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1. Use Technological Tools to Listen to Your Team One of the most important rules, when you are a manager, is to spend time listening to your sales team. Make a point to regularly check in with your team members to ask them what they need to do their job. You can use a chat app, email or Allworx phone systems to find out more about the different tools or resources they say they need to better do their job.  Are they complaining about a high-pressure environment? Although it’s tempting to try to micromanage a remote team since you aren’t in the office with them every day, try to create an environment that fosters autonomy. Your sales team will be able to work better in a company that measures its results instead of trying to micromanage their activities. You can also incorporate an open vacation policy so they can take time off whenever they need it to avoid burnout. A flexible vacation policy and more control over their work schedule can help keep your salespeople motivated.  2. Hold Team Meetings Online  Next, make sure to schedule consistent team meetings with videos or conference calls to discuss pertinent company information. Your sales team should understand the objective of the meeting and what topics will be covered.  You can also promote a healthy corporate atmosphere by encouraging them to collaborate with other team members. Allow them to contribute and voice their opinion during the team meetings or give feedback. An online team meeting is one of the few opportunities to bring everyone together and make them feel unified. You can also have online team meetings to celebrate employee work anniversaries, accomplishments and other major career milestones.  3. Use Technology to Measure Your Sales Team Performance Another way technology can help you manage a remote team is by providing tools that will measure their overall performance. Many companies decide to use an existing sales performance platform, however, you can also work with a managed IT services firm to discuss how to develop your own. Your sales team should be able to see how they are performing at all times. You should also look into software that has an app or is mobile-friendly.  4. Use Technology to Communicate in Real-Time One of the best things about the internet is that you can communicate with almost anyone in the world almost instantaneously. Strong communication is a necessity to successfully manage a remote sales team. Effective communication can also strengthen your sales team and give them the opportunity to always know what is going on with the company.  We suggest you take advantage of certain tools like Slack, Skype, Google Hangouts or Google Drive and other resources so your team can communicate and collaborate during the workday. Create dedicated groups for certain team members so they can log online and immediately get help and collaborate together. They should also be able to access files and other important documents in one centralized location.  Contact White Mountain IT White Mountain is the leading technical service provider in New England. Please contact us online or call (603) 889-0800 to speak with one of our team members to learn more about our services. We specialize in providing outsourced computer support, Virtual CIO Services, IT consulting and expert network support to businesses around the country. 

Understanding Software as a Service For some context, consider a service that is more popular in the consumer space: Netflix. Netflix?s streaming service is pretty analogous to the SaaS model in a business. Want to watch the 2011 film Drive, or binge-watch the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire? Just pull up Netflix: you can view these titles whenever you want, from multiple different devices. This is so similar to how SaaS works for businesses, many of the benefits have been repeated by countless other apps and organizations. How SaaS Offers Businesses an Advantage Let?s take a moment and translate how the examples we just reviewed translate back into your business processes. Accessibility So, one of the biggest benefits to Netflix is the fact that you now have access to a huge repository of content, available at your fingertips from assorted different devices? as long as you have a connection to the Internet. This is exactly why so many businesses like using SaaS for their software needs: it gives them the confidence that their employees will have access to their tools (and thereby, be capable of being productive). Speedy Deployment Another reason that Netflix is so popular is its convenience. All a user really has to do is install it, sign in, and they?re off. SaaS platforms work in a similar way, as once everything is configured, you?re off! Often SaaS licenses even make it easy for a user to move between multiple devices without requiring additional licenses and costs. Of course, SaaS offers businesses even more benefits than Netflix offers its customers, simply because a business has greater need of its software than it just being there at the right time. For instance: Security It?s no secret that all businesses are super concerned about their security nowadays, and a SaaS provider is no different. In fact, they need to be even more concerned, as they are also protecting other people?s data. As a result, they have some extra motivation to deploy some serious protection. Scalability There?s always the possibility that you will need to add or subtract employees at some point in time. SaaS makes it simpler to do, as scaling up or down only requires you to adjust your subscription. Cost Benefits In fairness, it isn?t always apparent how a SaaS solution offers you cost benefits over a solution that you just host yourself – in fact, on the surface, SaaS looks considerably more expensive. However, you need to consider the real costs associated with your software – like the costs of acquiring and maintaining the hardware and labor to facilitate it – and factor these in as well. Oftentimes, SaaS is the more budget-friendly approach. Interested in learning more about SaaS solutions? White Mountain IT Services is the New Hampshire expert in all things IT. Reach out to us to learn more about cloud-based software solutions by calling (603) 889-0800.

Is It as Simple as a Reboot? To answer this, let?s consider what actions you take with your computer (or any other network attached electronic device). You start your computer, it loads programs, you download more programs, not considering just how much work goes into this. Often times, part of an action doesn?t function the way you?d expect it to. Activities run in the background. You keep using the device. Your system?s resources are being taxed by all these actions. Yet, you keep using the device. Ultimately, you?re working with a RAM-stuffed machine that is crawling along at a speed you don?t recognize.  Then you reboot. Suddenly, all those unnecessary processes stop. Once your machine is back up and running again, your RAM is clear, the processes that were dragging down the performance of the technology are no longer running. Your computer works as you expect it to. You turned it off and you turned it back on, and now your computer is fixed. Simple, and funny in the right context. It?s no wonder that since this fixes a lot of problems that people think IT professionals are condescending nerds.  On a side note: In no way will rebooting your computer fix a major problem with your computer. You can turn it off and on again, and if it still has an issue, you likely have something else wrong. Then, go ahead and give the nerds a call. For more great tips, call our IT professionals today at (603) 889-0800, and stop back to the White Mountain IT Services blog to learn more about IT.

These advantages are present in a variety of considerations. First, let?s consider the reason that you?re putting up a sign in the first place: to communicate a message. Digital Signage Can More Effectively Grab and Hold the Attention Not to make any insulting comparisons to the people you are trying to communicate with, but there?s a reason that there?s the saying ?like a deer in headlights.? In order to have the night vision they need to survive, a deer?s eyes will dilate much more than our?s do in light. So much information actually needs to be processed, that their brains are effectively taken offline (hence, the colloquialism for someone freezing up). While the effect isn?t nearly as debilitating in human beings, digital signage does effectively catch our attention–up to 400 times as much, as compared to static signs. Digital signage encourages your prospects through the sales funnel much faster (it also probably doesn?t hurt that digital signage boosts engagement by 59 percent and recall by 83 percent). Digital Signage Improves the Customer Experience We?ve all waited in line before, so it will come as no surprise to learn that it can be boring. Many establishments and organizations have found a way to counter this by hanging digital signs around their premises. Not only does this keep clients and customers occupied, it can be used to deliver value and share information about some of the services you offer. Next time you walk into a McDonalds, look at how they handle it. Furthermore, new digital signage solutions can do so using more engaging visuals than the traditional, static sign ever could. While there is plenty of evidence to back it up, this fact is obvious enough that it really doesn?t need support. Therefore, digital signage is a very strong communication tool for both your internal and client-facing messages. Digital Signage Provides Functional Benefits, Too How much have you spent over the years to produce or acquire hardcopy announcements or flyers? With digital signage, those costs are eliminated. Plus, these features help to make your business more environmentally friendly to boot. Interested in experimenting with digital signage? Call up White Mountain IT Services to learn more about its benefits, and how we can help you implement it! Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Automation Automating business processes can have a huge effect on the business? profitability. This has been a strategy for decades, but today, parts of your business can be automated like never before. Technology such as artificial intelligence allows businesses to automate several menial and repetitive tasks. This innovation, called Robotic Process Automation (RPA) allows businesses to reduce the number of human interactions in several key business performances.  For years, the advancement of AI (and its sister technology machine learning) was actually looked on with fear, as people?s jobs were threatened; but, today, the rise of this technology actually frees up people to focus more on human-centric tasks. As a result, RPA-based technology should grow fairly rapidly and reach $4 billion annually by 2025. Internet of Things You may have been one of the millions of people that have purchased some sort of smart device. Some people walk around with smart watches, but when we talk about a business benefiting from the use of smart devices, we are mostly talking about security, utility measuring, supply chain monitoring, and other line-of-business IoT devices.  The integration of these devices is being used to track business processes closely and to be able to ensure that every process, every relationship, and every interaction performs in the manner that works for the overall productivity and benefit of the business.  Cloud Services It?s amazing to say, but cloud services are still emerging technology. These days, a majority of small and medium-sized businesses use cloud services, but there is still room for growth. As cloud services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Security as a Service (SEaaS), and AI as a Service (AIaaS) begin to be more utilized in the SMB sector, these products will begin to be structured in a way where SMBs can better take advantage of them.  Additionally, there are many new and emerging services being offered for businesses. Some of the largest cloud vendors have specific services they offer that span from simple storage to business intelligence and everything in-between. This provides SMBs the options to get enterprise level tools without the large capital outlay they would pay for these types of solutions.  Cybersecurity Every business, regardless of their computing resources or budget should have some type of cybersecurity strategy in place. This is because businesses of all sizes have been virtually taken down by data breaches and other events that could be avoided if they were simply more vigilant about their cybersecurity. While some organizations simply don?t have the financial resources needed to implement enterprise-grade security solutions, reality makes the whole ?we can?t afford it? position problematic. In 2019, 66 percent of SMBs were victims of a cyberattack, meaning that if you were lucky enough to get through 2019 without being attacked, 2020 won?t be so kind.  An SMB can really benefit by giving their IT issues the respect they deserve. There are several ways they can do this. They include: Staff training – The better equipped your staff is to deal with situations such as phishing, the more apt your organization is to avoid being the victim of a cyberattack. Since today?s IT systems feature nearly unbreakable encryption, the only way in is through deception. Training your staff to thwart deceptive efforts by hackers can go a long way toward protecting […]