MSPNetworks Blog

Happy New Year! It’s officially that time when we all make resolutions meant to help improve ourselves, so why not include your business? Better yet, why not make business resolutions that you’re more likely to keep?

Let’s explore some of the ways that you can design your business’ resolutions to maximize the likelihood that you’ll keep them and benefit from them in the long term.

Design Your Goals Intelligently

“Work smarter, not harder.” It’s solid advice, and especially could show its utility as you try to make changes in the new calendar year. Are your processes clear, and crucially, are the outcomes they are designed to reach optimized for success?

This is where something known as SMART goals are useful. The SMART goals framework is a formula by which the most effective goals can be created, because these goals are designed to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. What is it that you intend to accomplish, by exact guidelines, and is possible to accomplish in a set time that will ultimately benefit your business?

By framing all of your goals in this way, you can prime yourself and your team to accomplish them more effectively.

Involve Your Team

Speaking of your team, you may want to commit some focus to bringing your team more into the fold as you strategize your goals. This will help you create goals that ensure that they remain engaged and comfortable while they work.

One way to do this is to promote the idea of shared responsibility in the workplace. Try to create resolutions that everyone can take part in, working together to collaboratively accomplish a goal. For your part, you should also resolve to readily provide employees with opportunities for professional growth and development. The more your team is able to do, the more your business can do… and the more engaged your team members will be, especially when there’s a clear path for them to improve.

It also benefits you and your business to provide your team with various wellness benefits and work/life balance-based perks. Providing opportunities to your team will make them more likely to stick around and enjoy them.

Break Down Your Goals into Steps

So, you’ve figured out a goal.

Now what?

While having a goal is an important part of improving your business, it’s only going to get you so far without a strategy that helps you progress toward that goal. Analyzing your objectives and determining how to accomplish them will make it easier to do so.

Try subdividing some of these larger tasks into their smaller parts, making an overwhelming prospect much more manageable and approachable. This also makes it easier to adjust different parts of your plan to improve the outcome that results from it.

Keep Track of Your Progress

On the topic of adjusting your strategies over time, it is much easier to do so when you have historical data to rely on. Make sure that you are keeping records that describe the progress you’ve made and the challenges you’ve encountered. Having this information will put you in a better position to improve your overall performance. Plus, it enables you to keep up your team’s motivation by celebrating the successes this data brings to light.

It also helps to seek out feedback from various parties in order to get the benefit of numerous perspectives. One person’s role—for instance, your own—may not give you a critical insight that strongly impacts the end result of your efforts. Crowdsourcing viewpoints from your team can give you a fuller, more accurate picture of whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, allowing you to more effectively make any changes or improvements.

Use Technology that Supports Your Goals

When you consider that MSPNetworks is one of the most dedicated managed service providers in New York, it was only a matter of time before we referred to your business’ IT. However, that doesn’t make it any less true that utilizing the right technology makes it far easier to accomplish your objectives, including those related to your New Year’s resolution.

You wouldn’t use a hammer to measure how big a piece of furniture was any more than you would use a tape measure to set some nails. The same goes for the information technology that your business puts to use—matching its purpose to the objective you’re trying to meet will make your job (and by extension, your life) much simpler.

We Can Empower Your Business Resolutions with Our IT Services

Let’s face it: New Year’s resolutions are hard to stick to. Fortunately, you don’t have to commit to your business’ new strategies without help. MSPNetworks can be there to provide the IT services and solutions that can help with all of the steps we mentioned here, as well as any others your business may require. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

Across the board, modern businesses rely on no small amount of technology to support their operations, making it key that you, one, have the technology your operations require, and two, have the means to keep this technology operational. Fortunately, managed services help you by providing both. Let’s review what managed services are, and how they work.

Managed Services are the Next Level of Outsourced IT Support

Traditionally, a business seeking assistance with its technology would either have to rely on any internal team members to fulfill their needs, or turn to an external provider to do so by coming in to service their equipment. Nowadays, there’s a third option.

Managed services shift the focus of IT maintenance away from repair and instead focus on mediation, working proactively to prevent issues whenever possible through modern remote monitoring and maintenance activities. As a result, the downtime that was inherently a part of the other methods can be largely avoided.

For a predictable monthly fee, you’ll have an entire team keeping an eye on your business’ technology, catching issues and spotting signs of impending threats before they manifest. This translates to increased productivity and employee efficacy.

A managed service provider also assists a business in its future technology planning, considering where its technology currently stands and designing a strategy focused on improvement and growth over time.

In a Very Real Way, This Makes Managed Services an Easy Way of Expanding Your Business’ Capabilities

To be honest, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what managed services can do for your business, and we’d love to have the opportunity to discuss it with you in more detail. Please give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about the benefits of a managed service agreement.

As we’re in the midst of Q3 of 2023, common wisdom says that now is about the time that small businesses should be planning their budgets for the next fiscal year. As such, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to give managed IT services some serious consideration.

Let’s review what it is that makes managed services so budget-friendly.

First, Managed Services are Designed to Be Inherently Scalable 

One great way to eat through your IT budget is to invest in more than your business needs—maintaining more subscriptions to various services than your staffing requires, for instance. A managed service provider can help you avoid this kind of overinvestment by ensuring that you have precisely the resources you need, working with your vendors firsthand to ensure that you are limiting your overspending, and even negotiating better deals for your business. 

Second, Managed Services are Very Inclusive, in Terms of Their Offerings

By virtue of their business model, a managed service provider is motivated to fulfill as many needs as possible. In addition to offering you comprehensive remote and in-person support as circumstances demand, most managed service providers will interface with your vendors on your behalf, taking advantage of the combined needs of their entire client base to get special deals… passing the savings on to you.

That’s not all, either. Many MSPs will work with you to develop a roadmap for your technology to follow as your needs change and your company ideally grows, helping you grow your business without spending capital on unnecessary investments.

Third, Managed Services are Convenient, Which Adds Value

Time, as they say, is money. The longer any number of your team is prevented from working at their highest level of productivity, the more money you’re watching go down the drain. This is what makes the all-hours accessibility of your MSP so invaluable. You have the comfort of knowing that your network is being watched at all hours, allowing you to focus more of your work time on other tasks, and your personal time on your own rest and recuperation.

Plus, managed services allow your team members to quickly and conveniently access IT assistance whenever it may be needed, to any degree. This means that your team will no longer need to wait around for assistance when they need it—they’ll have a trusted provider waiting in the wings to help.

Fourth, Managed Services are Proactive, Which Helps Eliminate Additional Spending

Which sounds like a better way for your team to spend their time: constantly calling support for assistance with frustrating little issues, or simply getting their work done without issues interfering with their productivity? Hopefully, you answered with the second option, which is precisely what the proactive nature of an MSP’s services help to facilitate.

The better your technology is maintained, the longer it will ultimately last and assist your business, with fewer repair costs and not needing replacement nearly as often. When all is said and done, paying a consistent and predictable cost to keep your IT working will always be simpler to budget than crossing your fingers and paying as issues arise.

If It Wasn’t Already Clear, We Recommend that You Consider What Managed Services Could Do for Your Budget

We’re more than happy to answer any questions you may have about our services, too, and how they could prove to be a more friendly option where your operational costs are concerned. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

One of the biggest arguments for remote work is that it poses environmental benefits, but how much truth is there to this statement? Today, we want to dive into the details and see if there is actually a solid benefit to working remotely—for the environment, at least. The answer might surprise you.

Remote Work Doesn’t Completely Eliminate Carbon Emissions

Remote work does remove the commute, and you’d think that this is enough to move the needle toward a more environmentally friendly working solution, but the answer isn’t that clear. There are other factors which also play into carbon emissions, more than gas mileage. There are numbers that could sway your opinion in either direction. On one hand, a look at April 2020’s emissions showed that they were reduced by about 17% worldwide compared to the prior year, but as you might imagine, those numbers have come up once again, even with people still working remotely.

Here are some other challenges which can complicate whether or not remote work is a more environmentally friendly approach.

Electricity

Even when your employees are working remotely, they are consuming electricity—just not from your office. In fact, their combined homes will likely use more electricity compared to your office. And how exactly is this energy being generated, anyway? Is it an environmentally friendly and sustainable way, or are the providers relying on fossil fuels? You can see how the answer gets a little murkier.

HVAC

The same thing can be said about heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. How much energy is being used to keep homes warm, cool, and ventilated, and how are these solutions being delivered? It’s easier for your business to control the office’s thermostat and impact the environment from one location compared to your workforce doing so from several different places.

Greater Hardware Needs

Laptops and mobile-friendly solutions are great for making your business more mobile, but if you haven’t already equipped your team with this technology, then you will have to procure it for them before the big shift to remote work. This means that there will be more waste created as a result of more technology being introduced to the world through the manufacturing process. And, of course, you can’t forget about e-waste, which is a big problem in its own right.

We don’t want to say that remote work is bad by any means, but whether it’s bad for the environment is actually up for debate, and the issue is not as clear-cut as you might think at first glance.

It’s Not All Doom and Gloom for Remote Work

There are plenty of great reasons to implement a remote work policy, but just understand that your primary one is probably not going to be to save the environment. A remote or hybrid work strategy can actually be remarkably effective, provided you have thought the whole thing through. MSPNetworks can help you with this step. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

If your time is anything like mine, you often find it taken up by task after task, with all these responsibilities fighting for your attention. You’ve probably found yourself staring at your to-do list, trying to figure out what to tackle next, more times than you’d care to admit.

To help prevent this from becoming an ongoing issue, I wanted to share a tool that can help you sort out your priorities called the Eisenhower Matrix.

Let’s take a few moments to delve into the history of the Eisenhower Matrix, and how it can be used to assist you in managing your responsibilities.

The Eisenhower Matrix, in a Nutshell

Back in 1954, President and five-star general during WWII Dwight D. Eisenhower made a speech where he said, quoting a university president who went unnamed:

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

Three and a half decades later, author Steven Covey used these words to create a task management system called—amongst other things—the Eisenhower Matrix, which appeared in his renowned book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 

The system breaks tasks down into levels of relative importance and urgency. Important tasks are those that contribute to your long-term goals, while urgent ones are those that demand your attention at a given moment. By combining these aspects in different ways, you can assign different levels of priority to different tasks and outline how each should be approached:

• Tasks that are both urgent and important should be done immediately.
  
  • For instance, a client proposal or responses to incoming client messages.
• Tasks that are important, but not urgent, should be scheduled to be completed.
  
  • For instance, attending a networking event or otherwise improving your skills via training.
• Tasks that are urgent, but not important, should be delegated for someone else to complete.
  
  • For instance, following up with a new client you are signing on.
• Tasks that are neither urgent or important can be deleted, written off as distractions from your actual goals.

This gives you the means to properly prioritize your and your team’s responsibilities in a simple and effective manner.

Keep Track of Your Tasks with the Software We Help Provide

While the Eisenhower Matrix can help guide your schedule to be its most effective, MSPNetworks can help you acquire and equip the tools to keep your team members on track. Reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about the services and solutions that we can provide.

Your decisions with capital will bleed into every part of your organization, so it’s crucial that you are able to determine the difference between capital expenses and operational expenses. When you know what each of these accomplish, you can do more with the same amount of capital.

The Real Difference Between Capital Expenses and Operational Expenses

Capital expenses are one-time purchases that you make, and they are usually with larger sums of money. You might use them to purchase a solution up-front rather than finance it, like with servers, workstations, etc. The logic here is that if you spend more now, you spend less in the long run.

Operational expenses take the opposite approach. They look at recurring expenses that your company uses to keep itself running, typically on a monthly or quarterly basis. Understanding operational expenses makes for more predictable budgeting rather than unpredictable and costly up-front costs. After all, small, monthly payments are easier to manage than larger payments at a single time, right?

What Are the Benefits of Capital Expenses?

The benefits of capital expenses, particularly for IT strategy, come down to the timing of the purchase and the amount of power you’re trying to get all at a time. Capital expenses are going to be most effective when you are adding considerable power to your infrastructure, whether it’s improving your on-site network or moving to a cloud-based model. Businesses purchase the equipment, then do what they will with it, leading to a fair amount of freedom on the manager’s part. Businesses that anticipate a decrease in IT budget might also consider investing now while the funds are available.

What Are the Benefits of Operational Expenses?

On the other hand, operational expenses are more ideal for organizations that are not able to project so far into the future or have limited funds available at a given time. Operational expenses are becoming more and more accessible, too, in the form of “as a service” offerings for cloud computing, managed IT services, hardware leasing, and so on. Businesses using operational expenses as the basis of their budgeting needs can leverage modern solutions at a lesser up-front cost, and changes can be made more efficiently compared to the large investments and amount of planning needed for capital expenditures.

If you would like to know how managed IT services can fit into your budget, look no further than MSPNetworks. Our trusted technicians can guide you through the process of looking at your own IT budget and how you want to prepare for acquiring new technology solutions. Whether you want to purchase solutions outright or you want to make the more economical decision to go with operational solutions, we’ve got you covered. Just reach out to us at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

For all the benefits that remote work offers, it does come with some challenges. Fortunately, there are different strategies that can be applied to help overcome them. Let’s break down something called structured problem solving, and how equipping your team members appropriately can help you with it.

What is Structured Problem-Solving?

Many business problems can seem large and unassailable—but I know I don’t need to tell you this. However, when something becomes so nebulous that it doesn’t seem to be approachable, it can be paralyzing. Again, you quite probably already know this.

Structured problem-solving is a technique that can help you address these issues. Basically, by dividing the massive problem into its core parts, it makes a complex conundrum far simpler to handle in a sustainable way.

One widely-implemented method to help improve existing processes is known as DMAIC—short for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. This is a solid approach to take when problems are, as we’ve said, complex.

How Does DMAIC Work?

• Define which process it is that you are experiencing issues with, where your opportunities for improvement lie, and what goals you want to reach.
• Measure how well your process is performing.
• Analyze the process to identify where the shortcomings are.
• Improve upon the shortcomings by resolving what causes them.
• Control the newly devised process to ensure performance is maintained.

That’s pretty much it—and by applying this process to each variable, structured problem-solving can more or less be used to optimize any business process that you carry out.

One of Remote Work’s Biggest Problems: Communication

It’s not a secret that there’s a divide, both literal and figurative, between your in-house employees and those that are working remotely. When in the office, communications are almost laughably easy. Businesses will have multiple communication tools available, sure, but there’s also the fact that if two people in the office really needed to communicate, they could also just step aside and have a conversation.

Your remote employees don’t have that luxury. This creates an issue. So, following DMARC in this case, we can define the problem as the lack of communication that is shared between your employees. Likewise, we can define our goal as improving communication practices between employees in different locations. From there, we can measure how frequently your employees are communicating amongst the office as compared to in-house and remote.

Next, we should analyze where exactly this process—in this case, workplace communication—is failing. Are your employees up to speed on the tools available to them? Have you expressed the importance of maintaining communication between all coworkers, not just the ones in the office?

Once we’ve compiled this information, we come up with how to solve our challenges and put efforts in place to do so. Let’s say that we elect to hold training sessions to better introduce the team to the tools at their disposal, so there’s no longer ignorance to blame for a lack of communication. Our job is not done, however, as we then need to maintain some control over this revised process. Perhaps we then implement regular refresher training sessions to reinforce these behaviors over time…and that may or may not be enough to solve the communication issues. If so, great, and if not, the process repeats.

We Can Help Solve Problems on Your Behalf

There are bound to be enough issues in your business—in any business—for you to solve that removing any from your purview is sure to be beneficial. Working with us will remove your IT from the list of things you need to worry about, whether or not your team is working in-house, remotely, or a blend of the two. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about what we can do to simplify your daily processes through improved IT.

Remote work has seen unprecedented adoption in the past few years. While we’re all for the benefits that this trend brings, it is critical that any business that embraces remote or hybrid work does so securely.

Let’s discuss a few measures that your business can and should implement to achieve this security.

How to Secure Your Remote Operations

Let’s review some of the most key safeguards that anyone working remotely should have in place.

Use a Virtual Private Network

Which sounds like the more secure option to you: your organization’s protected and monitored network infrastructure, or your second-favorite coffee shop’s GENERIC-5G network, with password coffeebeans247 scrawled on a chalkboard for its patrons to use?

If you answered the latter, please give us a call right now, because we need to have a serious talk about cybersecurity. 

Of course a properly maintained network is going to be more secure, but what happens if you need to get some work done while you’re waiting on and/or sipping your macchiato? The smart answer is to use a VPN, which encrypts your connection and shields its contents from spying eyes, while allowing your team members to safely access the materials you’ve saved on your network.

The use of a VPN should be enforced wherever a remote worker happens to be operating from, whether that’s at home, away on a business trip, or if taking a working lunch at a cafe.

Only Use Approved, Secure Devices and Software

On a related note, it is important that wherever your team members might be operating from, they are using the right tools to do so. Unapproved technology being used for business purposes without IT’s knowledge or approval—given the ominous designation of shadow IT—brings a variety of issues with it. Not only do you not have any form of control over the device or the data stored on it, there are compliance issues to be considered. 

The same goes for software. If your team members aren’t using the software that you’ve designated they use, instead seeking out alternatives online and downloading potentially dangerous data packets, you are vulnerable to some serious issues and compliance concerns.

This makes it paramount that you provide your team with access and support for the exact tools you want them to use.

Maintain Your Equipment and Software

It’s also critical that the tools your team members are using are kept in proper working order, as this will not only make them more efficient, but more secure as well.

Your remote workers will need to have devices that are remotely monitored for threats and other issues, helping ensure that they remain secure even while they aren’t in the office under your watchful eye. The same goes for the software that gives these devices some direction—threats are actively being developed to undermine it, so it is important that you are just as diligent in keeping these devices up to date. We can use the same remote monitoring and maintenance software we use to manage your in-office devices to ensure your remote team is properly equipped.

Establish Basic Security Standards

We’ll never stop talking about how important it is for businesses to maintain their cybersecurity protections, and this importance is in no way diminished by remote work practices. More than ever, you need to ensure that your team is maintaining the cybersecurity standards you expect them to. Reinforce that they’re to abide by best practices—keeping an eye out for phishing, using secure passwords with multi-factor authentication, and others—and hold them to that expectation.

We’re Here to Help Businesses Operate Effectively and Securely, Regardless of Where Their Team Members are Working.

Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about how we can assist you in making the most of your business’ technology.

Hot desking—the workplace organization method wherein there are no assigned workstations—has an assortment of pros and cons to it, but many companies are finding the more fiscal benefits to be worth the trade-offs. Let’s explore some of the pros and cons of hot desking, and go over a few tips and strategies that will help if you choose to implement it. 

First, let’s try to get a better handle on what hot desking really is.

Hot Desking is, in a Nutshell, Allowing Employees to Choose Where They Work Each Day

Instead of assigning each of your employees a dedicated workspace to use, a hot desking strategy consists of unassigned desks or shared work areas where team members come in and use what is available each day, or the work area they have reserved (more on this later). While hot desking isn’t practical for all departments in your organization—it isn’t as though reception can hide in a back office, for instance, and human resources will have needs that necessitate a devoted workspace—it can work quite well for many, if not most, of your team members.

This flexible workplace strategy brings about some real benefits…but it is important to also recognize some of its inherent drawbacks as well.

Pros of Hot Desking

There are a few advantages of hot desking that should not be overlooked:

• Cost Savings - With remote and hybrid work policies more common than they’ve been ever before, hot desking is one way to facilitate efforts to downsize your office space. Downsizing in this way leads to reduced costs in a variety of contexts, like utilities and insurance.
• Employee Satisfaction and Anti-Siloing - Speaking of remote work, hot desking in-office time helps by allowing your workers to diversify the colleagues they work amongst. Rather than a member of your sales team exclusively spending time with other sales team members, they can mingle with members of other departments and learn more as a result.
• Opportunity for Improved Collaboration - On a related note, this co-mingling between teams and departments helps to naturally encourage collaboration amongst your staff as a whole, helping boost productivity and outcomes alike.

Cons of Hot Desking

It would be insincere of us to neglect to mention some of the drawbacks of hot desking along with the benefits it presents, so:

• Challenges Finding People - Due to the flexible nature of hot desking as a strategy, it can become more of a hassle to track people down in the office. This makes those ad-hoc meetings harder to hold, ultimately slowing processes.
• Feelings of No Support - Interspersing members of different departments, with different responsibilities and work styles, can leave people feeling out of place and on their own. Plus, hot desking mostly eliminates the opportunity to personalize the workspace, leaving many less comfortable as a result.
• Unpleasant Competition - Without a fair and equitable system for your employees to use to claim a space to work, prime office real estate will likely become a point of contention for your team members. Furthermore, the different work styles we alluded to above can also create distractions between coworkers depending on the tasks they are assigned.

How to Manage a Hot Desking Workspace

If you’re interested in trying out hot desking in your office, we advise you to prioritize a few things (trust us, you’ll thank us later):

Document Your Hot Desking Policies

Obviously, this really applies to any business policy, but it is crucial that you comprehensively lay out the expectations and standards you have of employees who will be participating in a hot desking implementation. What responsibilities will these employees have? What processes will they need to follow? Setting a precedent in writing will help to reduce some of the drawbacks outlined above.

Set Up a Reservation System, and Zone Your Office for Different Needs

If hot desking leads to fewer places in the office itself to work, it becomes critical that your employees have a way to claim a workspace—otherwise, you could easily have days where there aren’t enough workplaces for your team to use. Requiring an employee to reserve a desk or work area ahead of time helps mitigate this issue.

You may also consider establishing different work zones for different tasks in the office. Whether someone’s work responsibilities might distract others or a group needs a shared space to collaborate, determining different areas to be used for different tasks can help cut down on friction.

Give Your Team Members a Space for Personalization

We discussed that a workplace devoid of any personal expression can lead to stress, and that hot desking makes this kind of expression more difficult. If you can, give your team members some secure storage space to keep personal items that can be displayed and put away each day. In addition to this, don’t hesitate to incorporate various customizable elements into each workstation—things like standing desks, adjustable monitors and chairs, and the like—so that each person is as comfortable as possible wherever they happen to be working.

Keep Things Clean

You’ll also want to enforce a clean desk policy while hot desking, just in case some employees neglect to take care of the space they’re using—after all, they might not be using it tomorrow. Provide cleaning materials, such as antibacterial wipes and hand sanitizers, and establish that your team is expected to use them.

It is also important that your team observe good data hygiene practices as well. Whether in physical or digital format, all work materials need to be properly stored at the end of the day. We recommend that the cloud is used to facilitate this, as no files are stored on the hardware used to access this data.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Today, modern IT solutions exist that make hot desking relatively seamless, so long as they are implemented properly. Making sure that all of your technology, from your networking equipment to the workstation hardware to the software your team relies on, is in proper working order is absolutely critical.

Interested in Implementing Hot Desking? We Can Help!

Managed IT services, like the ones we provide, are ideal for modern office needs. Regardless of whether your team members are working remotely, in-house, or a mix of the two, we can help deliver the IT support and services your business needs.

With our monitoring and management capabilities, we’ll make sure that the technology aspect of your business is covered. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about us and our services.

The telephone, as a technology, has been around for quite a while, more or less serving businesses for that entire time. Of course, we’ve seen quite a few advancements in telephony over the years, which has helped it to remain a cornerstone of modern business communications to this day in the form of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

Let’s take a few moments to consider just what it is that allows VoIP to remain a great business option.

What are Some Advantages VoIP Provides to Businesses?

A properly-configured VoIP solution will bring a variety of direct advantages to your operations, including:

Cost Savings
This is the big one. Think about it for a moment: how much do you spend each month for your phone services? Imagine if that just went away. With VoIP, this is possible, once you get past the initial set-up and equipment costs (and these are relatively minimal, regardless).

This alone can often be enough to convince business owners to make the switch over to VoIP services.

Operational Flexibility
One of the biggest issues with the landline is that it’s a little stuck in place, so if you or the team member receiving a call isn’t present at their desk, that message could easily be missed. VoIP enables you to leave the desk, answering the phone from wherever an Internet connection can be secured. This makes it far simpler for things like remote and hybrid work to take place, as your team will remain that much more communicative.

Intercompatibility and Capability
While VoIP is touted as an improvement to phone services, many modern VoIP systems offer far more features than just simple voice calling. Instant messaging, various voicemail capabilities, and far too many more to practically list here are all built into VoIP software.

In Short, VoIP is a Great Option Your Business Should Be Using this Year

We can help you get set up with it, too. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

When times get tough, businesses are pretty quick to start cutting costs wherever they can…and frequently, the business’ IT is the first thing to hit the chopping block.

While we contend that IT is the last thing you want to cut back on when times are tough, you may not have a choice. Therefore, we wanted to take a few moments to explore how you can resist some of these cuts—and if not, what you need to prioritize.

Let’s begin with why you should avoid cutting your IT spending if you can help it.

Let Me Ask You This: Would You Fire Your Most Effective Employee if You Were Downsizing?

Cutting your IT spending is effectively doing just that—for modern businesses, IT can often be seen as another employee, and one who accomplishes a considerable amount for your business each and every day. If you were to really take a deep dive into the benefits that your IT provides to your business, we’d be willing to bet that your IT does a lot more than you might have considered without taking that deep dive.

Therefore, if you “fire” your business’ technology by cutting down on its budget, you’re quite literally hindering one of your most effective business resources. So, what do you do if you have no choice but to downsize your IT budget?

How to Downsize Your Budget without Hurting Your IT

First, you need to properly identify which IT metrics should be focused on, as there is a huge difference between suspending a potential technology after a failed stress test and suspending a reliable and proven function that provides measurable value. Otherwise, you could potentially create what is called a false economy—perceived savings that result in higher costs later on.

It’s also important to acknowledge that some costs simply should not be cut, like technology refreshes. While it may be tempting to do so, the relative value that these investments bring make them too valuable to sacrifice.

If You Need to Minimize Your Budget While Still Getting the Most Value, Consider Managed IT Services

I know, I know… the advice for trimming a budget being to add another service may sound crazy, but there are a few ways that working with an MSP can prove to be a great cost-saving investment.

First of all, you need to consider that signing on with a managed service provider is effectively the equivalent of hiring an entire IT department for a predictable monthly cost. An MSP also gives you easy access to better deals from vendors and more advanced IT tools that allow you to accomplish more with less. Cloud-delivered services, virtualized tools and software, and remote-enabling technologies can all have a positive impact on your expenses.

My team and I would love to discuss this with you further, so if you need assistance in streamlining your IT to better fit your available budget, please give MSPNetworks a call at (516) 403-9001.

The following story and events are true, however, to protect the families of the innocent, all names have been changed. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, is purely coincidental. Enjoy and happy Halloween!

This is a transcript of a police interview with Stephen Corey. Taken by Det. Giles Gerald at 11:05 a.m. this morning. 

Det. Gerald - Please state your name and title. 

Mr. Corey - I’m the founder and CEO for North Shore Software Inc. 

Det. Gerald - Tell me what happened. 

Mr. Corey - We’ve been at the 1692 Osborne Ave location since May 10th. It was rainy, but it was actually pretty warm that morning, if you recall? I got to the office at 6:30; which is an hour and a half early as I like to have some time to myself before the staff arrives. I found it strange that there were several cars in the parking lot, but it’s not really unheard of to have cars in the lot from people that get a ride from the bar just across the street on Sundays this time of year. 

I didn’t think much of it as I gathered my things and went up to the office, but the first real curious thing was that the door to the office was already unlocked. This is Monday, mind you, ya’know, and there have been maybe one or two instances in the thirteen years I’ve owned this company that someone has beaten me to the office on Monday. I’m always the first one there; especially on Monday. So, I suddenly got a very cold feeling and was extremely worried that we’d had a break in. So instead of just barging in and potentially putting myself in a bad situation, I decided to go back to my car and call the office to make sure that I was just being paranoid and that there was, ya’know, people there who were, um, ya’know, were supposed to be there.

The phone rang twice and then Sarah answered. “Thank you for calling North Shore Software, this is Sarah, how can I direct your call?” 

Det. Gerald - This is Sarah Glanvill? 

Mr. Corey - Yes, she’s our receptionist.

Det. Gerald - Continue

Mr. Corey - I was immediately, ya’know, put at ease when I heard her voice, so I hung up without saying anything and headed into the office. Mind you, this was a very brief stretch of time; less than a minute or two. I got back to the door and went to open it and it was locked. Obviously, this was alarming, but I thought that, ya’know, it being Halloween and all that, someone was trying to mess with me a bit. So my first thought was to pound on the door. At this point, I wasn’t so much scared or annoyed, but was trying to be a good sport. I thought that Sarah, who is one of my longest-tenured employees, was just having a little fun with me. After a few seconds, there was an identical pounding on the other side of the door. 

I remember saying something like, “Okay, okay, this is fun,” as I went to unlock the door with my key. Mind you, the plan is to move over to electronic locks pretty soon, but right now we still have the wood door that came on the place with your typical locks, ya’know. Well I put my key in and it won’t turn. Now I’m starting to get annoyed, because all I want to do is start the day and I’m thinking this prank is going a little too far. I pound on the door again, and again the knocks are returned. You’ll see all this on the CCTV, but I tried to unlock the door a couple other times with no luck.  I then call to end the charade and have Sarah, who at that time I’m completely convinced is doing all this to mess with me, unlock the door.

So, as I went around the back to get in the building, I’m annoyed. I call up and she answers “Thank you for calling North Shore Software, this is Sarah, how can I direct your call?” I’m like Sarah, “This isn’t funny anymore. Let me in the building!” I get nothing, but “North Shore Software, this is Sarah, how can I direct your call?” At this point, I’m at the back door. I hang up, not finding the humor in this whole thing, and I go to unlock the back door. I unlock the door and I get halfway in and the door slams and locks. 

At this point I’m just standing there angry and dumbfounded. I try the lock and the key won’t turn. It’s as if the locks were magically changed. I start pounding on the door yelling and swearing. Just then I see headlights shining down the alley on the south side of the building. They are coming from the parking lot. I walk toward the parking lot and the lights go off and as I get to the front of the building. I hear: “Good morning, Mr. Corey. Happy Halloween.” It was Sarah. Even though I just saw her pull up, my blood is up, so I start yelling at her, asking her why she would keep the prank going so long? She has no idea what I am talking about. 

I start barraging her with questions, and accusations, really. She starts to plead and cry, not only because she is being accused, but because she must have thought I was losing my damn mind. By now it’s 7 (a.m) or just after and I’m in a frenzy. I put my phone on speakerphone and Sarah, who is standing right in front of me, on the verge of tears, answers “North Shore Software, this is Sarah, how can I direct your call?”

I’m not so sure I’ve ever felt more insane and more sorry. She was as surprised as I was to hear her voice. I knew then that I was dealing with something I didn’t understand. I don’t believe in ghosts, but at that moment I thought for sure there was something paranormal going on, ya’know. I was, um, well, scared. Other employees began to pull up and I didn’t know what else to do so I called you guys and told them to go on home and work remotely until I knew what was going on.

Det. Gerald - What happened when the responding officers got there?

Mr. Corey - Obviously, I’m upset. At this point I was convinced there is someone in my place of business who isn’t supposed to be in there…or ya’know, something…There weren’t any lights on that I could see, but someone is actively trying to keep me out of the building. Officers Mather and Cotton came pretty fast and asked Sarah and I a bunch of questions about what was going on. I told them what I told you and they said if I let them in the building they would go in and see what is going on. I told them that the door was unlocked when I got there and then was locked and that someone slammed the back door on me after that. 

We went up to the door and the door unlocked fine. They went in and it was quickly pretty evident that no one broke in. They returned in minutes to say that there was nobody there and the place was clear. By then more officers had showed up and Sarah helped me by sending workers away as I looked around to see if I could figure out who the hell was there. The officers said the back door was not locked. Obviously, this surprised me. 

Det. Gerald - So who do you think was there?

Mr. Corey - That’s the thing, nothing is missing. I looked through the CCTV footage and I didn’t see anyone entering or leaving. The only thing I saw on those tapes was me struggling with the doors. Someone broke in; I’m sure of it, but I can’t tell you for certain who it was. 

Det. Gerald - Maybe you imagined it. Have you been dealing with more stress than usual?

(Just as Det. Gerald asked the question, an unknown number called Mr. Corey’s phone).

Mr. Corey - No. 

(Mr. Corey ignored the call)

No. I can’t really explain any of it, but I…

(Phone rings again)

Can I take this?

Det. Gerald - Yeah.

Mr. Corey - (into the phone) Hello? (inaudible; Mr. Corey then presses the speaker button on his phone) 

Phone - “...this is Sarah, how can I direct your call?” 

Mr. Corey - Who is this? Who is this??! (hangs up).

Det. Gerald - What was that?

Mr. Corey - That was Sarah the receptionist, but it obviously wasn’t. 

(Just then the phone rang again: Unknown number)

Det. Gerard - Give me the phone. 

(Mr. Corey handed the phone to the officer and he answers it and puts it on speaker)

This is Detective…

Phone - “...North Shore Software, this is Sarah, how can I direct your call?”

At MSPNetworks, we offer enterprise business telephone systems that have all types of features, including virtual receptionists that can help your business direct your calls to the people you are looking to talk to. You can gain the peace of mind that you will get the end-to-end telephone service your business needs without the chance of being haunted by a human or specter. Visit our VoIP page for more information. 

It doesn’t matter if your workplace is your typical office space or if it is remote. There will always be factors that can contribute to burnout. These struggles are not exclusive to the location of the office, and if left unchecked they can impact work performance, productivity, mental health, and so on. It’s important that you have coping mechanisms and strategies in place to address burnout before it becomes too severe to counter.

Let’s go over some of the ways you can encourage employees to prioritize their own mental health to reduce burnout from the workplace.

Minimizing Burnout

Here are some strategies you can use to keep burnout at bay.

Stop, Take a Breath, and Focus

If enough pressure builds up, you’re going to break, no matter how strong-willed you are. You need a break every once in a while. It’s important that you make your breaks as impactful as possible by taking a moment to clear your mind of all the clutter and take slow, deep breaths. Once you’re ready, you can get back to work.

Encourage Communications Across Departments

People rely on others to help them get their jobs done, so you should be prepared to ask for help from other departments or other people at your company to handle tasks as needed. You shouldn’t isolate yourself and your tasks from others who might help you get things done in a more efficient or stress-free way.

Be sure to establish clear lines of communication with other departments so when the time comes for collaboration, you’ll know exactly who to talk to and when. Collaboration lightens the workload for all, and it can reduce burnout in spades.

Consider Low-Pressure Hobbies

Some people bring their work home with them, so to speak, when they use their personal time and space to work or worry about work. This kind of stress can wear people down over time and create burnout.

We recommend that all employees have hobbies and interests outside of the workplace so they can get their mind off things when they need to. This will help to mitigate burnout and help them do things they enjoy.

Implement Procedures to Help with Stress

One of the best things you can do for your workplace is to implement procedures that take the stress out of work. You can streamline processes by automating them and reducing the margin for error, allowing employees to invest that time in better, less stressful and more meaningful work, thereby reducing stress further.

Combat Burnout Before You Get Burned

If you keep your team engaged in their work, burnout will eventually become a factor, so take steps now to keep it in check. MSPNetworks can help you in this effort by making sure that technology struggles don’t exacerbate the problem. To learn more, call us at (516) 403-9001.

2023 is right around the corner, and if the past few years are any indication, it will be rife with challenges for businesses to overcome. Let’s consider some of these challenges, and what technologies can help minimize or even eliminate them.

Inflation and Supply Chain Issues Will Likely Continue

Unfortunately, the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy is expected to persist throughout 2023. Exacerbating these issues, the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia has not helped matters in terms of supply chain stability. Now and moving forward, businesses need to plan for any supply chain disruptions or impacts of inflation…but how can this be accomplished?

When economic conditions are fraught with such risk, it is important that you are able to identify how vulnerable your operations are to the whims of the aforementioned challenges. By doing so, you’ll be in a better position to minimize or completely eliminate your vulnerability to these factors.

Customer Experience and Sustainability Will Be Priorities

Based on how 2023 looks to be shaping up, it will be important for you to address your customers’, clients’, and prospects’ priorities—which seem to be focused on sustainable operations. With more focus put on a company’s stance on assorted social and environmental issues, it will be important that businesses are able to identify where their current strategies and initiatives may be received poorly or have a negative impact on the company’s reputation—including those strategies that involve external parties, like cloud providers and the data centers they rely on, and how the impacts these parties have affected the business by association. 

Likewise, your customers, clients, and prospects need more than just the assurance that you’re operating in an environmentally conscious way…they will want to be wooed, and in a more personalized and interactive way. This will also require the right IT to be in place, deployed so that workflows are streamlined and enhanced through technologies that have developed to the point that many of these responsibilities are resolved through automation. This not only ensures that the right processes are carried out in a timely manner, it allows your team members to divert their energies toward more gainful endeavors.

Employee Retention Will Require Effort

Since the onset of the pandemic, many businesses have struggled to keep their employees engaged, with many of these workers either leaving work as part of what has been called “The Great Resignation,” or participating in the more recent trend of “quiet quitting,” or strictly adhering to exclusively the responsibilities outlined in their job description and doing nothing more.

It is on the employer to then work to retain their employees through meaningful and fulfilling work and the benefits associated with it. Allowing for hybrid work is a great means of doing so, along with opportunities for upward mobility and increased pay and benefits.

What is Your Business Doing to Prepare for 2023?

Whatever it is, MSPNetworks can help you manage the IT that it requires. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to speak to us about what we can do for you.

Chances are pretty good that, by this point, you’ve heard of burnout—maybe you’ve even suffered from it before yourself—but, just in case you’re a remarkably lucky human being, it’s the phenomenon where your employees become disengaged to the point where their performance suffers. While this isn’t good in any facet of your business, it can be especially damaging in terms of your security.

Let’s explore the concept of cybersecurity burnout (spoiler alert: it’s present at all levels, all the way up to cybersecurity pros) and how it could potentially cause problems for your business.

What is Cybersecurity Burnout?

The concept of burnout is a simple one: as we’ve said, it’s a deep-seated disengagement that one of your employees feels from the job you employed them to do. Cybersecurity burnout, generally speaking, is burnout that impacts a business’ cybersecurity professionals and leads them to feel this level of disengagement. However, the reality of today’s workplace is that everyone has to be responsible for cybersecurity.

As a result, everyone is also susceptible to cybersecurity burnout.

 In terms of cybersecurity burnout, the aforementioned disengagement presents itself in a few different ways:

• Human error, in terms of missed phishing signs due to increased stress (which enables attackers to hide their attacks that much more effectively)
• Increased apathy, leading to less adherence to best practices like password standards or bans on shadow IT
• Diminished productivity, leading to less accomplished for your business overall
• Turnover, as stressed and frustrated employees seek out better work environments and compensation

None of this bodes well for a business, so what can be done to prevent this kind of burnout?

How Can I Keep My Employees Engaged in Cybersecurity?

When it comes to cybersecurity burnout, resolving it is very similar to how you would resolve any kind of burnout:

• Recover - Burnout is largely the result of an employee being worn down and exhausted, emotionally and mentally. Giving them the chance to recharge their batteries throughout the day—and insisting they utilize it—can help them break the patterns that lead to swifter burnout.
• Reorient - Once your team members have recovered somewhat, it’s time to help them get back on task in a more effective and balanced manner. Helping them identify their priorities and grasp the importance of their security-related tasks is an effective way to do so.
• Renew - Finally, it is time to help prevent this kind of cybersecurity burnout from coming back. Encourage your team members to develop their professional relationships with one another, and work with them to help align the values that they have with those of your company.

Turn to Us for Assistance with Your Cybersecurity

We’re here to help you keep your business secured in any way we can, especially through our monitoring and maintenance services. This can help take some of the pressure off your employees, allowing them to focus on their tasks more effectively.

Find out more by giving us a call at (516) 403-9001.

Look, I’m not going to pretend that the executive level of any size of business doesn’t already have plenty on its plate. Having said that, it is important that a business’ top dogs are on the same page as its IT team members. Let’s run through the different points that this relationship should focus on for your operational benefit.

To begin, we’ll review the role that your IT should play in your workplace.

Technology Maintenance Goes Far Beyond Basic Tech Support

Despite all the effort we and other service providers like us put into spreading awareness about modern IT services, the first impression of an IT person—or even an IT department in its entirety—is largely similar to what it has been for decades:

• They’re someone you call when something breaks
• IT is ultimately a necessary business cost
• Communicating with your IT staff is more often than not a painful or drawn-out task

However, more modern methodologies have made these conceptions decidedly outdated. Today, your IT should be a legitimate business asset that brings increased value to your operations—something that is very possible with today’s solutions.

In addition, technology doesn’t need to break before IT gets involved. Nowadays, the industry is shifting its focus to something called proactive maintenance—basically, the idea that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, just applied to business technology.

Let me put it this way—let’s say you’re cooking. Does it make more sense to have all your ingredients out and prepared as you go, or to run back and forth between the pantry and your cooktop to hurriedly prep each ingredient as you need it? While the latter option might help you get some extra steps in, the first is clearly going to be more effective in your attempt to make Duck Pâté en Croûte.

Modern IT maintenance is the same. Instead of encountering an issue and scrambling to make the needed updates, repairs, or what-have-you before your operations are impacted too much, modern MSPs actively work to maintain your technology so that updates are applied in a timely manner, repairs are avoided through maintenance, and what-have-yous become you-don’t-have-tos.

Why It’s Crucial That IT and Management Collaborate

Nowadays, there are a lot of places where IT needs to be involved in the workplace and its processes. In addition to the aforementioned maintenance, IT plays various roles that management should be depending on, if they aren’t already. Management should be leaning on IT to help create a roadmap for their future business technology to follow, based on industry trends and how their particular business plans are taking shape.

This means you need to ensure that you are working with your IT resource—whether that’s an in-house department or an outsourced provider like MSPNetworks—to ensure that your goals are aligned with their priorities.

Working with us, you can be sure that they will be.

We work with our clients closely to ensure that their leadership is ready to not only use their technology, but thrive through its use. Interested in learning more about what we can offer you and your business’ IT? Give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

The average person will spend an estimated one-third of their life at work. One third. That’s a lot of time, providing plenty of opportunity to accumulate stress. Over time, these emotions could potentially overwhelm your employees and lead to a breakdown. This is, naturally, harmful to your business, so let’s explore some strategies you can share with your team to help them deal with their workday stresses.

Separate Yourself from Your Stress

The feeling of rising stress is unmistakable, particularly when you’ve experienced it before. Sometimes, escaping this stress is a matter of actually moving yourself away from it. Take a break, walk away, and do some deep breathing. Removing yourself from the situation can make all the difference, allowing you to rally and recover.

On the emotional side of things, practice looking at things from an outside perspective. While the situation will still be stressful, doing your best to take yourself out of it and considering it as though it is happening to someone else can help to take off the pressure until you can collect yourself. It can also give you the insight needed to see the stress-inducing issues from a new perspective, allowing you to solve them more effectively. 

Identify What Triggers Your Stress

If you want to avoid emotional breakdowns at work, it’s important that you are able to figure out what sets you off so that you can adjust to avoid or minimize them. For instance, maybe you have a rough time handling criticism, or you get a little bit of stage fright while making a presentation. Once you’ve identified these triggers, you can start to create techniques to help you manage your response…maybe a quick conversation with a trusted coworker before you have to speak, or (as we alluded to above) taking a walk to process the criticism you’ve received. 

Work Through Emotions

Speaking of processing criticism, it’s important that any and all negative feelings are appropriately dealt with so that they don’t interfere with workplace processes or relationships. Simply trying to push these feelings down and lock them away is exhausting and, frankly, unsustainable. This is why it is so important to take the time to process these emotions before they lead to the dreaded meltdown.

Have a Recovery Strategy

However, in the event that your emotions do get the better of you in the office, you need to be able to recover. Fortunately, there’s precedent that says that associating these kinds of emotions with your commitment to your job helps others in the office to see them less negatively—research conducted by Harvard Business School says as much. Explain that the stress is borne of a desire to see personal and organizational success, and try to manage your emotions better the next time.

The Right Technology Can Help Cut Down on Workplace Stress

While we would never suggest that all stress will be eliminated with a few IT improvements, it can certainly help simplify a lot of things in the workplace. Reach out to us for assistance in managing your IT so that’s one less source of stress for you and your team. Call (516) 403-9001 today.

Many, many companies have adopted remote work policies and practices since the COVID-19 pandemic forced most to downsize (if not cease outright) on-site operations about two years ago. Now, as we enter 2022, it seems a good time to reexamine the security that we have protecting our businesses and the workers currently operating remotely.

The Pandemic Has Shown Businesses How Well Remote Work Can Work

Despite the resistance that many initially had to the concept of remote work, it quickly proved to be a blessing for those companies that adopted it. Now, about two years later, its value has continued as it has kept a lot of businesses open and operational to some extent as infection rates have fluctuated. This approach has also proven popular amongst the employees who are participating in remote work efforts. A PwC survey conducted in August revealed that nearly a fifth of these workers would like to be fully remote, even without COVID in the picture.

However, for all the benefits that remote operations have provided to businesses, we need to address the elephant that snuck into the room with them: the cybersecurity challenges that remote work and working from home have introduced.

Unfortunately, Remote Work Can Provide Cybercriminals with Opportunity

Despite all the positive aspects that remote work has to offer a business, we can’t pretend that it doesn’t come with its share of challenges—specifically, in terms of maintaining an acceptable level of cybersecurity.

The reality of it all is that your team members simply aren’t going to have the same protections in their home as you should in the office, which means you need to do all you can to supplement the protections you have in place.

Security Issues Can Come from All Angles

Unfortunately, there are many factors in play that can unpleasantly influence your business’ cybersecurity. Not only may your team members be using their own technology to do their job, they’ll certainly be doing so on a network that you don’t have control over. As a result, this network will almost certainly lack the protections you have on your business.

Furthermore, as they’re working remotely, your team members are going to be on their own. This makes it that much less likely that they’ll be as focused on their security practices as they should be, and more exposed to threats as a result.

So, While Remote Work Can Be Valuable, You Need to Keep It From Making You Vulnerable

It’s obvious that you need to protect your business from any threats it faces…the question is how you can do that. There are a lot of practices and solutions that we recommend a business have its users adopt to help shore up these vulnerabilities. For instance:

• If an employee has no choice but to use a public Wi-Fi connection, make sure they are utilizing a reputable VPN (virtual private network) to secure data while it is being transmitted
• To help prevent employees from transferring data from work devices to private ones, putting together a Bring Your Own Device policy to help establish some control over the device and allowing them remote access to your infrastructure or using the cloud helps to secure your data.
• Password practices need to be upheld just as vigorously as they would be in the office. Not only do they need to be complex enough, they all need to be unique. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) should also be implemented to double-down on the security that accounts are protected by.
• Physical security also needs to be remembered when working remotely. Devices should never be left unattended in a public place, and it is not a bad idea to secure them in the home as an added safety precaution.
• All devices used for work, including the modem and router supplying wireless Internet, need to be kept up-to-date so that they remain secure.
• All remote users should be reminded of the threat that scams and phishing attacks pose, with ongoing training and other awareness-enhancing activities being conducted on a regular basis.

Yes, this is a lot, but it’s all important to do to keep your business secure. We’re here to help businesses do so. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.