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We all demand faster internet access and want to connect more of our devices so they’re constantly online.
That’s why there’s a new Wi-Fi on the way. It’s called Wi-Fi 6, and it’s designed for how we live our lives in 2019.
We’ve created a brand new video to tell you all the benefits of Wi-Fi 6 and when you can upgrade your business.
There are many factors to consider when making the choice between hiring an in-house tech team or a managed serviced provider (MSP). A managed service provider is a company that manages client’s IT infrastructure and end-user systems, remotely. Businesses usually hire MSPs to provide them with a recurring, subscription-type service with different support features based on their company needs.
By ‘support’, we mean the dedicated team in charge of your staff’s tech. This is everything from physically installing hardware to email set-up, software installation and virus damage control.
For small companies, MSPs might be more cost effective rather than an in-house tech team. If you have few computers and your relationship or primary mode of communication with your clients isn’t dependant on the smooth running of your tech, it might be futile to fork out large salaries to technicians who are hardly needed.
By choosing remote support you can select a plan that works for you. This could be pay-as-you-go, monthly or yearly support with on-call assistance – the flexibility of the conditions of your tech support are negotiable between yourself and the company you choose.
An in-house technician might only have general knowledge and not always know the best method to care of your staff’s tech needs. If you have a large company however, with 50+ staff that require a tech guy on hand to deal with minor issues e.g. email set-up, internet connectivity, it would be cheaper to add a technician to the permanent team. MSPs have high hourly rates and can charge more for call-outs. When you’re paying these rates for small problems that happen frequently, you’ll begin to see which option is most cost-efficient.
Managed service providers (which is what we are), house a full team of technicians with a broad spectrum of specialist knowledge and skills. Where one technician might still be learning a topic, another might thrive in it. An MSP team is constantly learning about new software, systems, devices and completing training courses in order to stay up-to-date with evolving technologies, to deliver a comprehensive service to the large range of clients they cater to.
If it sounds like your company would be better off with an MSP – we are one!
Our CEO is extremely accessible and loves talking to new clients – seeing how we can best tailor our plethora of services to come up with a plan that works best for you.
Give us a call or send an email and you’ll hear from him directly.
When starting a business, being able to track your growth accurately and protect your ideas and business plans is important. Ninety percent of all start-ups fail within the first year. You should optimise every cog in the machine that contributes to the smooth take off of your business and lands you in that tenth percentile.
Whatever sector you find yourself in, it is highly unlikely you won’t require some sort of IT or tech to get you started. As well as the standard smart phone and emails, here are five IT essentials that will ensure any hiccups in the road, won’t be because of the tech.
You’ll need a devise to carry out basic business such as accessing the internet, emailing, compiling reports, etc.
While a phone is handy and can do nearly everything a computer can, sometimes when doing real work you need a bigger screen and the ability to type – so consider portability.
Will you need to access files and emails from remote locations or on-the-go?
If your start-up hasn’t established offices and a permanent working space with monitors and desktops, laptops and tablets are key.
Consider a screen size that works for you. Do you carry bags that will fit larger laptops? Do you need a bigger screen to see detailed images? What sort of job do you have and what features do you require from the device? Are you in a creative field and need touch screen or boosted graphics? Will any portable device with Microsoft Office, suffice?
All to take into account when choosing your brand and size.
As you’re presumably trying to spend money smartly, you don’t have to go for the premium, high range products. Having said this don’t cheap out and opt for unreliable tech with a short life span. Mid-range if perfect for new companies. As you grow and learn what best suites the needs of the business you may find changes with your devices need to be made or replacements and upgrades. It will be the safe option as you haven’t spent a small fortune on a laptop that you decide isn’t for you after a year and you haven’t jeopardised your work with shoddy equipment.
More often than not, it is easier and more efficient to store files and important information onto some sort of cloud. The unpredictability of saving crucial documents onto physical devices – with an array of scenarios in which you could lose or break them, is too risky. With all the options on offer there’s no reason not to utilise online storage. It is cost effective and saves physical space.
With apps and sites such as Dropbox, Google Drive and iCloud files can be instantly backed up and accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. This eliminates the need to rummage through your belongings for the correct USB and the most recent version of a file that you’ve saved five times.
With sensitive information and everything you use to track your company’s operations, all stored on a tech device, imagine the catastrophe when you lose it all to a silly virus.
Antivirus software is like an umbrella in the rain. Even if you don’t have a start-up, protecting your device from a virus is just good sense
If your business is customer/client focused, a primary method of communication with them can be via telephone. This can be a tricky process to keep track of and analyse if you don’t have the correct system in place to monitor it.
You mightn’t have ever thought to use your phone line traffic to your advantage and determine key information about your clientele, but in can prove extremely useful in your marketing strategy going forward.
A comprehensive system can track the statistics and figures of your phone lines and offer you reports and insights into how your customer operates. With this information you can inform your staff and alter your business operations to better cater to the needs of the customer. This will help you grow and be seen as a reliable and professional contender in your field of work.
While free emails are great for personal, every-day use, consider investing in an email account provider. Having your company name in the address ([email protected]) gives you the platform to come across as more organised and professional when presented to customers.
Wouldn’t that be epic. No emails at the end of each day. No worrying that you’ve missed something important.
Or scrolling through the same emails again and again, when you’d rather be playing with your kids.
Inbox Zero isn’t reached by having fewer emails… that’s really hard to achieve. Instead, you need to change the way you handle emails.
We’re on a mission to free business owners and managers like you from the hell of email.
Watch our brand new video now. We’ll tell you about a cool feature in Office 365 called Focused Inbox. It’s a better way to do email.
If you have a Windows 7 machine, you MUST replace it by the end of this year.
Why? Because it’ll be a major target for hackers in January next year (2020).
This is a serious threat to many businesses in Barnet. It will leave their entire computer network open to hackers.
We’ve created a new short video to tell you why it’s such a problem, and why you must not wait too long to replace your old tech.
To get more done in your business, you and your team need to be highly organised, and have systems to leverage information.
There’s a perfect tool for this – and you probably already have it.
OneNote from Microsoft is part of the powerful and popular Office 365 suite.
We’re big fans here at iceConnect, local IT support and data security experts.
We’ve put together a brand new educational video on OneNote. So you can see the top five features your business will benefit from.
Now this is exciting… assuming you already use Office 365 in your business, there are a bunch of productivity tools hidden within that can save some serious time and money.
As Barnet’s Office 365 experts, we know this. Take Microsoft Flow for example. It allows you to automate tasks between apps.
We’ve created a brand new video to show you how it works.
