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Minimal Level Obviously, you can choose to invest minimally or not at all. A lot of businesses choose to avoid technology upgrades as much as possible because they don?t find them to have any major positive effects on their business. Today, technology is an extremely important part of the customer experience, so some investment is going to be necessary, but you can bare bones it pretty well if you find minimal technology and instituting break/fix strategies are worth it for your business. Base Level The base level IT investment is basically spending enough every year to ensure that your business can use the technology you have effectively and that you have a minimum amount of technology in place to ensure that you deal with technology-related problems enough to keep things on the up and up. Many times, businesses that don?t have the capital to invest in a lot of technology-related upgrades find themselves investing enough in their IT by choosing services over purchasing IT outright. This means subscribing to managed IT services in lieu of hiring in-house IT administrators and choosing cloud computing over hardware that has to be constantly monitored and maintained. Moderate Level The moderate level of IT investment is where you will find a lot of technology-centric companies. They may not be overhauling their IT and implementing a quarterly IT project, but they do house their own hardware and keep it managed and maintained well. Typically, companies that adhere to a moderate IT investment schedule complete regular refreshes and keep their IT up and running effectively with comprehensive redundancy and have a plan for their IT should there be problems with it. Superior Level A company that makes IT a priority tends to have significant capital to spend with a very specific plan of how that money will be spent. These companies have teams of IT administrators working diligently on implementing new projects, training their staff, and keeping their employees working on up-to-date technology. Companies that invest a lot of capital in their technology don?t just throw money at it and hope it sticks, but can get through a failed implementation and still commit to trying again without taking too big of a hit to the bottom line. What kind of business are you? At White Mountain IT Services, we can help any business stretch their technology investments from consultation and planning, to managing and maintaining crucial systems, and helping to cut down on the costs of your new IT projects. Give us a call today at (603) 889-0800 for more information.
Let?s consider some of the costs that neglecting to invest into your data privacy measures can force your business to pay. Issues Concerning Your Data Privacy Get Expensive, Fast? ?and for a variety of reasons. Any given company?s data handling practices are now given a lot more scrutiny from regulatory bodies and security-minded customers and clients alike. News headlines and the lower-thirds of broadcast news have announced ?CYBERSECURITY BREACH? far too often as of late for cybersecurity to not be a priority?and yet, many businesses still shortchange their defenses, assuming that their business? size?or relative lack thereof?shields them from being a target. Guess what? It doesn?t. On top of that, not only could you suffer your data being breached, you?d also have to deal with the consequences that such a breach brings about?the loss of reputation, the regulatory fines and backlash, and the damage done to the trust your clients feel for you. In short, the breach of privacy is just the start of your troubles?and the rest of these troubles carry a significant price tag with them. How Breaches of Privacy Get So, So Very Expensive? Let?s say, for the sake of example, that you were running a medical clinic just as sexy as the ones on TV. In between dramatically complicated and emotional cases and the decidedly not HR-approved relationships amongst your staff, your facility suffers a data breach that exposes the considerable amount of data you’ve collected from your patients?medical histories, personally identifiable information, and financial details all made available to whomever wanted them. That?s pretty bad. Can?t imagine many patients (new or existing) are going to be excited to receive treatment at a facility that allowed all of that personal data to be breached. Chances are, your clinic is going to lose most of its patients. However, while all your patients may want little to do with you, you?ll certainly get plenty of attention from regulatory bodies and authorities looking to collect fines for your likely non-compliance. You?ll also need to provide some form of recompense to all those impacted by the breach, which often takes the form of extended monitoring services on your dime for everyone involved. On top of all this, you?ll also need to resolve whatever problem led to the breach, which can easily rack up costs, as can any downtime that these events will cause. But Isn?t It Just as Expensive to Implement All The Requisite Security Tools? In a way, yes?but when implementing these tools, it becomes a question of capital costs versus operational costs. Let?s say your hypothetical melodramatic medical clinic was hacked. Without the security that may have stopped the hack, you have all of the above costs to deal with, all hitting your budget at the same time. Forgive me for assuming, but this kind of event will ruin your budgetary planning, unless you had both the foresight and sufficient funds set aside to cover this kind of event. However, today?s IT?from productivity to security?is delivered differently than it once was. Rather than investing a large lump sum and having to completely replace your software every few years (including another large lump sum paid out), White Mountain IT Services can help you by offering a scalable, sized-to-fit implementation of the necessary resources. Due to this approach, you?ll be able to predict […]
Let?s begin by examining what kind of messages we?re referring to. ?Hey, I Need You to Look at This Right Now.? Be honest with me?is this something you?ve sent to one of your team members, at the end of the day or even in the later hours of the night? If so, this is something you should strongly consider putting a stop to for a few reasons. First, how often do you give instructions that, if you were to receive them, you would find vague and nebulous? Secondly, how often do you give these instructions in the last moments of the day, with the unspoken suggestion that the task is to be done before your employee leaves? If you answered ?frequently? to either of these questions?heck, if you answered anything other than ?never? to either of these questions?you need to pause for a moment and consider whether or not you?re being fair to your team members. Spoiler Alert: You Aren?t Put yourself in the shoes of one of your employees. You?re diligently working on your scheduled responsibilities, when you suddenly receive the link to a document you?d just finished work on, with the briefest of notes attached: ?please fix.? Please fix what, though? How stressed would you be if you were suddenly sent something with the expectation that you would fix it, with no context as to what about it needed to be fixed? How long would you expect it would take you to figure out the issue, never mind actually solve it? How stressed would you be if this was only to be expected in your workplace, that the status quo was one of uncertainty and pressure? If this is the precedent that you are creating in your business, how stressed do you think your employees likely are? You Need to Set the Precedent that Work Time is for Work, and Personal Time Isn?t If your employees have gotten into the habit of keeping their work devices within reach at all hours, you need to shift the paradigm and fix that issue. How can you do that? A good start is to stop sending messages at the end of the day with no context. Not only do you need to ensure that the task you are assigning to your employee is clearly outlined?not ?please fix,? but ?Widget A is experiencing XYZ issue, due to reasons Q, R, and S. Please prioritize correcting this tomorrow morning.? If the task really needs to be done, ask your employee if they are willing to work overtime (with pay) in order to complete the task?and yes, really ask. Your team is there to help you accomplish your organizational goals within the hours you agreed upon when they were hired. Honoring that agreement, or making it worth their while if you absolutely must deviate from it, will help to keep your employees working diligently while they are within operational hours. The remote capabilities that modern technology gives us as businesses make it even easier?arguably, too easy?to blur these lines, so you need to be diligent with yourself. After all, your team doesn?t live to work for you?they work for you so that they can live. However, we can help you make sure that your team accomplishes as much as they can during their regularly […]
Blockchain Web, AKA Web 3.0 As the Internet currently stands, Big Tech has largely centralized control of data and content. Web 3.0 is a concept that changes the paradigm. Web 3.0, or Blockchain Web, is the decentralization of the Internet, where the infrastructure involves things like the blockchain and smart contracts. The idea of this new approach to the web is to help boost your data?s security, privacy, and scalability overall, with many current platforms expressing interest in incorporating Web 3.0 features into what are currently Web 2.0 platforms. However, we must say that Web 3.0 has its critics and criticisms?harmful content, loss of privacy, and wealth centralization being just three of them?that will need to be addressed Edge AI To understand Edge AI, it pays to have a familiarity with its two essential parts: edge computing, and artificial intelligence. Edge computing is the concept where latency and bandwidth are optimized by storing and computing data as close to the point of request as is possible. Artificial intelligence is the concept that enables machines to independently complete processes that would traditionally have required human interaction. Edge AI allows machine learning processes to happen at network endpoints, providing businesses with significant benefits, like reduced latency and costs. Integration with Wearable Technology While wearable technology has been largely associated with health monitoring and tracking, there are many ways that a business can take advantage of these devices. Employees can receive reminders of important deadlines and meetings and access information with unparalleled ease. In short, wearables make work easier if used properly. Whatever your business needs to ensure its success, we can help support the technology it relies on to work. Learn more about our fully managed IT and consulting services by calling (603) 889-0800 today.
?Thank You for Calling Technical Support, Have You Tried Dropping Your Computer?? Huge disclaimer here, we don?t advocate dropping, kicking, or suplexing your computer in order to get it to work if something goes wrong. Any physical blunt trauma to a computer should be administered by a professional. Back in 1982, Apple was on top of the game. Steve Jobs was on the cover of Time magazine, and by the end of the year they were the first company to reach a $1 billion annual sales rate. Apple was starting to make aesthetic decisions about their hardware that would sometimes trump function, and the Apple III is the first real example of that. Apple, likely following the wishes and demands of Steve Jobs, decided they were going to make the Apple III computer look even more marketable than the Apple II by removing the air vents. Computers, when processing information and just running in general, produce heat. That heat can build up within the case, and if there isn?t proper airflow or other forms of cooling, it can cause hardware damage over time. When certain computer components get too hot, they may need to be throttled and thus underperform, or they may malfunction and break over time, or both. Steve Jobs wanted the Apple III to be the sexiest Apple computer yet, and either in his opinion, or the advice of Apple?s marketing team, that meant ditching those unsightly air vents. And while they were at it, they nixed the internal fans, because if you aren?t going to have air vents, you may as well not bother with intake and outtake fans. So now we have a product that just bakes the internal components while it?s running. Heat makes metal expand, and there?s quite a bit of metal inside a computer. It would cause the internal parts within the computer to become dislodged, which would obviously cause the computer to stop working. The Apple III?s retail price started at $4340 in 1980?s money, which is equivalent to around $14,270 today. Keep this in mind for the rest of the story, it definitely puts things into perspective. So you have a fairly sizable handful of people running into issues with their extremely expensive new computer. Sometimes the computer would get so hot, it would melt the floppy disks in the drive. Eventually, the computer would get too hot, stop working, and you have to look up Apple in the phone book and give them a call. Fortunately, one engineer at Apple, Daniel Kottke, ran into this issue with his Apple III. Out of frustration, he picked up his computer and slammed it down on his desk. That sudden shock happened to cause the internal parts to snap back together and his computer started working again. Eureka! So what did Apple do? The company instructed its support staff to recommend lifting the computer up off the desk by about two inches, and dropping it. Fingers crossed, this would set the internal parts back in place and you can go back to using your extremely expensive door-less oven. Modern Tech Support is a Little More Complicated While this story is true, it?s fun to make a joke about it. We?ve come a long way as a species in the last 40 years, and […]
