Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Everyday life relies on software to keep going, a phenomenon that is perhaps most visible in the business environment. Unfortunately, it is this software that can prove to be the point of egress that attackers need to your network. Let’s consider a commonly overlooked aspect of IT maintenance—patch management—and why it is so crucial to a business’ operational success.

With a business’ inventory playing such an important role in so many business operations, the capability to manage it properly can be seen as indispensable. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help make your inventory management much simpler than it once was. Let’s take a few moments to consider three such tools, and how they are being used now.

Technology is a big part of the modern business. Even the small business. In fact, worldwide IT spending in the small and medium-sized business sector is expected to top $650 billion in 2021. That’s impressive, but what technologies are they spending their capital on? Today, we take a look at what technology small businesses are investing in, and how it has an impact on the way they do things.

Technology is a staple for business improvements, which is why it is always important to keep a few basics in mind as you go through your operations. Let’s go through a few key strategies, just to really drive their importance home.

Even the most seasoned technology professional—the most gung-ho person about the technology—probably thinks that there’s too much IT-related jargon and buzzwords now floating around. There is a good reason for this: analogies and euphemisms are effective ways to communicate concepts and ideas that would otherwise require technical experience.

However, there is such a thing as too much.

While nobody likes to presume the worst will happen in their business, it must be a point that comes into consideration. Statistics are statistics, as they are, and as such there is always the chance—a considerable chance, in fact—that your business will suffer from some form of disaster. Due to this, we always recommend that you have some means of protecting your data throughout, with a plan to respond to such events accordingly.

With 2020 in the rear-view mirror, there are many opportunities for your business to embrace technology in 2021 to your benefit. Let’s go over a few ways that you should make use of your IT moving forward.

For the small business, cutting costs or otherwise increasing the value that their technology can provide is an important consideration. To accomplish this, many businesses are now turning to AI-enhanced automation. Let’s see how they are doing so, and how it helps to make their operations more productive.

It wasn’t too long ago that the idea of paying over $1,000 for a new phone was laughable, but now it is the standard for many. Of course, not everyone is willing or able to drop that much cash, so some manufacturers also offer smartphones that are a little friendlier on the budget for the many people who are due to replace their devices.

For part two of our yearly look at smartphone technology, we thought we would take a look at some new form factors that have hit the market over the past few years. Devices that fold and swivel highlight new entries into the premium smartphone market. Let’s take a look at four of them now and don’t forget to check back next week when we finish our look at 2020’s best budget smartphones. 

The Federal Communications Commission has begun to target social media companies in what seems to be part of an overtly political act by the White House ahead of November’s elections. Today, we will take a look at Section 230, how it currently gives social media power that some politicians are uncomfortable with, and what they plan to do about it.

Smart assistants are one of the most intriguing and confounding technologies developed over the past decade. At the time of this writing, over 150 million smart speakers are in 60 million homes in the United States, when you add in the smart assistants available on mobile devices and other various smart devices, you’re talking a billion people actively using some type of smart assistant. Over the past couple of years, you’re beginning to see these assistants being used more for business and this has made certain security-minded people a little weary of them. Let’s take a look at some of the security questions surrounding the smart assistants.

More than ever, data fuels business decision making. To get the best use out of the data your business collects, automated tools can be used. This eliminates the (often impossible) task of manually getting the data together and then analyzing it. Today, we’ll talk about data automation and how rethinking how you look at your data can really help your business improve its operations.

Small business owners have to confront a lot of issues, with more every day. As your business grows, however, there are too many for you to manage on your own. If your business is too big to control, you will need to expand on your strategies. Today, we will take a look at how decision-making shifts when your business grows. 

While it is very, very hard to say that much good has come from the COVID-19 pandemic, much less to make light of it, it is an important exercise for all of us to take. That’s why we wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the advancements—including an objectively silly one—that this time has helped foster.

To succeed in business, you need to cultivate relationships with the people you call your prospects and clients. Like any relationship, this takes a lot of work, never mind the fact that you’re dealing with hundreds instead of just one. However, there is a solution to help you with this, called a CRM, and its integrations offer nothing but benefit. Let’s discuss.

Businesses of all sizes have budgetary considerations to observe, so it is crucial that any investments into their operations are optimized to meet each business’ individual goals. With the assistance of a managed service provider, this process is simplified. Let’s go over a few ways that a business can push its IT investment further, especially if it has subscribed to managed services.

Businesses need access to some considerable amounts of data these days, regardless of their size, which means that even a small business has a few things to weigh out. For instance, should they keep their IT in-house with on-premise solutions, or should they cast their gaze at cloud-hosted solutions? Let’s consider the benefits available for either.

We’re just shy of halfway through 2020, and it is already apparent that this will go down as one of the most challenging years for businesses around the world for some time. With many businesses facing extensive and continued pauses in their operations, many will be looking for opportunities to get more out of their investments. Managed IT services are one such opportunity.

Environmentally-friendly business practices are a fundamentally good thing for a business to implement. Not only is it better for planet Earth for businesses to adopt green practices, doing so might even save your business a little green in the long term. We’ve put together a few ways that you could start: