Managed services are rather simple to understand, even from a business perspective. Let?s say that your organization focuses on providing a specific service to your area. This means that you?ve dedicated significant time and effort into honing your craft. There are countless other businesses in your region, too, all dedicated to pursuing their own industry or market. When you invest so much time into something, it?s natural that there will be others who have more skill in a particular craft than others. For example, a marketing company may be great at advertising, but falls short when it comes to waiting on tables and supplying food for hungry customers during a lunch rush. In essence, managed services (also known as outsourcing) use your organization?s operational budget to eliminate certain capital expenses. In particular, you?ll notice that your technology requires extra loving care in order to stay functional, but not just anyone is qualified to administer this care. If you want to capitalize on your technological investment, it?s imperative that your hardware is cared for by someone who knows what they?re doing. The problem with this is that many small and medium-sized organizations struggle to find the money in their budget to hire an on-site technician, let alone an entire IT department. This leads them to outsourcing to solve the problem of IT maintenance. Then, of course, the next question that needs to be asked is whether to go with a general-purpose break-fix IT company that only resolves problems when they happen, versus a managed service provider which prevents problems from happening altogether. The conundrum isn?t necessarily a difficult one, as the solution is common-sense. Look at this issue from a financial standpoint. When your critical systems fail, you?re likely going to be replacing some pretty expensive hardware, like server units or workstations. This can put a huge dent in your budget. Then, while your technology is being fixed, you have workers sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for your business to get its act together. This wastes even more time and money. This is how break-fix IT works. You get your technology fixed when it breaks, rather than taking a proactive approach to prevent major problems. On the other hand, you have managed IT. With its monthly payments and proactive solutions, managed IT is the exact opposite of break-fix IT. By preventing issues from evolving into huge problems that could cost your business in the long run, managed IT manages to successfully save your organization time and money. You?ll experience minimal technology trouble and downtime, all while taking a capital expense and transforming it into an operational expense. To learn more about what managed IT solutions can do for your business, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800.

Cleanliness is Next to Productivity-nessSure, everybody has their own system when it comes to getting work done, but if this system includes piles of paperwork and copious amounts of clutter, then it?s a sure bet that the office contains messes that are hurting your bottom line. Even if you?re dealing with a minimal amount of mess, there?s certainly a noticeable difference between a disorganized office versus a workplace that?s neat and tidy. For your workers, this difference will be seen in how they carry out their tasks, as well as carry themselves. To cut back on the clutter, utilizing storage solutions will go a long way. Adding shelves will help organize your equipment, and drawers serve as a handy way to keep items out of sight. Also, one major step you can take to declutter your office is to go paperless. This can be done by taking advantage of a document management solution, which allows your team to access, edit, and collaborate on the same digital document, while cutting back on the piles of paper. Consolidate Your Equipment Having technology is a good thing, but having too much unnecessary equipment laying around can actually hinder productivity. For example, fax machines and traditional landline telephones can be swapped out for a digital VoIP and fax server solution. These technologies will eliminate unsightly telephone cords from your office, as well as banish the storied fax machine from your office once and for all. Another way to cut back on the amount of equipment in your office is to virtualize your current IT infrastructure. This can be done by migrating your data to the cloud, which can eliminate the need for owning and operating servers altogether, depending on how much you wish to migrate. Also, if you prefer to keep a fleet of server units in-house, then you should consider consolidating your older sever units to newer ones. In some cases, this move can cut back the amount of server units by as much as 5:1. This helps free up space in your office to make it less cluttered and more efficient. Workers Need Space to CollaborateIf you?ve gone through with the previous two tips, then your office should now have more open floor and desk space than before. Now, what to do with all of this open space? Instead of filling it with more stuff, try keeping it open and using the space for employee collaboration. Enhancing employee collaboration is a sure way to improve overall productivity, and having an office with a designated space to collaborate will ensure that collaboration actually happens. This can be achieved by making room for an open table big enough for your staff to gather around, preferable in such a way that allows for eye contact and fosters good discussion. Adding a whiteboard may be a good way to help your team better communicate ideas. Also, when it comes to collaboration, think of ways to equip your staff with mobile devices. You may be able to free up additional space by swapping out workstations and desks for laptops and open rooms. As an added bonus, setting up a large LCD television can be used for presentations and reviewing digital files. To take advantage of this, streaming devices can be set up so a laptop or mobile […]

The 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto Principle, is a good way to explain the concept of cybersecurity. As reported by Investopedia, the Pareto Principle ?specifies an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. The principle states that 20 percent of the invested input is responsible for 80 percent of the results obtained. Put another way, 80 percent of consequences stem from 20 percent of the causes.? Confused yet? Don?t be–we?ll explain further. The 80/20 rule also means that your business has a finite amount of resources available to it, and it?s your responsibility to determine where these resources are best spent. This includes analyzing your business?s network for any and all possible outlets for hacking attacks. However, it?s not always feasible to find every single way that hackers will try to access your network. Instead, what the 80/20 rule suggests is that you use your resources to find vulnerabilities in your network, and then patch the most critical of them. Furthermore, only 20 percent of vulnerabilities lead to 80 percent of the problems that businesses encounter, which increases the importance of how you spend your IT budget. Just identifying the vulnerabilities isn?t enough–you need to prioritize the important vulnerabilities located within your infrastructure, just like how you would prioritize the important tasks on your schedule for the day. After all, if every vulnerability becomes a priority, none of them will get patched promptly, and you could potentially invest too much into minor vulnerabilities while leaving major ones unattended to. White Mountain IT Services can perform a penetration test to see where your network needs to be improved, and what can be done about it. We can then remotely issue patches and apply updates to all of your mission-critical components and solutions. This is particularly important if your network is large and expansive, or if you use several different types of software. The larger your network infrastructure is, the more likely it is that you?re compromising the security of your business in at least one point. Furthermore, we can implement what?s called a Unified Threat Management (UTM) solution, which combines several enterprise-level security solutions into one convenient package. Included are a firewall, antivirus, content filter, and spam blocking solution. With all of these security services, your systems will have the best equipment to handle the myriad of threats that are found on the Internet. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.