XFER Blog

Picture this: you or a team member encounters a technology issue in the middle of the workday. Simple, you might think… just call your in-house IT department. However, the members of your IT team are visibly overworked, scurrying around the office, trying to get some of the tasks off their to-do lists. They’re visibly running out of time, patience, or, most likely, both. It isn’t a good time to bother someone for help; that’s obvious, but what option is there?

It’s an unfortunate fact that cybercriminals are motivated to attack places that contain large volumes of sensitive data, but typically lack the budget or in-house skills to sufficiently protect it. It’s even more unfortunate that this description directly applies to many schools and school systems.

Let’s talk about what schools have to offer cybercriminals, and what they need to do as a result.

I was thinking about a funny tech support issue I ran into many years ago, and thought it would be fun to share it with everyone. All names have been changed to protect the innocent. If you’ve ever had to spend hours chasing down the root of a problem, only to find that it was the dumbest thing possible, you’ll probably relate to this!

Your business’ technology is critical to its productivity, but unfortunately, this technology can (and at some point, likely will) break. So, what do you do if and when it does?

Let’s go over some of the options that you have to consider.

Managed Services provide endless benefits to any business, no matter the size. Having a “Fix it when it breaks” attitude is an unrealistic way to run your business in an era that is so heavily technology-dependent. Today we dive into the many reasons a Managed Service Provider (MSP) can maximize your investment. 

As businesses have been allowed access to more advanced tools, the cloud and its capabilities have been shown to be among the most useful to operations. Let’s examine some practical applications of the cloud to see why this is.

There is a major problem that the owners of most small-to-medium-sized businesses run into: impatience. Their business might not be growing at the rate they like, or they may just have too much work to accomplish in order to grow. Whatever the problem is, outsourcing parts of a business can really bring a whole lot of benefits. Let’s take a look at how outsourcing can help the modern business.

When you need something done that requires a level of skill or experience or knowledge that you don’t have, what do you do? Generally, you call in someone who has the required skill, experience, or knowledge that is required. Your business’ information technology strategy should be approached in the same way. As we continue our series on how managed services can make a business more efficient, we’re considering consultants.

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. 

Working in an office can often be a grind. People that have never experienced it may not realize just how much coordination is needed to perform successful service delivery and support. One way the modern office functions is with the help of integrated technology. This month we will take a look at the modern office, the technology used by the office staff, and how the managed IT service provider can help build operational efficiency.

We talk a lot about managed services for small and medium-sized businesses, but unless you’re familiar with the business model, you won’t be able to learn much about who we are and what we provide to organizations like yours. Today we are hoping to clear up some definitions of managed service providers, or MSPs, as well as what kind of services we can provide for businesses with limited budgets.

Let’s be real: the title “managed service provider” doesn’t cast much insight into what we do on a daily basis. Even when people understand what we do, there are a lot of parts that confuse them and lead them to false conclusions. As a result, we wanted to take a few minutes and go over what it is that we do for our clients.

Project management can be an exceptionally tricky part of implementing any new solution or service for your business. While technology can help with this process, you’ll want to understand how its implementation helps in the grand scheme of things. We’ll help explain how value-based managed IT services can help you ensure projects are completed with minimal downtime and technology hiccups.

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.

Technology is great for improving certain parts of your business, but only if it is implemented correctly. The way you manage your technology will determine whether you are investing wisely or just throwing away money on solutions that simply don’t work. How can you make sure that your business isn’t held back by the way it manages its technology? It all starts by taking a look at what you currently do versus what successful companies are doing.

IT management is something that is tricky for many organizations--particularly small businesses that have limited budgets and workforces. Does your business have adequate access to IT solutions that make your life easier? Traditionally, the break-fix method of IT support has cost businesses like yours a lot of money. That’s why the proactive Managed IT service method is exactly what many businesses are looking for.

Technology management is one of the major issues that challenge small businesses. Do you know the various strengths and weaknesses of having an in-house IT department versus an outsourced IT provider? As a managed service provider ourselves, we’re in a unique position to help your business make an educated decision about the future of its IT management.

Bring Your Own Device policies have helped many companies save money on technology by allowing employees to use their own devices, rather than taking on the cost of providing devices. However, as much as a BYOD approach can help a business financially, there are some potential drawbacks to adopting one that you should be prepared to deal with.

Outsourced IT is still a relatively new concept, but outsourced services in general have been around for quite some time. Business owners and even individual users have been taking advantage of outsourced services for quite some time, and the fact that they can take advantage of managed IT services via outsourcing companies makes managing their technology much easier.