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Browsing Safely Many of the threats that will target your business? data ultimately rely on a user to allow them access to a network. Therefore, it is important that all of your business? users are familiar with the following concepts, and abide by them. Check URLs before accessing them. Cybercriminals will often disguise malicious links and malware downloads as something that the average user wouldn?t think twice to click on. For example: www.google.com – you?d assume this URL would direct you to the search engine, right? However, simply by directing it somewhere else, an attacker can easily catch your business unawares. Make sure you check the link by hovering over it, so that you can see the URL it actually directs to in the bottom of your browser window. Business computers should be used for business. Websites of all kinds are prone to hosting threats that can then infiltrate your systems when you visit them or download content. Encourage your users to stick to work-related tasks while using workplace devices. Restrict access to (and from) your systems. On a related note, there are tools that allow you to protect your assets from these threats, and can even prevent your users from accessing potentially threatening websites themselves. Firewalls and content filtering are both critically important for a business to enact. Rely on IT professionals. Never hesitate to call in an IT resource if you need assistance, even for the most seemingly simple issues. Preserving Data Your data is critical to your success, which means it needs to be secured. This includes not only the data that you have on your clients, but on your employees as well. To do so, it will help to follow a few practices. Keep a data backup. When there are so many possible ways to lose your crucial business data, you need to be sure you have an ace up your sleeve. A cloud-based backup is the recommended means of doing so. Leverage access control. It isn?t enough to simply secure your files digitally. You also need to make sure your location is secured, inside and out. Using access control solutions and various identity verification measures to protect certain areas of your business are key. Keep your security up to date. Threats to your business are always in development, which means you always need to be improving the defenses that protect it. New vulnerabilities are discovered (and resolved) all the time, so you should always be monitoring your solutions for available updates. Make sure you abide by regulations. There are many regulations that dictate how your business should conduct itself and its operations, like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Phishing Prevention Phishing is rising in popularity, which makes it all the more important that you and your staff know how to spot it and avoid it. Here are some ways to avoid it: Avoid excessively urgent messages. In order to push their targets into action, many phishing messages will try to inject urgency. The idea is, if the target is alarmed enough, they won?t look more critically and identify the scam for what it is. Check for key details. There are a lot of warning signs that a message could be a phishing attempt. Potentially, these could be spelling errors in what […]
Why is IT Procurement Important? In a nutshell, the most effective way to get value out of your technology is to ensure that each piece serves a purpose, as well as plays nicely with the rest of your infrastructure and solution set. To do so, it may help to examine what solutions effectively any modern business would likely need. Workstations and Other Resources In order to properly accomplish their tasks, any employee is going to need the right tools. In your case, that means that they will need workstations and/or the other technology that is most appropriate for their responsibilities – not just whatever you could get the best bargain on. Let?s imagine that you did settle for what offered you the ?best,? lowest price, without considering the value that you?d receive. Chances are good that whatever system you purchased, wouldn?t be able to effectively serve the needs of everyone in your organization? and that?s assuming that you didn?t just get a good ?deal? because there is something wrong with these systems. In this case, you?d have to pay more anyway to have someone fix your workstations, if not purchase more that do suit your needs. A managed service provider, on the other hand, would be cognizant of your business? needs, leveraging their connections with vendors to get you the most value they could for your money. Servers and Networking Once your employees have the tools that they will be working with directly, you will need to have an IT infrastructure in place that allows them to collaborate appropriately. Furthermore, this infrastructure should have the capability to expand to match any growth that your business experiences. While this all sounds fairly straightforward, it is actually a fairly difficult process – meaning that it should only be tackled by someone who understands how these solutions communicate with one another. Otherwise, there are likely going to be issues and potentially, downtime. If a managed service provider were to assist you, however, your chances of downtime would be greatly diminished. By offering both their professional advice and assistance in actually implementing your solutions, a provider enables your business to adopt these solutions much more efficiently. Software as a Service Once you have the technology you need and the infrastructure to support it, you?re going to need the software solutions that your industry demands to properly utilize it all. Now, not to make assumptions about you, but it isn?t uncommon for business decision makers to leverage torrents and pirated copies of the solutions they need in order to save a few bucks. These decision makers are making a bad decision by doing so, as it opens up your company to legal issues, unwanted attention from law enforcement, and diminished respect from the public. A managed service provider can give you a much better option than illegal downloads through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. Rather than dropping a huge lump sum on your software (and repeating this payment each time you upgrade to a newer, better solution), you can effectively subscribe to the software solution you need (along with professional support for it) for a consistent and predictable monthly rate. Not only is this easier to budget for, you?ll know that your team is working with the best programs available. Do Managed Services Sound Right for […]
Storing Data in the Cloud There is a truly astronomical amount of data produced by today?s businesses, each and every day. A business that can harness it can utilize it for many purposes. However, before the data can be harnessed, it must be stored. A very popular option for some time was to simply store it in the office, which worked, but did present various disadvantages as well: Office space wasn?t used efficiently, and there wasn?t much room to expand storage Intense power requirements, adding to the office?s temperature High costs of equipment and laborious setup times Warranties were questionable, and setup could cause problems Serious oversight and intensive maintenance were needed Furthermore, on-site storage didn?t make redundancy a very easy goal when trying to mitigate data loss, and most businesses simply didn?t have the requisite experience to implement and leverage this kind of storage. With a managed service provider on their side, however, a business has access to industry professionals and the various resources they have relationships with, including cloud storage providers. Backing Up and Recovering Data Data is one of the most important assets that a business has nowadays, which is what makes the various data disasters that can strike such a serious concern. This makes it all the more important that every business maintains an up-to-date, reliable data backup, as well as devises a comprehensive business continuity plan that enables them to actually use this data. It is important to take note of the word ?reliable? there. A backup that is under just as much risk from a disaster can hardly be relied upon – something that a good managed service provider will be sure to keep in mind as they help their clients prepare for a worst-case scenario. As a result of this awareness and forethought, a managed service provider will want to make sure that there are multiple backup copies of your data securely accessible to you if you ever need them. By keeping duplicates of your data in different places, your service provider can ensure that, should you ever need your backup, you have one? along with a plan to help you make the most of it. Making Your Data Work for You Via a Data Warehouse Take a moment and consider the amount of data you have collected in your time doing business. Now, take a moment and consider the insights and patterns that you may have missed by not having it all in one place. This is exactly what the data warehouse is meant to provide – a bird?s eye view at data that provides a new perspective. Using this perspective, you could improve your business? operations and thereby increase your success. Data warehousing, as it may be expected, requires considerable computing power. A managed service provider can help you to procure the required resources and put them to use. Stay Tuned for Our Next Installment! On the topic of procurement, that?s what the next edition of this series will touch upon. Subscribe to our blog to make sure you don?t miss it and reach out to White Mountain IT Services for any additional questions to be answered. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800.
What Does a Consultant Do? A consultant?s role in the business can be described somewhat simply – it is someone with resources or experience that is brought in to contribute to a project or process to elevate it beyond its typical capabilities. Consultants can be brought in for a variety of reasons, such as a business lacking the skills or knowledge to properly complete an objective, or simply looking to make a project more likely to be successful. In many ways, consultants are there to help businesses mitigate issues and boost their operational efficiency. What a Consultant Should Provide Any consultant you work with needs to have a few qualities? but the most important of these qualities is naturally the familiarity they have with the process you have brought them on to assist with. They need to have the knowledge that comes from extensive (and recent) experience, and the willingness to share it. This is what makes White Mountain IT Services a team of consultants, as we are brought in by companies to assist them with their IT management and maintenance. Resultantly, we only see ourselves as successful at what we do if our services and solutions prove to be beneficial to those that we work with. This makes it crucial that we only offer services that are accompanied by clear advantages for our clients, such as: Virtual CIO Services The cost of technology is a major concern for many of our clients. Whether they?re seeking to upgrade their IT or expand it to match their business? growth, there is a shared concern among them: they want to make sure they?re getting sufficient value from their investment. This is precisely why our Virtual CIO services are useful – we evaluate and plan out their technology strategy to ensure they get that value, and more. Vendor Management While vendors are crucial for a business? continued operations, communicating with them can be a time-suck for many businesses – especially if multiple vendors need to be contacted. Our Vendor Management services allow you to focus on generating revenue, while we serve as your single point of contact for all of your different suppliers. Business Process Management The point of integrating technology into a business is largely to boost efficiency. Someone within the business in question may not have the perspective to use their available resources optimally – something that a managed service provider will have and be able to leverage. Furthermore, as your managed service provider has a stake in your continued success, you can be confident that they will do all they can to ensure that success. This Is Just the Beginning of What a Managed Service Provider Can Do A managed service provider can deliver value in this way, as well as many others. Make sure you subscribe so you don?t miss the next installment of this series, and if you want to learn more now, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800!
Cloud Adoption One trend that has seemingly been a trend for almost a decade is the continued use of cloud computing to expand the reach of a company. Nowadays, there have been several innovations that now make cloud computing a no-brainer for the modern small business. Servers, software, and other resources can be extraordinarily expensive, and maintaining them can often cost even more. Many of today?s most utilized productivity software now come in a service package through the cloud. This presents an opportunity for the small business to get any type of software in needs without carrying the huge capital investment that buying new hardware and paying for software licensing is sure to thrust on a business. Smarter Business (BI & BA) Another trend we are seeing is that more and more small businesses are utilizing business intelligence and business analytics platforms to get a better read on how their business investments are returning revenue-generating situations. Using these platforms allows businesses to alter their business strategies to the market in which they compete, giving them a better understanding of what they need to do to improve their operations. Everything Digital Up until recently, and even today, digital transformation is often considered too costly for the SMB. That shouldn?t stop smaller businesses from pursuing this strategy where they can. The more a business does early to prioritize building a digital workplace, the better position they will be in going forward. There are several ways a business can go about doing this. They can start either in their customer-facing strategies or with their internal ones. One way that a business can start is by installing a platform that allows for secure remote work experiences. This will not only make it easier for their own staff to work remotely, it also opens up the possibility to leverage outsourced workers into higher degrees of productivity and cost reduction. If you are looking for the right technology to invest in, the consultants at White Mountain IT Services can help you find innovative solutions that will create workable ROIs, while boosting efficiency, communications, and productivity. Call us today to see how we can help at (603) 889-0800.
