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Small business owners know that IT is essential for your company if you’re reading this. But are you spending your money in the right way? Are you seeing a good return on investment (ROI) from your IT spending?
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What is DHCP, and what does it do? This blog explains DHCP – the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. It also details the distinction between a static IP and a dynamic IP.
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Small business owners will be looking for IT and tech advice to boost productivity and profits in 2022. Technology has developed significantly in the past 18 months: specifically, the tech businesses have maintained operations during the pandemic. Small Business Owners will be looking at how they can use this newfound knowledge to drive their small business into profitability. Here’s what we’ve learned about business tech since the advent of the pandemic that you can put into practice in your firm for 2022.
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In this blog post, we will cover about five ways to predict annual hardware expenses accurately. We’ll cover topics such as IT software upgrades and IT hardware upgrades. The goal is to help you get a handle on the costs associated with maintaining your infrastructure so that you can plan accordingly and not be surprised by unexpected expenses down the road.
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If you are looking for outsourced IT support in London, managed IT is a great option.
Outsourced IT support is a third party IT service that eliminates the need for your business to maintain its network and computers.
Haree Patel, CEO
Managed IT ensures that your devices are always up to date with the latest security features, ensuring your network is always up and running, the VoIP phones always ring and all sensitive data is secure and backed up.
Managed IT also provides disaster recovery services should anything happen to your data centre or any of your hardware. It will save you time and money and provide peace of mind regarding uptime and downtime.
Having up-to-date IT is essential for modern businesses and COVID-19 and remote working have only exacerbated that. Having said this, it is no small task to transition to new IT operations and systems.
A good MSP (managed service provider) will be able to provide you with an in-depth review of your current IT network. Then, based on the findings, they can make recommendations to proof your business IT for the future. For example, a straightforward recommendation we often make to our clients is to upgrade their Wi-Fi router’s setup to a Wi-Fi 6 system which improves capacity, connectivity and security.
In the last year, managed IT services have become powerful assets, partnering with businesses to adapt to pandemic-related restrictions. They helped clients adopt remote working and brought value through business resilience solutions like RMM (remote management and monitoring) along with cloud-based services such as VoIP phone systems.
Managed IT is a business model in which an outsourced service provider manages your information technology. Meanwhile, a managed service model tends to be subscription-based in which providers usually agree to pay a certain amount each month in exchange for ongoing system management.
The specifics of what a managed IT plan entails can vary depending on your organisation’s individual needs and the company’s skillset. Most managed services providers can offer a basic package of daily support and more sophisticated deals that include disaster recovery, VoIP, onsite engineers, server maintenance, backup recovery and printer management, to name a few.
Managed IT services usually encompass a wide range of internet and computer functions, whereas managed IT solutions provide business owners with solutions encompassing everything from network, application and system management to payroll, server maintenance, backup/recovery services and printer management.
Managed IT can also benefit staff when it comes to equipment. For instance, remote workers requiring new equipment such as keyboards or monitors can order this themselves. This means that whilst providing visibility and control over supplies for IT departments, accounting won’t need to worry about running these purchases through expenses either.
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can use a managed service provider (MSP) to provide in-house cloud services or act as brokers for other cloud providers. The bonus of this process is that your MSP will have a responsibility to ensure all the software is fully installed and monitored to ensure up-time and functionality.
As the risk of security breaches grows, many companies have opted to outsource their IT needs and responsibilities to protect equipment and data. Managed security service providers (MSSPs) provide efficient patch management (security updates) and responsive backup services.
The advantages and disadvantages of a managed IT service depend on the type of service, but there are common considerations that any business should take into account before outsourcing that function, including the following.
Building and maintaining a top-notch IT team can be expensive, time-consuming and demanding. That’s why you might want to consider outsourcing the part of your company that needs technical support to an experienced service provider.
Acquiring a small in-house team that provides fully comprehensive support will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds each year. That’s not even including recruiting and set up costs!
Rather than paying open-ended prices when IT issues occur with freelancers, businesses can have a contract that outlines what they will pay in monthly instalments to account for potential problems. In the long run, managed IT will reduce costs.
With the right support plan, you will have peace of mind knowing that your IT will only cost a fixed fee each month regardless of the situation.
Managed IT takes away the need for organisations to worry about software updates and they can have access to new technologies that would otherwise have been out of their reach.
Outsourcing the management of security services, for example, reduces the demands for an in-house IT department. Outsourcing your IT also outsources management headaches such as PAYE, holidays, absences and performance management.
If there’s an outage or incident, the business has little recourse as they rely on third-party help. Theoretically, a well-managed service provider will respond faster than an internal IT team. An internal IT team for a small or medium-sized business will have nowhere near the expertise or resources as a dedicated IT support provider such as ourselves.
The flexibility of a managed IT service is more limited than having a solution customised to business needs. You will find that as your business expands, you will have to increase your level of IT support to meet demands.
If your MSP goes bust or has a catastrophic event like a fire, you are left vulnerable. In the latter case, iceConnect has multiple redundancy protocols to keep their clients’ networks fully functioning in the event of a catastrophe.
Whether or not businesses decide to go down the route of a managed IT service provider, it’s not a market that is going away any time soon. In fact, according to a new report from Global Market Insight, this particular segment of the industry was estimated to be worth $350 billion in 2019 and continues to grow larger with COVID-19 pushing many organisations into adopting managed services.
As the number of offerings and the capability of existing offerings grows, there is no doubt that we will see companies of all sizes making use of outsourced managed IT services for varying parts of their business.
To help all those scouring the market for the perfect outsourced managed IT support provider, we have created a managed IT support buyer’s guide. This comprehensive PDF document covers every single question you should be asking when choosing an IT support provider.
Simply click on the link below to download the guide or contact us directly if you’d like to book a free, no-obligation demo of how iceConnect can boost your business’ productivity.
Why not contact us to book a free no-obligation managed IT support demo with iceConnect’s director, Haree Patel.
Here we’re going to take a look at the cost of insider attacks and what you can do to prevent these from occurring within your business.
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An office fire is one of the most horrific things that can happen to a business owner. Once you know your staff are safely out of the building, your thoughts then turn to what else you could lose in the fire. The data you lose can be even more damaging to your business than the physical losses you experience. It’s the phone call that no one ever wants to receive, but it’s something any business owner or office manager should prepare for.
Is Your Data Backed Up?
Whilst you have insurance for these types of emergencies, you might start to think about what needs to be replaced and soon realise there was no backup for your data. Maybe your automated backup stopped working and you put off doing the manual backup or asked someone else to do it. But what happened to the backup in the fire?
The Reality of the Situation
For businesses who experience this kind of data loss, the chance of going under is greater than the chance of survival. 50% of businesses that lose data during an emergency end up going into administration, whilst 93% of businesses that lose their data for longer than ten days will go under within the next year. For companies that experience a severe fire, 70% of them go out of business within five years, with 30% closing within a year. It’s time to take action to protect your future today.
A Reliable, Verified Data Backup
For businesses of any type or size, having a robust data backup is a serious requirement. While a fire is certainly one reason to consider this, there are many other emergencies that will necessitate a backup, from spilling a cup of coffee or losing your laptop to something more extreme like ransomware. Though it takes extra work to back up your data and secure your network, you can feel safe knowing that you are protected during an emergency.
Check Your Backup Is Functioning Properly
Many companies today fail to check that their backup is still working, resulting in panic from business owners who realise it stopped working months ago. It’s critical to check that the backup is going ahead and to verify the data to check it’s backing up correctly. You should back up literally all data, including projects, accounts, emails and website content. Anything that would have a negative effect on your business if it was lost, make sure you back it up.
With so many different ways to back up your data, there’s no excuse not to start the process today. A great IT service provider can help you understand the options available to you and protect you from any emergencies in the future.
Protect Your Devices
Without locking your devices in a fireproof box, there’s no way to guarantee protection of your devices from a fire. However, you can take plenty of steps to minimise the loss you would experience during an emergency. Firstly, we encourage you to make sure every device is fully insured with business insurance or their own insurance. Make sure that the insurance covers accidental damage, theft and damage from disaster. Take the time to run through what you would do if a device was stolen. How would you get the data back and know that you are protected? Create a procedure for your company for various scenarios so everyone knows how to react if this does occur. Ensure that everyone in your workplace knows who to contact if it does happen so the plan can be used and all data can be wiped from the device.
Also, make sure you follow these top tips in your workplace:
Know What Devices Your Business Has
As businesses grow, it’s easy for office managers to lose track of the number of devices in a workplace. Questions you should be able to answer include:
Make sure you create and regularly update an inventory in your office, which should also be backed up. It will make keeping track of the devices in your office much easier, especially with more people working from home. When someone leaves the company, you can double check that all devices have been returned so there are no issues or security concerns further down the line.
Paperless Solutions
If your business hasn’t already started to reduce its paper consumption, this is something we highly recommend doing. As well as being kinder to the environment, it also offers additional benefits for business owners. During a fire, you wouldn’t be worried about shelves and filing cabinets packed with critical paper records. Make your life easier by creating a digital copy of everything in your office. You can then store this securely online and back it up.
Planning for a disaster is a crucial activity for businesses of all shapes and sizes and those who prepare in advance are the ones with the greatest chance of surviving. By following the tips listed above, you can sleep soundly at night knowing your data is backed up and you are prepared for all eventualities.
Every year, the world economy loses more than $1 trillion to cyber-crime. Do not become part of that statistic.
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Covid-19 has caused countless businesses across all industries to question the standard of their IT support.
The new remote working world has been a genuine litmus test for IT companies claiming to offer an all singing all dancing service.
The cloud-based IT system you thought was running seamlessly in the background has turned into a lead balloon. As staff working from home can no longer access their files.
The Online Workplace feature that you thought would come in handy has the functionality of an ashtray on a motorbike.
The “unlimited” IT support you were paying extra for has miraculously found new limits now your team is working from home.
Overall, the last ten months have been very revealing. The wheat is most definitely separating from the chaff so to speak.
We have been tirelessly talking to businesses and acquiring new clients as their IT and telecoms partner.
These conversations have taught us that customers are not asking the right questions when shopping for telecoms and IT support.
iceConnect has created a guide covering the top five questions you need to be asking your IT provider before you sign on the dotted line.
Click on the link to download our PDF guide.
