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Identifying Your OptionsWhat options are open to you that will let you improve your staff?s ability to communicate? The first thing you need to do to ascertain whether or not you have the tools or technology you need. This can be done through a thorough assessment of the types of platforms your business utilizes for communication: Is it just over the phone, or do you have email? Do you use a chat interface? Is your business currently active on social media? These are all effective options to incorporate that will allow your business greater communicative capabilities. How to Best Use These CommunicationsIt is important to understand that communications can either be a major time saver or time waster, depending on the situation. Fortunately, there are means to keep your communications efficient and optimally beneficial to the needs of your business. PhoneThe traditional phone plan for businesses is costly. You have to run the wires required and connect them to a central location. This makes it hard to make changes to the office layout, as well as adding difficulties adding new employees to the telephone system. Additionally, you have to pay a telephone service provider for the privilege of using the phone. Many of these downsides can be resolved by switching to a hosted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. Since a VoIP connection leverages your organization?s bandwidth to function, you can eliminate the need of hardwiring your office if you so choose. More importantly, however, you can get a strong communications solution while eliminating a potentially expensive line item in your budget. EmailWhile many might consider email to be a replacement to the phone, it isn?t advisable. While both are important to maintain in a business setting. However, for your typical office communications, email provides a quick way to get in touch with a coworker or contact, providing a record of correspondence as you go. Chat InterfaceThere are often times that an office worker needs to reach out to a coworker, but their message may be too urgent to risk it sitting, unchecked, in an inbox. A chat interface provides a highly visible method of sending a message that grabs the recipients? attention, allowing for a much quicker response than one might expect from an email–which may go unchecked for far longer than the message can wait. Social MediaThe rise of social media has given businesses an opportunity that had never presented itself before in history: the ability to reach out to their fan base without a filter. Now, a business can reach out directly to their followers, sharing news, information, or content of a more human nature. Social media allows a business to connect more honestly with their followers, giving the company another layer of culture that sets them apart. Plus, it helps show your followers that you intend to actively interact with them, drawing them in and impressing them as a part of your marketing strategy. Plus, you can use social media as another means of uniting staff members and communicating with them directly. The technology that businesses can access today are capable of enhancing their communications greatly. Have you enhanced yours? White Mountain IT Services can help with that. Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
Using the most up-to-date versions of your technology?s operating systems is one of the best ways to stay secure. Yet, some organizations forego the jump to more recent operating systems due to the immense up-front expense represented by upgrading multiple servers or workstations at once. Unfortunately, this can be detrimental to your organization?s security, and potentially even put your business?s future at risk. The reasoning for this is simple; when a Windows software reaches its End of Life event, it stops receiving any mission-critical patches or security updates that resolve operational deficiencies and patch up security flaws that could expose your data to malicious entities. By using software that has reached its End of Life, you are effectively crippling your business in a way which could easily be resolved with some proactive and well-thought-out upgrades. Just this past April, the often-forgotten-about Windows Vista fell off Microsoft support. Before that was Windows XP, which was used by a major portion of the Windows user base. Now, the next Windows End of Life scheduled to occur is Windows 7 on January 14th, 2020. Coincidentally, a common server software is also reaching its End of Life on the very same day: Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. Businesses that rely on these popular software solutions will need to make the jump to more recent operating systems in order to guarantee network security. Unfortunately, the time and resources it takes to upgrade multiple workstations or servers makes it tempting to just ignore it for the time being. The problem with this is that placing such an important update on the back burner means that your organization is in danger of data breaches, as any systems running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 RN would no longer be receiving patches for major security flaws or operational issues. Waiting until the last minute to implement fixes for this issue is absolutely not recommended. Upgrading the operating systems on workstations and servers could come with hidden hurdles that need to be considered prior to implementation. What if your legacy applications stop working as intended? Drastic changes like these often also mean implementing new hardware, which means you might need to halt operations momentarily. Can your operations sustain the significant downtime that this would cause? The answer is no. No downtime is acceptable, and you should strive to make the upgrade process as seamless as possible. The solution is to think about this problem now before 2020 arrives and Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 RN are rendered dead in the water. You still have plenty of time to consider what you want to do about this End of Life event. This is why we?re letting you know now. If you need a hand in the process of upgrading away from these operating systems, White Mountain IT Services would be glad to help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
To help you determine this, we?ll go into detail on two key considerations that a cloud solution and an on-site infrastructure share: cost and control. CostMoney can start wars, change hearts, and (more pertinent to our concerns) make or break a business. Due to the power that money has over your business, you will want to make sure that it is spent wisely. In this concern, an outsourced cloud provider has the advantage over trying to maintain an in-house infrastructure. This is simply because trying to maintain and update your setup independently will be extraordinarily expensive. Consider the amount of computing power your business requires, and imagine how much it would take, financially, to maintain these in-house. Not only can an in-house device be expensive itself, but powering it and keeping it in full working order make that financial obligation even more pressing. On the other hand, an outsourced provider will only charge a flat monthly rate (barring a few exceptions) that is easy to predict and budget out. Compared to operating a server in-house, these prices are considerably lower, and allow you to invest your savings into improvements elsewhere in your business. ControlIt only makes sense that you want to have some sort of control over your infrastructure–after all, your business functions are dependent on it, so the prospect of relinquishing direct control is understandably nerve-wracking for many. If this is your biggest concern, maintaining an in-house architecture would be your best bet. Doing so allows you a hands-on perspective of your IT and its management. This feature essentially boils down to trust, and whether you are willing to entrust your business essentials to a third party or would prefer to keep a close eye on them. The Best of Both WorldsIf both of these options sound like the best path, reach out to White Mountain IT Services. We can examine your needs and design an IT plan to suit them. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to get started.
Hardware as a Service, or HaaS, allows your organization to reap the benefits of multiple hardware refreshes on a consistent basis, without the incredibly high costs of replacing hardware so often. After all, hardware doesn?t last forever, and any organization that thinks it does should know that all good things must eventually come to an end–whether it was predicted or not. More often than not, small businesses don?t upgrade their hardware as often as they should. The reasoning for this is that their technology budget is limited, and therefore keeps them from investing in new solutions when they need them. Furthermore, since it?s difficult to figure hardware refreshes into your budget due to their up-front costs, it?s even more troublesome when a hardware failure strikes and throws your organization for a loop. Therefore, you?re paying not just to replace your hardware, but for the downtime that it?s causing while your employees can?t perform their daily duties. Hardware as a Service addresses these issues by offering businesses a way to replace hardware without breaking the budget. It does this through offering monthly payments according to a service level agreement, which lets your organization acquire new hardware within a certain budget. Here are some of the other benefits that HaaS delivers: An IT roadmap: One of the most valuable assets offered by HaaS is a plan for the future. We can help you build a plan for how you want to replace your hardware in the future, ensuring that you don?t go too long without a hardware upgrade. Lower upfront costs: You?ll only be paying a flat monthly rate for the acquisition of new hardware, which is a considerable improvement over outright purchasing it. Most HaaS providers will budget in future upgrades and management to keep your equipment running smoothly as time goes on. The latest hardware, now: Since you?re taking full advantage of hardware refreshes, you?ll be more likely to use the most up-to-date hardware solutions on the market. This means that you?ll be less prone to security issues, and you might even improve productivity with new features and functionality that weren?t available when you first signed on. Does your organization want to take full advantage of the latest hardware without the tricky-to-manage price tag? If so, reach out to White Mountain IT Services. We can discuss your organization?s specific needs and create a service level agreement that helps your business do what it does best, without the trouble of worrying about technology maintenance or replacement. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.
Microsoft Outlook can be a fantastic way to communicate, but only if you know how to best use it. When you?re using it to reach out to clients or vendors, you need to consider all of the best practices and shortcuts you can to make the most of it. We?ll discuss some of the best ways that you can use Microsoft Outlook to help your business function better as a whole. Keyboard shortcuts are certainly no stranger to any business owner, but Microsoft Outlook has several specific shortcuts that you can use to save a surprising amount of time on daily, mundane tasks. The following shortcuts can be used in Microsoft Outlook 2013 and 2016. All you need to do is print this blog out and hand it out to your staff–they?ll never have to Google another shortcut again. Alt + S: This will send an email. Ctrl + Enter: Send the message you?re currently writing. Ctrl + R: Reply to an email. Ctrl + F: Forward an email. Ctrl + K: Complete the name or email you are typing into the address bar. Ctrl + N: Create a new email folder. Ctrl + Shift + A: Create a new appointment on your calendar. Ctrl + Shift + O: Open your Outbox. Ctrl + Shift + I: Open your Inbox. Ctrl + Shift + C: Create a new contact. While many other shortcuts can also be used in Microsoft Outlook, you?ll find that these dedicated keystrokes can be a great asset for your organization. Don?t forget that you can also easily bold, italicize, and underline text using the same shortcuts as in other Microsoft products. Many other also work just as well in Outlook, so be sure to give them all a try. These shortcuts can help your business save time and help your team be more productive with Microsoft Outlook. To learn more of how you can take full advantage of your technology, subscribe to our blog.
