What is Vendor Management? Putting it simply, vendor management is how the relationships you have with your vendors are maintained and monitored. This process is what allows a business to properly utilize their vendors, down to determining if a particular vendor has met your organization?s needs. Vendor management offers a business quite a few benefits, the most apparent being the time savings involved. Why Vendor Management is a Big Time-Saver Consider, for a moment, the experience you would have in resolving a problem when you yourself have to deal with all of your vendors. Let?s assume that Vendor A provided your workstations, Vendor B provided your server, Vendor C provided your wireless networking components, and Vendor D provided your network-attached printer. What would happen if you suddenly found that you could no longer print work-essential documents? Your first response may be to reach out to your vendors, who likely have limited monitoring and diagnostic capabilities. So you call Vendor A, and they confirm that the issue isn?t with your workstations. Next, you call Vendor D, who then lets you know that your printer is also fine. Finally, you call Vendor C, who figures out that the issue lies in your router?s configuration. However, when Vendor C fixes the issue, they do so without regard for your business? security (after all, they?re only concerned with your networking, not how it ties into the rest of your business? security). As a result, you?re suddenly left with a major vulnerability that you have to figure out how to shore up? or else? all because a vendor decided that ensuring your security wasn?t their responsibility. A Better Way With our vendor management services, on the other hand, White Mountain IT Services can serve as the go-between with you and your vendors. This means that instead of having to play phone-tag to have your problem solved, you can focus on being productive while we make sure your issue is sorted out. We?ve spent the time to forge strong relationships and lines of communication with many, many vendors. As a result, you don?t sacrifice valuable time that could be better spent working on something else while your concerns are still attended to. At White Mountain IT Services, we make it our responsibility to be sure that all of your IT is working the way you need it to, and our vendor management reflects that. If you?d rather have us deal with your vendors and let you focus on putting their services to good use in your business operations, let us know! Call (603) 889-0800 today!

Alternate Communications Sure, the ability to make and take calls on-the-go is spectacularly beneficial to business processes, but what if your needs aren?t communicated well by voice? What if your information will need to be referenced for hours to come? are your employees (or you, for that matter) able to retain lots of information for that long? Probably not, which is why a smartphone is such a great communication tool–it isn?t limited to just voice. Information can be input and shared through many different outlets with these handy little devices, whether you choose to send an email or text, access a document in your company?s drive, or record instructions aloud that your employees can play back as they need. It is important to remember that we now have plenty of means to communicate, and that our smartphones can handle them all, not just one. Management Any business will require no small amount of management to remain up and running, and this includes much more than the activities performed by ?management.? For instance, when it comes to project management, many team members may need to have collaborative capabilities to go in and make changes at odd times and from odd places. Furthermore, in the interest of productivity, some employees may want to take a spare moment and arrange their upcoming day. If this impulse strikes them at home, their smartphone could very well allow them to do so. Learning Tool Of course, not all time spent productively necessarily has to be spent on a specific task. One great way to improve how you work in general, is learning better methods and strategies to do so. Smartphones are excellent learning tools, with access to plenty of materials that are delivered in a great variety of ways. Whether you read a quick blog post on your phone with your morning coffee, listen to a podcast during your commute, or squeeze in a quick video sometime during your day, you can learn new skills and strategies to use to benefit your business? operations. Organization There is no question that even the smallest business is a fairly complex machine, filled with moving parts and interwoven tasks. As a result, keeping your business organized is a prerequisite to its success. Your smartphone will have a variety of tools and features that ultimately make this much easier, from calendars that integrate with other services and task lists to keep you on schedule, with access to cloud-based tools making it easier to manage and organize your company?s documents and files. A smartphone essentially combines the communicative powers of a telephone with the access of the Internet and the capabilities of an assistant (which we?ll dive into more in a moment), so it only makes sense that its organizational tools would be one of its strongest offerings. Personal Assistant Who among us hasn?t dreamt of a personal assistant? While they may not be able to do laundry or feed your cat, the various assistants that smartphones feature are more than capable of offering a helping hand in quite a few situations. Need to make a quick call? Tell the Google Assistant to call a particular contact. Need to add a business meeting with your team to your calendar? Windows 10?s Cortana is on it. Want to set a reminder […]

The reliance the modern business has on its IT cannot be understated. As a result, to keep their computing network and infrastructure running efficiently, companies need to have a network and cybersecurity policy in place. With the development and use of organizational computer networks with multiple endpoints, understanding the basics of network security is helpful when implementing and employing network security systems. Today, we take a look at the parts of your network, their functions, and what you need to do to protect them. Network Hardware Your business? computing network consists of, at the very least, two connected machines set up to share resources. Most of the time, a business network consists of centralized computers called servers, and endpoints called workstations. Major networking components (working backward from the endpoint) include, network switches (that allow multiple workstations to be connected in packets); a router (that allows for wired or wireless connection to the network); and the modem (that connects the network to the Internet). On your network can be all types of other accessories (printers, scanners, copiers, and more). Today, wireless networks have been deployed to provide additional mobility. In this case the router, which would have to have Wi-Fi capabilities, allows mobile endpoints (laptops, smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices) to connect to, and share the files on, an organization?s network. This promotes mobility by allowing the sharing and use of files without being physically connected to the network. Network Protocol The network protocol is a set of rules that work to control communications between devices connected to the same network. They make connections and set rules for data packaging for both sent and received messages. Popular protocols include: Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Domain Name System (DNS) Secure Shell (SSH) File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) Internet Group Management Protocol (IMAP4) Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) There are many more, and every protocol is basically the building blocks of a deliberate interaction. Each protocol works to connect one part of a computer to another. Much like a bank has procedures in place to help keep your money safe, protocols are the procedures at work to keep your data safe. Securing TCP/IP is especially important. TCP/IP communications are made up of four layers that work together. When a user wants to send information across networks, the information is passed through each layer, each adding data. Each layer features a header and a payload. The header contains layer-specific information, while the payload consists of the information that has come from the layer above it. To illustrate this a little better, we?ll describe the four layers in TCP/IP communications: Application Layer: This layer sends and receives the information for particular applications, with protocols such as DNS, HTTP, HTTPS, and SMTP. Each application has to have its own specific protocol. Transport Layer: This layer of connected (or connectionless) services are for transporting application layer services between networks and works to assure that connections are reliable. TCP and User Datagram Protocol are commonly used in the transport layer. Internet Layer: This layer routes the data packets across networks. Internet Protocol (IP) is at the heart of this layer. IP specifically allows […]

To change the default apps for files in Windows 10, follow the steps below: Click on the Start menu in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Click on Settings. It?s the option with a gear-like icon next to it. Select the System option. Click on Default apps next. Next, you?ll see options to select an app from the categories. These categories include Email, Maps, Music Player, Video Player, Photo Viewer, and Web Browser. Once you?ve selected the category, you?ll be directed to choose a default app for it. Alternatively, you can right-click the file you are opening, go to Open with, and choose the app that you want, or select Choose another app. This will let you choose a different app just this one time, and you can tell Windows to always use that app for that type of file. You can also reset your default apps, just in case you?ve selected the wrong ones or need to restore them to the Windows default applications. Follow these steps to do so: Click on the Start menu. Select Settings. Navigate to System. Click Default apps. Click the Reset button at the bottom. It?s as simple as that. Once you?ve done this, Windows 10 will reset your default applications to whatever they were prior to you changing them up. For more great tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to our blog.

The Issues of Non-Unified Communications Let?s say that your organization has twenty employees and they all conduct business using their own personal email addresses. Not only does this look unprofessional, it also means that you have little to no control over how they use these email addresses and the information contained within them. If they are using their personal email addresses to make contact with prospective clients, your reputation will surely suffer as a result. Furthermore, sending sensitive information from accounts that your organization can?t control puts that information at risk–something which is simply not acceptable for any self-respecting business owner. Furthermore, it?s just confusing for clients to work with any company that doesn?t have all of their email accounts or phone numbers under the same umbrella. It would be easy for a hacker to claim they work for your organization simply because there isn?t a way for the clients to know that they actually don?t work for you. Any businesses that don?t have a unified email domain name or phone number make this reality more likely, creating a problematic situation. Plus, what happens when employees leave your organization? While we would all love employees to stick around forever, this isn?t the reality of the business world. If you?re not using a unified communications solution where you have control over all contacts and accounts for that user, they could up and leave your organization tomorrow and take all of their communications with your clients with them. Hopefully, these are all good reasons for your business to consider unified communications. But what?s included with this? The Main Points of Unified Communications Unified communications includes a plethora of services that allow your organization to communicate more efficiently, but more importantly, it provides your organization with a sort of identity that helps it communicate with potential or current clients. Here are some of the main points of using a unified communications solution: Unified email hosted by White Mountain IT Services, complete with email archiving for later access. Unified phone system accessible through the cloud, making it available for use on laptops, desktops, and mobile devices. Instant messaging and other apps that let your organization stay connected at all times. Don?t waste any more time–implement unified communications today. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.