We love to highlight how technology helps businesses thrive, particularly small and medium-sized businesses with a lot of growth potential but limited by their budgets. This is why we provide SMBs with managed IT services specifically designed to drive business growth. If you have yet to consider outsourcing your IT needs, you could be missing out on a golden opportunity to alleviate many of the pain points your organization suffers from on a daily basis.

Among IT professionals, an acronym is sometimes used when discussing certain issues and challenges: “PEBKAC,” or Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair. In other words, user error. 

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.

All organizations rely on their information systems to be consistently available when required, with some businesses being unable to function without them. When these systems undergo necessary maintenance, such as software patches, it can pose challenges for employees who rely on their continuous availability. In this discussion, we delve into the proactive approach to IT maintenance, exploring its strategic benefits in preventing downtime for businesses.

In business, there are always issues that need to be met. Often, there are so many that finding which ones to give priority is a chore all in itself. Choosing the best path forward depends on the situation, so when you are considering your organization’s disaster recovery you have to take into account every troubling situation your business can encounter. This month let’s go through some of the most prevalent disasters that a business can face. 

I was meeting with an old colleague the other day. We met over Microsoft Teams to just check in and see how they were doing—no real itinerary, just to check in with a familiar face that I haven’t personally talked to in a few years. They had a little trouble getting into Microsoft Teams, since they were used to Zoom. I patiently smiled and helped them through it, and told them “No worries, it’s always the little differences that complicate things!”

At the time, I said this just to be empathetic. At first, the nerdy computer-geek part of my brain told me that the process to get into a Zoom meeting vs a Teams meeting, from their perspective, is exactly the same. But after the call, I really thought about this small interaction, and you know what? Things have gotten complicated.

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?

In business, experience is always useful. Nowhere is that more apparent than when managing your organization’s IT infrastructure. The problem is that acquiring the expertise to do just that can be quite confusing for most business owners. Today, we’ll talk about how technology management experience can produce better business from one end to the other. 

Businesses need to adjust their technology to meet their operational goals. Oftentimes, this can be the difference between loads of inefficiency and things going smoothly.  Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to ascertain where your business should spend its capital. Let’s take a look at how you can match your technology with your operational goals.

Defining Managed Services

On a very fundamental level, managed services and tech support are very different due to the way they operate.

Traditional tech support, also referred to as break-fix IT, are those that most people think of. Whenever a piece of technology breaks down or has some other issue, an IT technician is called to fix it. This was the predominant—and really, the only—option to receive any level of IT support for some time, despite the expensive repeat visits and prolonged operational interruptions that came with it. For larger enterprises, hiring full-time IT staff solved this problem. It’s still costly, and often too costly for small businesses, but it does lead to faster turnaround times and ongoing support.

What are Managed Services?

Let’s start off with a very basic description of what “managed services” are, as compared to the common impression of “tech support.” Whenever one thinks about “tech support” or “IT,” they’re likely thinking of the break-fix version: some piece of information technology breaks or malfunctions, so IT is called in to fix it. While this proved effective enough, it also led to a lot of repeat visits… oftentimes for things that were relatively simple to fix.

Our Experience Forms Our Perspective

Perspective is a valuable thing, especially when your job is to figure out solutions to problems.  Not only are there occasionally real-time issues to resolve, there are also plenty of recurring problems and challenges. Perspective is only helpful if it can be applied practically, however. A successful support team understands how a business needs to operate and provides them with the IT services that facilitate that.

Adobe Flash Player was deprecated back in 2017, but its official end of life date lands at the end of this year. What this means is that the software will gradually show more and more vulnerabilities that will not be mitigated, and therefore, the software will be far more susceptible to attack. Therefore, it is important that you check to make sure that anyplace that Flash Player would be—including your Internet browsers on your computers and mobile devices—to make sure that Flash isn’t still installed there.

How to Approach Your IT Spending

When determining an IT budget, perspective is an important part of the process. It can be tempting to view your IT as just another cost of doing business, but it really is more than that. Your technology (and the state it is in) has a major effect on how your business runs. If it is lacking, other things will as well. In some cases, employee morale will suffer, your productivity will slow, and your incoming cash flow will falter.

Business owners are always searching for value. This is no different when it comes to technology support. The question is how to get the best support for your business’ technology for the least amount of money, right? After all, considering the amount of problems a business could have, its technology support bill shouldn’t be the one that hamstrings the whole business. This month we will look at the three types of IT support available to most businesses and tell you why managed IT services are by far the most valuable. 

IT Management Matters More Than Ever

From a certain point of view, businesses now find themselves in a unique position to restructure their operations. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an inconvenient case study of sorts that shows a promising outlook on remote productivity.

It has also helped to shine the light on how impactful waste can be in poorly managed IT strategies. Without any engaged oversight, the heightened use of cloud services can lead to a few considerable issues, including

Why Managed IT Services

COVID-19 has managed to close wide swaths of businesses and organizations as people try to stem its spread by avoiding as much contact with others as possible. Any small business owner would understandably be hesitant to make any large shifts in their operations, but it also needs to be understood that the shift to managed services can help relieve many of the challenges that businesses are currently facing—as well as those that may pop up afterwards.

To help you out, we wanted to go over a few of an MSP’s capabilities, particularly the ones that will assist your business the most during tough times.

Fast Response Times

In this (or any) business disaster, downtime is the enemy. If there is some technical issue that is preventing work from being done efficiently, your business is going to feel the ramifications. Depending on how severe the downtime is, it could impact the likelihood of your business lasting in the long-term. 

First, we’ll define what “infrastructure monitoring” refers to:

Understanding IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Infrastructure monitoring covers a few different considerations, all critically important to the continued productivity of your business. These considerations include things like the physical condition of your infrastructure’s hardware, how your operating systems are being utilized, how much of your network’s bandwidth is being consumed and how many errors are occurring, or the performance and availability of your applications.

You Don’t Have Enough Bandwidth

When you purchase an Internet package, you get certain speeds. Today, these speeds are faster than ever, but if your business has too much going on, it can wreak havoc with your Internet speeds. There is a situation that happens when too much data is trying to pass through a network connection. This situation is called bottlenecking and it is potentially the reason your speeds are slow. Think about it, if you try to put several gigabytes through a connection that is only rated for a few megabits per second, it’s going to take some time to get all the data through. To check this, audit how many devices are at work. Most of the time you’ll be surprised how much data you are sending and receiving. We can help you with this audit before you make the call to upgrade your Internet package.

Outdated Equipment

Another potential issue is that your networking equipment may simply be old and not be able to use the dual bands that are often necessary to get the most out of your wireless network. If you have enough bandwidth, but your Internet is just slow, chances are upgrading the modem, switches, or routers would be a prudent move and will likely fix any problems you have. 

Misconfigured Equipment and Environmental Factors

Once you’ve made sure that the physical components of your network are working as intended, but your Internet connection isn’t improving, you probably need to reconfigure your software on your devices or move your hardware to avoid interference. Specifically, if your wireless network signal is having problems making it through obstructions, you will want to consider using the 2.4 GHz connection rather than the 5.0 GHz channel. The max speed you’ll see will decrease, but the 2.4 GHz connection makes its way through obstructions better. Unfortunately, however, the 2.4 GHz signal can be a victim of electronic interference more than the 5.0 GHz channel. 

If you need help with your business’ networking, don’t wait and lose more money. Contact the professionals at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.