business.
Technology has ingrained itself into just about every facet of modern life, particularly in the business world where every competitive edge makes a difference. Many small and medium-sized businesses simply don’t have the staff on-hand to manage and maintain their technology solutions, instead opting to outsource this important responsibility to managed service providers (MSPs).
The entire premise of managed IT services is that they can save your business money, but in what specific ways does working with us make your budget more predictable? It’s really quite simple, and it encompasses three primary pillars: an established level of service, proactive maintenance and management, and the reliability and access to expertise that might otherwise put a stopper on your business’ potential.
For any business to succeed, it needs to exhibit some degree of empathy toward its audience. Otherwise, the services and products they offer will be less likely to meet the priorities and needs that its targets are experiencing.
As a managed service provider, this is perhaps most true of us, as our services revolve around predicting the needs of our clientele and resolving them… ideally, before the client even realizes they have a need to fulfill.
How important do you consider security for your personal and private data on your web-connected accounts? If you don’t think about it often, you should be; countless entities out there—including major enterprises and providers you trust—do not respect your data privacy and security. Let’s discuss how some large companies take advantage of your data and some of the questions you should consider when trusting these companies with your data.
SMBs need to be able to navigate the complexities of IT, whether it’s with a completely outsourced IT department or an in-house team of technicians. However, if you are thinking of technology management in this black-and-white way, you are eliminating the potential for enormous benefit through the use of co-managed IT.
Businesses will often go into the process of self-improvement with unrealistic expectations for how much they can significantly improve their functionality. This simply is not true, and sometimes business owners need to realize that real change—the kind that yields real results—takes time. Thankfully, there are some actionable steps you can take to ensure that your business is moving in the right direction.
Technology can bring a lot of value for businesses, but sometimes it can be difficult to nail down exactly what can make a business run optimally. There are a lot of options, but all that means is that there are a lot of things that can potentially go wrong. Let’s take a look at some of the technology that small businesses are using to support the new workplace and create better opportunities.
Businesses have a lot of stressful things going on at any given moment, especially when timelines and deadlines are considered. You have projects that you need to complete for your customers and employees who need to be paid on time, and you would be hard-pressed to find a situation for your organization that isn’t under some sort of time crunch. How can you use technology to make sure that these timelines are met? Let’s go over some solutions.
Happy New Year! It’s officially that time when we all make resolutions meant to help improve ourselves, so why not include your business? Better yet, why not make business resolutions that you’re more likely to keep?
Let’s explore some of the ways that you can design your business’ resolutions to maximize the likelihood that you’ll keep them and benefit from them in the long term.
Do you remember a couple of years back when remote work went from being a privilege to the norm? It’s been a while since then, but many businesses have adopted hybrid or full remote operations, and as such, they are able to retain a semblance of normalcy even without the return of in-office work.
Some businesses have managed to get back to the state they were in prior to the pandemic, but there is a reason why a lot of businesses are not pushing the issue. Let’s go over some of them, and why forcing the issue with your employees is not necessarily a good idea.
There are significant benefits to be had by businesses that choose to seek out IT services and assistance from a managed service provider like us. We’re very aware that our word isn’t going to be super convincing on its own, of course, so let’s review what a managed service provider can do and how working with us can help your business.
While it’s true that technology has become essential for businesses, organizations still often grapple with various technology issues that can impact how they do business. Many times organizations get turned around and it can cause some aspect of their IT to be problematic for them. Today, we look at five common technology issues that businesses frequently face.
Did you know that a lot of technology investments go over budget or don’t necessarily provide the return that was intended? With technology playing such an important role in business, getting the right technology to fit your business is critical to your efficiency efforts. It’s not always as easy as identifying features in a huge software profile or using the cloud for everything. In today’s blog, we offer five useful tips to help you make informed decisions about your business’ technology.
The workplace has undergone a dramatic shift over the past several years in favor of remote work, due in no small part to worldwide circumstances. In fact, many workers who would prefer to work in-office found themselves unable to, pushing the button on the topic of remote work even more. While there are some outspoken companies that want to see the return of in-office work, experts in the industry seem to be of the opposite opinion.
Operational problems can not only stymie growth, they can trigger a lot of other issues that can be detrimental to the long term success and sustainability of a business. Unfortunately, it’s often a little difficult to see while you are in the heat of battle. Let’s take a look at some of the solutions that can solve some of the common operational problems that small businesses run into.
With technology being so important for all businesses in at least some capacity, it’s no small wonder that effectively using it (and having someone on-hand to manage it all) is tremendously valuable for any company. This is where a managed service provider (MSP) can be helpful, even for businesses that have a dedicated IT department. All small businesses benefit from working with an MSP.
When it comes to your business’ continuity, you should know that even small issues pose a great threat—especially when they involve your business’ data. Let’s examine two situations where even small mistakes could lead to a cascade of problems that could leave your organization strapped for cash and struggling to stay alive.
Technology plays a pivotal role in the operations of most businesses, but its primary function is to empower and support the workforce. Many employees have specific expectations when it comes to the technology provided by their organizations. Failure to meet these expectations can drive them to seek employment elsewhere. Let’s delve into five ways technology bolsters your employees' productivity.
Productivity is the lifeblood of any business, and understanding what it entails is paramount for every decision-maker in the corporate world. The concept of productivity is highly contextual, as no two businesses operate in the same way or are managed identically. Today, we present a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that you need to consider. These twelve metrics will assist you in gauging whether your business is meeting productivity expectations or falling short.
Across the board, modern businesses rely on no small amount of technology to support their operations, making it key that you, one, have the technology your operations require, and two, have the means to keep this technology operational. Fortunately, managed services help you by providing both. Let’s review what managed services are, and how they work.
Sure, retailers have to manage their inventory effectively, but have you ever thought about the way your own business manages what it keeps on hand? Today we want to discuss five ways your business can more effectively manage inventory—and it turns out technology plays a pretty significant part in improving any inventory control system.
In many ways, a business is only as capable as its sales team allows it to be… and nowadays, a sales team is only as capable as their tech allows them to be. Let’s take a few minutes to discuss how you can turn this to your advantage by providing your sales team with the technology that supports their goals.
Over the course of a year, a month, or even a single day, your business accumulates and utilizes a lot of data. You need systems in place to make good use of this data, otherwise your business is leaving efficiency on the table. Today we want to go over some proper uses for your data and how to make the most of this golden opportunity.
Many businesses, irrespective of their size, are increasingly turning towards managed services to streamline their operations, reduce expenses, and elevate their overall customer value proposition. The utilization of managed services has revolutionized the landscape, not just in terms of cost-saving, but also in facilitating businesses to grow and extract greater value from their IT infrastructure. Let's take a look into how managed services achieve this dual objective.
In an era where businesses rely heavily on data and technology, the need for comprehensive disaster recovery solutions has never been more critical. The stakes are high when it comes to safeguarding your company's digital assets and ensuring business continuity in the face of unforeseen disasters. This is where Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) comes into play.
Your customers expect not to be inconvenienced when doing business with your organization. Small businesses can use new technology to meet these expectations by offering online ordering, mobile apps, and e-commerce platforms. Such innovations not only improve the customer experience but also expand a business' reach. Let’s look at some of the ways new technology can improve your business.
Businesses need to be cognizant of the role technology plays in today’s operations. Not only do you stand to lose ground on your competition if you fail to properly invest in your technology, it can have other negative effects on your business as well. This week, we outline eight things that can go wrong if you aren’t constantly looking to build a technologically savvy business.
Technology is an incredibly powerful factor when it comes to your business operations, so we wanted to share how a solid IT strategy can make a significant impact on your company. We’ll explore how poor IT implementation and strategy can affect performance, as well as what you need to do to prioritize your IT.
The end of support for Windows 10 is scheduled for October 14, 2025. While that is a couple of years away, it's crucial to start strategizing for the future now. After this date, Microsoft will cease providing technical assistance, security updates, and bug fixes for the operating system. This means that continuing to use Windows 10 beyond that point could expose users to security risks and performance issues.
The United States Federal Trade Commission’s mandate is to prevent fraud and promote consumer protection in today's interconnected world, where the digital landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. The FTC recognizes the importance of safeguarding consumer information and has implemented their Safeguards Rule as a means to ensure that businesses protect sensitive data from unauthorized access and misuse. Let’s take a look at the Safeguards Rule and what you need to know about it in regard to your business.
How does your business handle communication? Does it struggle to properly use its technology and collaboration tools? If so, we have some tips that can help you avoid the most common collaboration mistakes, particularly those related to data security. Read on to learn how you can ensure you’re not putting your data at risk needlessly with inappropriate collaboration security mistakes.
Today’s businesses are heavily reliant on technology to streamline operations and do more to enhance workforce productivity. With the multitude of technology options available, however, finding the right solutions for your business can be more difficult than it seems at first glimpse. Let’s take a look at how technology professionals can help you navigate the technology landscape and find solutions that align with your business needs.
With organizations running on technology, it is important that it is reliably managed. It’s also important that your organization has the technology in place that will help your team be the most productive and that will keep your data secure. The best way to accomplish this is with help from certified and knowledgeable IT technicians.
We get it: you’d expect to read the statement “AI is everywhere nowadays” as a science fiction story about the enslavement of humans by the very machines they’ve created. We aren’t quite there yet, but more and more humans are coming to rely on artificial intelligence to automate a lot of different tasks inside their businesses. Let’s take a look at what people are actually using AI for.
Collaboration tools can be remarkably helpful for businesses, if not downright essential to their success. With the right tools that are, of course, configured the right way, you can see exponential returns on your investment as your staff enjoy the many benefits they provide. Today, we want to discuss four common pitfalls with your collaboration tool security that must be addressed.
When you consider your business’ investments, you probably think about things like the hardware your team uses and the software this hardware supports. You might think about the furniture you’ve purchased to outfit your office. However, one often overlooked—but incredibly important—element that needs some level of investment is your employee satisfaction.
With collaboration remaining an important component of any successful business, it’s important to foster productivity and innovation through strategic implementation of technology solutions designed for this express purpose. Today, we want to discuss some of the aspects of collaboration you need to know to do it more effectively, as well as technology that facilitates this process.
Every business is trying to do what they do with fewer interruptions and reduced costs. The more you can do with less, the more profitable your business can become. Building efficient processes is essential for the growing business, so this week will explore various strategies and practical tips to help you build more efficient processes.
Businesses use all types of sayings to try to draw in customers. One of the core selling points of managed IT services is that “it pays for itself”. This is more than just marketing. The multiple services that make up managed IT services all help a business save time and money, but when added together, it can really help the bottom line of a business more than most services they can use. In this week’s blog we thought we would go through the core elements of a managed IT services agreement to show how it really does pay for itself.
Digital monitoring is a bit of a contentious topic in business, but according to a survey from Gartner, it might not be as contentious of a topic as previously thought. In fact, employees are often in favor of digital monitoring under the appropriate circumstances, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their jobs.
The reliance on remote workers has grown exponentially over the past couple of years, and presents businesses some stark challenges as well as some amazing opportunities. As a result, a lot of businesses have tried to find middle ground and started implementing a hybrid approach to their workforce. Let’s take a look at what hybrid work entails and how it can benefit your organization.
While extremely useful, there are plenty of potential frustrations when using technology for your business. From extended downtime from broken technology to hackers trying to steal your data to tools that don’t really fit the specific needs of your business: managing a lot of technology can be difficult. In this blog, we are set to discuss three things you should focus on to get out in front of potential technology problems.
You’re probably familiar with the concept of a mission statement, particularly in terms of your business as a whole. Did you know, however, that you don’t need to stop there? You can—and we’d argue, should—establish more specific organizational missions for your different departments. Let’s consider how you can benefit from creating a mission for your IT team to uphold throughout its operations, and how you might go about doing so.
For business managers, it can sometimes be difficult to create policies and procedures that allow for the efficiency that they’d like to see from their business. Business growth leads to more complex situations which in turn demand more complex procedures. This enhanced complexity can not only get constant in that you need to alter the way things are done, you also could fall into the trap of mistakenly putting productivity roadblocks up that can alter the way your business operates.
Compliance is a critical element of many businesses’ requirements, with pretty severe penalties as a consequence if the prescribed standards are not met. Even more importantly, most compliance requirements and regulations are put in place for the welfare of not only the business, but its clientele as well. This makes it critical to know which apply to your business, and how to meet them fully.
Information technology is a constantly changing industry, with practices shifting all the time. As a result, anyone you have working on your company’s IT should be actively seeking out various certifications to confirm that they are keeping up on modern trends and standards. To help you accomplish this, we’ve put together a brief list of valuable IT certifications that your IT personnel—whether they’re in-house employees or outsourced professionals—should have.
In good times and bad, profitability is the priority for most businesses out there. Having said that, this priority is typically a challenging one to achieve, but did you know that there are a few different ways that investing in a relationship with a managed service provider can help increase your productivity—and as a result, your overall profitability?
Every office has that one person that doesn’t seem to care that they are working in a room with other people. You know the type: They have day-old food on their desk. There are papers and other unnecessary items strewn about the desktop. Things are sticky and smell strange. The funny part is they seem comfortable with that mess. They may be the only one that is. In this week’s blog, we discuss the benefits of keeping your workspace clean.
Lots of businesses are facing a financial crunch as the margins they operate under continue to shrink. This unfortunate trend has led a lot of businesses to outsource elements of their operations to try and cut costs. One part of the business that is either outsourced or cut out entirely has been the human resources department.
We’ve been spending the past few weeks examining productivity and how to optimize it, and today, we felt it was necessary to address the issues that could throw the proverbial wrench into the works.
Don’t worry, though, we’re also going to touch on how you can avoid and/or mitigate the issues that might threaten your productivity.
When we talk about projects, we typically mean new technology deployment. Our technicians spend a lot of time trying to outfit our clients with the right technologies for their business. What becomes evident pretty quickly is that most businesses don’t just need help with the IT projects, they need to get the tools in place for their own project management needs. In this week’s blog, we will briefly discuss what businesses should be looking for in project management and how today’s tools can help your organization be more productive and get more done.
Productivity has been, is now, and likely will forever be heralded as one of the preeminent goals for any business. As such, it makes sense to understand as much as we can about it. To do so, we’ll be examining a different aspect of productivity for the next few weeks.
First up: what is productivity, in the first place?
Meetings are a common hold-up for getting things done in the office, an idea that is certainly not unfounded. Research supports the premise that meetings impact productivity. Let’s consider what the numbers say and how you can work to ensure meetings don’t influence your company’s productivity in a negative way.
A disaster can take many forms, from a raging snowstorm to deleting the wrong file. Regardless of what kind of disaster you face, you can know that it doesn’t take much to impact a business, especially if the business doesn’t have a business continuity plan in place. How does your business recover from such a devastating scenario? How can it get its data back and in proper working order? That’s what we want to tell you about today.
All successful businesses want to grow and better themselves, as growth is a direct indicator that you are doing something right, from providing better services to your customers or servicing more customers. If you’re not ready to adapt to this growth, you’re in for a difficult time. Here are three ways you can keep your business operating even when you’re experiencing unprecedented growth.
Technology is only effective in the hands of the right—or, at least, well-trained—employees. To work toward this goal, you’ll have to ramp up your hiring processes to ensure you garner the interest of the right candidates for the jobs. Nowhere is this more true than for your IT department. Let’s go over how you can make your business an attractive employment option for skilled and innovative technicians.
No one can tell when a disaster is going to hit your business or what form that disaster is going to take. The cause could be a storm, human error, or some freak occurrence that nobody could have seen coming. In order to get back up and running after one of these incidents a company needs to have a strong business continuity strategy. An essential part of this strategy is knowing how to recover data depending on the way it’s lost. Getting data back and working for your company is the only way to stave off ruin, so let’s look at data recovery strategies that can literally save your business.
Smartphones are everywhere. Nearly everyone has one either in their pocket or in their hand and that fact would make you think that the underlying smartphone market is one that is remarkably strong. This really isn’t the case. Today, we’ll take a brief look at the smartphone market and how a lack of true innovation is one of the reasons the industry has seen large decreases in sales.
How does your business manage its IT? Do you have an in-house team, and how busy are they with all of the hustle and bustle of their everyday duties? Do they have time to address the many challenges and requests made of them? If not, then perhaps you should consider a different model for your IT management. Luckily, we have just the opportunity for you, and you won’t want to miss out on it.
More than ever, it is important for your employees to have positive work experiences. People have many more resources to find new work today, and with so many people willing to find the “right fit” it can be quite expensive for organizations. While the best way is always to compensate people well, if you are facing a situation where you need to be creative to keep your people around, we have three suggestions.
Technology is complex, and it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. This is more the case for business technology than consumer technology. Even those who consider themselves tech-savvy might be lost when it comes to managing business-grade technology solutions. How can you make sure that your business technology is receiving the service it needs to stay operational long-term?
When times get tough, businesses are pretty quick to start cutting costs wherever they can…and frequently, the business’ IT is the first thing to hit the chopping block.
While we contend that IT is the last thing you want to cut back on when times are tough, you may not have a choice. Therefore, we wanted to take a few moments to explore how you can resist some of these cuts—and if not, what you need to prioritize.
The telephone, as a technology, has been around for quite a while, more or less serving businesses for that entire time. Of course, we’ve seen quite a few advancements in telephony over the years, which has helped it to remain a cornerstone of modern business communications to this day in the form of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
Do your employees have a hard time with the technology that you’ve provided them? Are your digitization efforts lagging behind? Are the systems your business is using coming up on their end of support date? Old technology can cause major problems for a business. In this week’s blog, we go through some of the signs that you may need to upgrade your business’ technology.
All jobs have aspects of them that are simply dull or unengaging. After all, nothing can be exciting all the time. This week we wanted to focus on these rote tasks and what you can do to make them less of an impact on your time and job fulfillment. Turns out, the key to solving this issue stems from technology, specifically the ability to automate said tasks.
Hot desking—the workplace organization method wherein there are no assigned workstations—has an assortment of pros and cons to it, but many companies are finding the more fiscal benefits to be worth the trade-offs. Let’s explore some of the pros and cons of hot desking, and go over a few tips and strategies that will help if you choose to implement it.
With technology playing such a massive role in modern business processes, having someone in the higher ranks to oversee it is a huge advantage. This is the role of the Chief Information Officer—the CIO—which makes them an integral part of the modern C-suite.
So, what kind of thing does the CIO (or your business’ equivalent of it) need to know and consider in order to fulfill their role?
Regularly, when a business is searching for ways to move their operations forward, there is a little hand wringing on how to do so. Every decision your business has to make comes with a price tag, and the more that you can do without spending a lot of money, the more value you are going to see. For this week’s blog, we thought we’d take a look at some actions you can take with your technology to ensure that your business is going in the right direction.
If you truly want to run your business effectively, it all starts with understanding how its costs break down. If you are armed with this knowledge, you can make better decisions about solution procurement and operations management. Let’s examine how you can cut costs without harming your business in the process.