Technology Unwrapped

Every business requires careful planning for success, especially when it comes to disasters and major events. But what do all of the terms, like business continuity, disaster recovery, and data backups, actually mean? What are the differences between them?   In order to form an adequate response plan for your business, it’s essential to understand the differences in these three closely related topics so you can best prepare your business for any scenario. 

Not every disaster that wreaks havoc on a business has to be a major natural event like a fire, blizzard, flood or tornado. Even something as simple as accidental deletion or one wrong click on a phishing email could instigate a disastrous domino effect in your organization.   And it’s not just your company’s revenue that is impacted by downtime. There are other ways that unplanned IT downtime can impact your business, including:   Data loss  Lost productivity  A damaged reputation  Actual ...

Microsoft Teams has reached 115 million daily active users, and those numbers aren’t going to decrease anytime soon. The convenience and functionality of this platform makes it a serious contender for business communication in any industry.   If your business isn’t already using Microsoft Teams, you’re missing out on an easy-to-navigate hub where you can get all of your team and project communications done in one place.  

As any business can attest (especially after the numerous events of 2020), maintaining a business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan is important to reducing your business risk and downtime. The plan will outline specific response strategies in the event of a disaster.  Disasters, big or small, can include things like:   Floods, fires, and blizzards  Accidental deletions or security breaches  Hardware failures or power outages  And more  No matter what types of events may attempt to ...

In today’s tech-savvy and tech-ready world, anyone can go out and purchase tools or enlist services to outsource business IT services. However, the real value comes from customizing all the services that wrap around those tools and making them applicable to your small business needs—instead of a one-size-fits-all approach that may only address a few of your needs. That’s where building a strong relationship with your business IT support company comes in.

For most small business executives and managers, their primary business operations do not revolve around technology and cyber security. In fact, most executives prefer to focus on the day-to-day tasks of improving and growing their business rather than deal with technology problems. However, those technology problems often have a way of turning into stumbling blocks that reduce efficiency, increase downtime and leave the business vulnerable to a data breach. 

Like many organizations, you’re likely using Microsoft Teams to chat, call and collaborate with employees in the “new normal,” but did you know that there are applications and bots that you can use within Microsoft Teams? Known as Microsoft Teams connectors, these applications and bots make Microsoft Teams even more of a productivity powerhouse.

Vendors provide a lot of vital services to small businesses, such as internet access, financial operations, copier services, telephone systems, software solutions and much more. However, coordinating your infrastructure, software, equipment and other components can be time consuming and confusing, especially if you don’t have technical experience in those categories. 

Although it may not be at the forefront of day-to-day business procedures, knowing how to respond in the event of natural disasters, security breaches or server failures remains a vital part of all business operations. Every organization must have a business continuity plan in place for backup and recovery in order to reduce downtime and customer interruptions. 

A reliable and secure internet connection has become critical in today’s business world, no matter what industry your organization is in. And, there are several aspects that could be slowing down your network or clogging up your connection. You might have email hosted on Microsoft 365, have servers in AWS or Azure, use a cloud-based phone system, have several branch locations that need to exchange data or you have many staff members working remotely. That’s a lot of traffic being routed across ...