The aforementioned scenario is one that is common in the realm of break-fix IT. Someone?s computer or other piece of technology breaks down and they don?t know how to fix it themselves. They wind up investing in expensive IT support, but more than this, they waste valuable time and resources resolving a problem that could have been prevented. This has led innovators in the technology maintenance sector to create what?s called managed IT services, which are designed to take a proactive stand against IT troubles, rather than resolve them as they occur. It?s More Cost-EffectiveThe more time you spend spinning your wheels on an IT problem, the more time you wind up wasting. The more time you waste, the less time you can spend on profit-making initiatives. Previously, your organization was almost certainly including IT in its budget as a capital expense, but by implementing more flexible monthly payments, you can effectively turn your IT budget into an operational expense. The end result is more flexibility in your budget as a whole. You Have More TimeWhat would you do if you didn?t have to waste time managing or maintaining your business?s technology solutions? Perhaps you would invest time into building your brand, or maybe you would rather focus on improving internal operations and employee morale. Maybe you?d like to give out the raises that your team deserves, or invest in future innovation. Either way, you?ll have more time and resources to devote to what really matters: running your business. Your Technology Gets the Help It NeedsToo often businesses rely on their own employees to ensure that technology gets updated. This generally happens if an organization doesn?t have the resources to hire an internal IT department to take care of their technology. In other words, when you have people who have no clue what they?re doing managing and maintaining technology, chances are that mistakes will be made and time will be wasted. By having professional technicians working with your technology, you can know with confidence that your systems are being maintained by trained professionals. With proactive managed IT solutions from White Mountain IT Services, you?ll never have to worry about your technology again. We?ll make sure that your mission-critical systems are being managed and maintained properly so that you can focus on running your business. To learn more about what preventative solutions we can offer your organization, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Additional findings from the study include: Only about 17 percent of respondents claim that they have any sort of process for gathering intelligence about network threats. 38 percent of companies don?t have any method of intelligence gathering at all. Other companies either have one for specific purposes, or have one that?s not spread out throughout their entire organization. Regardless, the point stands that not enough is being done to learn about, and prevent, threats from accessing business infrastructures. The Ponemon Institute claims that businesses are experiencing, on average, at least one or more external cyber attacks every month, and these breaches are costing the businesses about $3.5 million annually. Your business? administration should consider whether or not it can afford to become the target of further data breaches. More often than not, we expect the answer to be ?no.? Yet, so many businesses refuse to accept that they could become the target of a data breach. One of the major threats comes from phishing attempts, a strategy used by hackers that tempt email recipients into divulging their personal or organizational credentials. The hackers on the other end of the email will then use these credentials to gain access and control. If people can?t tell the difference between friend and foe, they could potentially invite threats into the network without knowing it. Here are two strategies we suggest you take into consideration when deciding how to improve your company?s network security: Introduce proactive measures: This includes introducing security measures that work for every user accessing your network. Security solutions such as firewalls and antivirus can help you detect and eliminate threats that could potentially cause problems for your organization. Additionally, you should be prepared with other solutions including spam blocking and content filtering to cut down on your employees? exposure to threats. Educate your employees: Your team needs to be aware of security best practices, like password security, how to identify phishing scams, and so on. Security should be a part of company culture, and your team needs to embrace it if you want to keep your data safe. White Mountain IT Services can be the security professionals you need to keep your systems safe and secure from external threats. To learn more, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.

Promoting collaboration Collaboration is key to creativity, as people work together to brainstorm and give each other feedback. IT professionals can help your business maintain strong, secure lines of communication, whether your employees are using a VoIP system, Skype, Google Hangout, or a secure mobile app to trade ideas. High-quality IT services will also make it easier for employees to share and edit files, working on projects collaboratively across locations and at different times of the day. The creative process never needs to shut down. There are also different software solutions for managing projects and extracting the most value out of brainstorming. One example might be idea management software. People love to share their thoughts on a variety of platforms, including social media sites. Savvy businesses draw on ideas and feedback from different groups of people, including customers, employees, business partners, and industry experts. Idea management software helps you streamline the process of gathering ideas from a given community, culling the insightful ones that will help your projects and disregarding the feedback that’s poor in quality. The way you conduct creative work will be highly specific to your business and to your personal style. IT professionals can work flexibly with you to develop the best ways for your employees to collaborate on projects and record, develop, and implement creative ideas. Giving you the stability to try new ideas Let’s say you want to launch a new e-commerce platform or transform your marketing or sales workflow. IT professionals can give you the underlying stability and support to try new ideas while minimizing the chances that they’ll crash. All creative new ventures come with some risks, so it’s critical to give yourself as much cushioning against failure as possible. This could mean ensuring that older systems and data get backed up in case you need to restore them. It also means creating a strong underlying foundation that you can build on in the future. For example, a recent article from CIO talks about how important it is to develop guiding strategies for taking your business through digital transformations; when using new technologies in innovative ways and deciding on future developments, you need an underlying plan based on a thorough understanding of your company’s IT needs. Guarding your creative secrets Cyber criminals often go after sensitive personal information, including financial data such as credit card numbers. But another prime target for data breaches are your company’s creative secrets. These include your ideas for new products and services and information about undergoing projects that you haven’t released yet to the public. This critical information can get stolen by cyber criminals or accidentally leaked by employees. IT professionals can help you come up with a number of solutions for better protecting your confidential data. These include software solutions (such as anti-malware programs) and cyber training for employees to minimize the chances that they’ll expose your data to unauthorized parties. Be sure to contact us for more information about how our IT services can help your business innovate and thrive. In a digital world, so many creative solutions will depend on the right kinds of technology. You need forward-thinking IT professionals to give you the support and advice that will help your business succeed.

For employers looking to get the most out of their workforce, a revelation like this can help determine the makeup of teams, and even the layout of the office. If a business owner were to take this study?s findings to heart, they could go so far as to strategically arrange the office in such a way that the hardest workers are placed near employees who could, well, benefit by the shining example of their more dutiful peers. To give you an idea of how this works, here?s a summary of the study taken from the Harvard Business Review website: ?We saw that neighbors have a significant impact on an employee?s performance, and it can be either positive or negative. In terms of magnitude, we found that approximately ten percent of a worker?s performance spills over to her neighbors. Replacing an average performer with one who is twice as productive results in his or her neighboring workers increasing their own productivity by about ten percent, on average.? If this study has motivated you to pull up a spreadsheet of worker productivity and develop a new seating chart, then you?ll want to be careful to implement this in such a way that your well-intentioned plan doesn?t backfire on you. While the study highlights the possibility of a productivity boost by having workers at two different levels sit next to each other, it also mentions how the opposite can be true: the ?impact on an employee?s performance?… ?can be either positive or negative.? Essentially, the iron-sharpens-iron principle also means that a sharp worker can be made dull by a not-so-sharp worker. Therefore, you?ll want to consider additional factors besides just productivity when pairing up two employees, like a worker?s motivations (or the lack thereof). If a worker is inexperienced yet highly motivated, then sticking them next to a high performer will help show them what it takes to be productive and they?ll adjust their work habits accordingly. Alternatively, an unmotivated and obstinate worker won?t be impressed by their colleague?s work habits, and may even negatively influence their motivation and outlook on the company. In a lowest-common-denominator situation such as this, you would be better off isolating a motivated employee by providing them with their own office or cubicle, or even giving them the option to work remotely. Thinking along these lines, it may be more beneficial to view motivation as a primary organizing principle, seeing as an increase in productivity can?t happen without it. In fact, it stands to reason that a workforce made up of motivated employees will influence and challenge workers of all levels to reach for even higher levels of productivity. For your part, the more strategic you are about creating a work environment where influence is intentional, this will in turn enhance your bottom line. Finally, while this study pertains primarily to workers sitting next to each other in an office, we would like to point out that White Mountain IT Services can provide technology for your enterprise that can achieve the same goals. Tools like cloud-based collaboration software and communication solutions provided by VoIP have the potential to extend an employee’s influence well beyond their desk, allowing for your A-players to be in constant contact with several less productive team members, thus inspiring even more workers to try harder and do […]

This winds up costing the business in a few ways. First and foremost, what is the IT department really being paid for? Theoretically, an IT department is generally supposed to be spending their time planning methods for your business to innovate and improve; technical support services being a secondary responsibility. Under this system, the team is able to come up with solutions that better serve the company?s needs and allows it to advance and improve. If there is the occasional IT issue, they take steps to resolve it, but otherwise, their time is spent looking forward. In a perfect world, this could very well be the case, but this arrangement is exceptionally rare in reality. Try as they might to innovate, IT departments are too often interrupted by a service request or technical issue to maintain a purposeful stream of thought, often for an issue that can be resolved with a quick reboot. Meanwhile, time marches on, and the team is never available to prepare for changes and make the necessary upgrades. Ultimately, a business could quickly find itself behind the innovation curve, slipping further and further back in effectiveness. As a result, the IT department is called more often to patch up the symptoms of a greater problem, preventing them from solving that problem until serious operational deficiencies result. As is quite apparent, the tendency for an in-house team to be repeatedly pulled away from their work is simply unsustainable. However, hiring additional IT resources to compensate for the fluctuating needs of the rest of a staff is also unrealistic. White Mountain IT Services can offer a solution that rests comfortably between the two. We can resolve both your end user?s issues and relieve your IT department of their additional workload by offering our Help Desk services within your company. Taking responsibility for the day-to-day support requests, White Mountain IT Services can leave your internal team free to continue their innovative processes. As a result, your business will no longer have to choose sustainability over growth, and you will be once again capable of seeing your company move forward. If you?re sick of sacrificing your business for the sake of your business, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.