XFER Blog

Reducing or eliminating downtime should be a goal for nearly every business. To do so, managing the risk you operate under is crucial. One of the best ways to do that for businesses that rely on their technology is to ensure that IT is maintained properly. By properly, we mean proactively. 

It isn’t easy to run a small business, and a lot of this difficulty comes from the fact that, as an owner of a small business, you have some limitations that dictate how your business can be run. For many businesses, one of these is a budgetary one. If you are going to stabilize your costs, you need to know that the investments you make are going to work. One way a managed services provider accomplishes this is through remote monitoring and maintenance.

Business is all about making the most of the time that you have available to you, and while some employees are great at doing such a thing, others might have silent roadblocks that eat up minutes or potentially even hours of their days. Yes, downtime is a very real threat for businesses, and while some employers are more concerned with nickel-and-diming employees for the short amounts of time they spend in between tasks, real true downtime is much greater of an issue.

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.

Do you know who manages and maintains your business’ technology? In most cases, it will be either a small in-house IT department or technical individual, but often times small businesses simply don’t have the assets to throw around on this. More importantly, they often ignore technology maintenance, either because they can’t afford it, or there’s nobody to do the work.

Many small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), find that they need to have the right technology before they can grow. In fact, studies have shown that businesses that cap out at 250 employees and primarily have plans to grow in 2018 are focusing their strategies on using IT solutions and applications to achieve growth.

As a small business, your assets are limited more than you’d like them to be. You have a budget that yearns for more flexibility, and there are only so many hours in the day to accomplish all of your goals. Thankfully, in an era that’s more connected than any that came before, modern technology provides solutions to businesses that need to get a little more value out of their budgets. One of these solutions is called remote monitoring and management.

Technology helps business owners around the world achieve greatness on a regular basis, and it’s become so attached to the office that the two are inseparable. The only issue with this is that you become completely reliant on it, making technology issues feel catastrophic. Instead of paying for an on-site visit from a technology support provider, wouldn’t it be more convenient to just pick up the phone and have someone fix the issue immediately?

There seems to be some confusion in the workplace regarding the privacy of digital communications made over a company network. Can an employer read an employee email or record a phone call without employee consent? Is instant messaging a safe place for employees to complain about their jobs? The answer to these questions may surprise workers and business owners alike.

When it comes to IT support, communication is key. The parties giving and receiving support must absolutely be on the same page. If not, then a PC disaster is imminent. Sometimes, IT support miscommunications can be so bad that they're funny, as seen in the 2001 movie "Zoolander." Thankfully, nobody is really this detached when it comes to computers, right?

In light of all of the recent vulnerabilities found in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and Windows XP operating system, owners of XP are growing nervous about the upcoming "patch Tuesday," Microsoft's monthly patch release day. But, what if what Microsoft isn't patching in the newer operating systems is what needs to be patched the most in XP?

Efficiency. As a business leader, this word has probably become a favorite of yours. An efficiently run business results in lowered costs and increased productivity. Who doesn't want that? As you know, efficiency requires intentionality. A great place to start is with your technology. Here are three solutions that will intentionally increase your technology's (and in turn, your business') efficiency.

Remember the good old days? You'd come home from school and break out your new copy of Superman: The Secret Years. You knew that you always had a Super Hero you could depend on. Unfortunately now, bound with the ties of life, you no longer have time to spend reminiscing on the heroes of your youth.

You decide to take your workstation to a local computer repair shop because its running slower than a turtle at a dead run. Then after you've waited for the Computer Technician to fix your computer you find out it wasn't broken, it just needed a defragmentation and a little bit of malware removal. This is caused from carelessness that tends to happen because of the busy work day.