MSPNetworks Blog

If you truly want to run your business effectively, it all starts with understanding how its costs break down. If you are armed with this knowledge, you can make better decisions about solution procurement and operations management. Let’s examine how you can cut costs without harming your business in the process.

Outsourcing Can Help

Outsourcing is often misunderstood, but it is an incredibly powerful tool to control your costs and improve operations. If you take part of your business that is costly to run normally, then outsource it to a provider, you get more stable costs and expertise that you might not normally be able to leverage.

Businesses have all sorts of outsourcing options these days, including gig workers or managed service providers. You can outsource help desks for support, or you can outsource recruitment and payroll. The sky's the limit, so to speak; if you can imagine it, you can probably outsource it, provided you find an appropriate vendor.

Data Allows for Better Decision-Making

The more data your business has, the more tools and resources it has at its disposal to enable better decision-making. You can look at data to learn about what has worked well in the past, what could work well in the future, and what needs to be addressed immediately. Data is key to the many types of initiatives you might have planned for the future.

Data analytics can give your business key insights into how it can be more efficient with sales, marketing, operational processes, and so on. It can help you build better consumer experiences and customer relationships, something which can increase revenue and give you more resources to work with in the future.

Keep Flexibility in Mind

You can provide greater value to your employees by keeping flexibility at the top of your mind. This means giving them tools to communicate and be productive whether they are in the office or on the move, and thanks to cloud-based resources and solutions, you can do this easily and efficiently.

Another way you can innovate and keep things flexible is through the use of artificial intelligence technology. An AI chatbot, for example, can free up employees for other tasks, focusing instead on tasks that generate revenue.

MSPNetworks can help your business be more cost-effective and productive at the same time. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Every business has different types of workers; often to management’s chagrin. Ideally, all of an organization’s workers would be enthusiastic about their jobs and the status of a business as a whole. Unfortunately, people don’t always have like minds about the state of things and can see their morale reduced and their productivity wane. 

Keeping your people engaged does more than build a more productive business; it saves money. Recruiting and onboarding new talent is extraordinarily expensive and time consuming, so retaining the talent you acquire is all the more important.

There are a few things any business can do to engage their employees a little better and get them to feel a little more invested, even if they work remotely. Let’s take a look at a few

Promote Work/Life Balance

In order for your business to find success, your people have to work, that is undeniable. Ironically, the best way for people to find the focus at work is to have a solid work/life balance. Today’s businesses tend to have workforces that are much more distributed than businesses of the past, and that can wreak havoc on a business’ ability to promote a dedicated company culture. It can also cause workers to work longer hours, which encourages the overwhelming pressure that business is all around them all the time, a major contributor to burnout. 

There are plenty of ways that an organization can assist their employees improve their work/life balance. They include:

• Value productivity over time - One of the biggest problems managers cause is looking at the amount of time that an employee works rather than what they do in the time that they work. As we stated before, your business needs productivity, they don’t necessarily rely on employees to put in workweeks that run counterproductive to their mental well-being. 
• Encourage breaks - When you are busy, work can get difficult to get away from. Encouraging your staff to take breaks to get away from the work for a little bit not only gives them a respite from the grind, but will give them a chance to use their phones, because you know they are going to. 
• Paid time off - Most places require a business to provide some paid time off, but the more paid time that you can provide your staff, the more they can enjoy their lives outside of the workplace. Having five days of sick/vacation time is nice, but having more allows people to take a vacation, manage their outside life better; and, the better they are at that, the more effective they will be at work.  

Gamify the Workplace

One of the best ways to get superior employee engagement is to gamify your workplace. This is really a hit with the younger workforce. The theory behind gamification is that if you give everything your team does a points system and then give out prizes for the employees that produce the best work, you will get people competing for those prizes and the whole lot of work will improve. Here are three benefits to gamifying your workplace:

Improve Engagement

Part of boosting morale is improving engagement, and nothing gets people’s productive juices flowing quite as much as an open competition. The more fun a person can have while doing work, the more engaged with that work they will be. 

Recognize Excellence

A big problem that many workers have at work is that they can excel at their job and it is completely taken for granted. By gamifying your workplace, the employees that are doing the most to push your business’ initiatives forward will presumably rank high on the gamification leaderboard. This not only gives top performers the recognition they deserve, it also can work to make a lot of internal business decisions simpler. 

Improve Efficiency

When people compete for prizes, they tend to do their best to win those prizes. This means that more will get done faster. This improved efficiency is great for your business as it can speed business up and create holistic growth. The more efficient a business is, the more productive it is. The more productive a business is, the better the business performs. 

When in Doubt, Pay Better

This might be the last thing a business owner wants to hear, but this is one of the leading reasons that an employee will look for another job. If you want to avoid that, pizza parties and pats on the back will only go so far—you need to pay them competitively.

If you would like more information about how technology can be used to improve your business and help build a more productive, fun, and engaging work environment, give MSPNetworks a call today at (516) 403-9001.

We hate to be the bad guy, but we’re certain that you cannot multitask nearly as well as you think you can. Multitasking is just not how the human brain works, and whether or not you believe in the psychology of it, we think you stand to benefit by outsourcing some of the tasks on your plate to a managed service provider.

Managed services are effective to help you spend less time on your IT and more time on your actual job duties and responsibilities.

The Proof is in the Proverbial Pudding

To put things in perspective, only about 2.5% of people can effectively multitask, so it’s highly unlikely that you are in the minority who can do so without compromising the quality of your work.

What you think is multitasking is really just your brain switching gears over and over, and the more complicated these tasks are, the less effective it is at switching between them. Your performance is sure to suffer if you can’t keep up.

How This Shows Up in the Workplace

It’s difficult at best to do multiple tasks at the same time, so let’s take a look at some of the tasks that might be pulling you away from your important work:

• Managing employees to ensure they are reaching your organizational and operational goals.
• Managing the public face of the company, including how you appear to the community, clients, and vendors.
• Ensuring compliance with laws and regulations.
• Managing the sales and marketing efforts of your organization.

Notice how we haven’t even mentioned IT on that list yet; it’s a whole other beast to tackle.

Managed IT Removes Some of the Burden on Your Business

Really, you shouldn’t be managing your technology anyway—you should be relying on a professional like MSPNetworks. Give us a call today and we can discuss how it’s beneficial for you to work with us.

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.

In business, experience is always useful. Nowhere is that more apparent than when managing your organization’s IT infrastructure. The problem is that acquiring the expertise to do just that can be quite confusing for most business owners. Today, we’ll talk about how technology management experience can produce better business from one end to the other. 

Value of Modern IT

For any-sized business, the use of technology can present huge steps forward in terms of productivity and efficiency. For the business that actively tries to find the right technology to aid its operations, it can be maddening and frustrating. This is because there is seemingly an endless amount of options available, all of which promise to help build a better business. The thing is, not all technology that works for one business, works for another. 

The technology consultants at MSPNetworks work daily with New York businesses to help them get the technology to drive their business initiatives forward. This isn’t just about getting computers set up, it’s about getting the tools into a business that can work to make productivity easier, automate menial tasks, and build an efficient workforce that doesn’t have to struggle to collaborate. 

The value of modern IT can be immeasurable if it is implemented and supported correctly. That’s why having experienced technicians that understand both the fundamentals of supporting business technology and how it works to improve a business’ operational effectiveness is important. 

Experience With Business Technology

As far as delivering the right technology, technicians with experience not only understand how a business can utilize certain solutions to solve operational problems, but they also understand the potential value it has to a business as a whole. The procurement of new technology can be difficult for people that don’t know exactly what is needed to accomplish organizational goals.

Since most businesses have to be diligent about choosing prudent technology investments, having experienced perspectives is a great benefit that can go beyond dollars and cents; it can create environments where workers can be the most productive and allow business leaders to build processes that can bring a level of consistency that isn’t found in businesses that don’t have expert perspective driving their IT investments. 

In business today there are a lot of considerations to be made about IT. Does your business use remote workers? Does it have systems that need more security or more transparency? Most important of all, can it build the dynamic IT infrastructure you need to forge ahead confidently? With MSPNetworks consultants working to help build your business’ technology, you can gain the peace of mind needed to know that you are getting the IT you need affordably. This makes for a more reliable technology environment. 

Experience with Support

Getting the right technology is only half the battle. If it isn’t supported, managed, and maintained correctly, you might as well flush money down the toilet. The key to a reliable IT infrastructure is expert support. This means experienced IT technicians that know what they are looking for/at and that are able to reliably keep your technology up and running efficiently and securely.

Today, there are more threats than ever, and that is before you consider that technology breaks. To ensure that your business doesn’t grind to a halt with technology problems, having experienced IT experts actively working on keeping your IT running effectively is more important than ever. Of course, you can hire IT staff to accomplish this, but if your business can’t afford the thousands of dollars a month that a professional IT technician would command, considering a managed service provider like MSPNetworks is your best option. Not only can you have experienced IT technicians at the ready if something happens, they work proactively to ensure that you don’t have to deal with productivity-sapping downtime. 

Business IT can get complicated, but at MSPNetworks we pride ourselves on being a solution to our clients’ IT problems, not another problem. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 today to talk to one of our consultants about how we can help you get the most out of your business. 

Today, there is a greater focus on mental health and wellbeing than ever before, especially in the shadow of the pandemic. Do you want to improve your employees’ relationships with their colleagues, family, and other important people in their lives? The key to doing so might be remote work, according to a new survey.

What the Research Says

A survey conducted by Deloitte’s Center for Technology, Media and Communications examined 2,005 United States consumers to gain some insight into people’s use of technology throughout the pandemic. You might be surprised by the results, or you might not be. Spoiler alert: it’s overwhelmingly in favor of remote or hybrid work operations.

The survey determined that among employed adult workers with remote work experience, three-quarters of them prefer remote or hybrid work compared to commuting to the office. About half of employed adults overall prefer remote or hybrid work compared to the traditional office environment. Note the significant difference in preference for those who have gotten a taste of remote or hybrid work during the pandemic, but even overall, there is a strong preference for remote or hybrid work.

Relationships Can Flourish from Remote Work

One of the big surprises from the survey focused on the benefits that employees experienced as a result of working remotely. The vast majority—eight-in-ten employees—found that their relationships improved or stayed the same as a result of working remotely. These types of relationships included personal, professional, familial, and even their relationships with themselves, citing better mental and physical wellbeing. About half of the respondents found a significant improvement in these areas of their lives.

It is worth noting, however, that employees did not see too significant an increase in their relationships with their bosses, supervisors, or colleagues, although they did not suffer a decrease either.

Implement Remote Technologies to Help Your Team

Many businesses were forced to transition to remote work policies following the pandemic, and while most employees have returned to their workplaces by now, there are still plenty who remain remote or under hybrid work arrangements. If your business wants to expand its capabilities by offering remote or hybrid arrangements on a more permanent basis, then we urge you to contact MSPNetworks.

We can help you implement all of the technology solutions your team needs to stay connected even while out of the office, including communication and collaboration tools, security solutions, and cloud-based storage or applications to ensure operations can continue as smoothly as possible. You might be surprised by how many employees can effectively do their jobs without being on-site.

To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

For a business, technology solves a lot of problems. Covering operational pain points is what it does best, after all. Unfortunately, they come with their own pain points that have to be dealt with. In today’s blog, we’ll give you a list of common technology pain points a small business can have and how managed IT services go above and beyond to mitigate those problems. 

A Lack of IT Competency from the Top

One of the most familiar problems that businesses have with their technology is a complete lack of acumen when it comes to the decision makers of the business. It’s understandable that most business owners don’t have a strong IT background; that’s what they pay their IT staff for. The problem becomes when they don’t fully understand IT risks and how their IT strategy, systems, and support need to evolve as those risks evolve. 

To get management and IT on the same page there needs to be an open line of communication and an IT team staffed with people that can competently (and proactively) bring potential problems to light so that they can be confronted. The worst-case scenario is an IT team that acts independently without proper communication as it can lose the confidence of decision-makers and make an already difficult situation untenable. 

Setting Up Lines of Communication 

In today’s business environment, it isn’t always easy to get people on the same page. Sure, there are now a lot of options in which to do so, and that is half the problem. For a business to be successful there needs to be clear paths of communication from management to every level of the business, from the staff and the customers, and from the customers back to the business. This can be a challenge to set up and maintain, especially with app fatigue becoming a real issue. 

One of the best ways to circumvent bottlenecks in communication is to start with a strong management software with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities. Many industries have their own type of management software that not only gives clear lines of communication to all levels of a business, but can also work to automate a lot of the things that could hinder those lines of communication.

On top of that, every business needs to roll out a series of reliable communication tools, such as video conferencing with integrated Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), some type of direct messaging platform, and for businesses that rely on collaboration to churn out work, a dedicated collaboration platform that provides useful communication strategies designed to move business forward faster. 

Too Much to Do

Since IT is such a big deal in modern business, it may just be that there is simply too much on your IT team’s plate and they simply cannot possibly get everything they want to get done (or that you want them to get done) in the timelines needed. Since every department in the business relies on the IT team to keep their technology working optimally, it can be a major challenge for IT technicians and administrators to handle every request in the time demanded by your staff. 

There are a couple of solutions to this problem. One is to have a platform in place so that people can see exactly what tasks the IT team is scheduled with. This is an option in most central management programs and can go a long way toward helping decision makers and other staff understand just how much is being asked of their IT team.

Another great solution is to hire an outsourced IT team to handle projects or standard management and have your IT team focus on the other. This co-managed approach to IT support can really be beneficial as it provides your business with the expertise it needs to get all your technology demands covered, while also costing substantially less than hiring more IT technicians. 

Security is a Constant Issue

If you are a consistent reader of this blog, you know just how important cybersecurity is to the sustainability of your business. There are more, and ever-evolving threats out there that need your attention. All it takes is one IT security vulnerability to put your business in a precarious position, so ensuring that your systems are patched and updated, and that your crew are trained and properly using strategies and tools that give them the best chance to protect your business’ computing systems, is extremely important. 

Most businesses operate under some type of compliance mandates and typically do what they can to keep them from being a pain in their side, but we can’t stress enough the role your staff plays in the protection of your IT systems (and ultimately your business). Having policies in place and available training is something that wasn’t too commonplace for years, but today it is essential to keep your employees and your businesses' computing systems and data secure. 

At MSPNetworks, we can help your organization get the technology, comprehensive support, and the policymaking acumen you need to keep your business safe and your IT pain points from rearing their head too often. Give us a call today at (516) 403-9001 to learn just how useful our team of IT professionals can be for your business.

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.

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.

When it comes to your technology infrastructure, it’s natural that some of your solutions will be more used than others, but do you know where you are wasting money and resources? Today’s blog article is all about the digital employee experience, or DEX, and how you can use it to better your business’ relationship with its technology solutions.

What is DEX?

Digital Employee Experience, or DEX for short, looks specifically at how effectively your team is using the tools at their disposal, as well as how they interact with them in the first place. Specifically, DEX should focus on tracking, assessing, and improving the employee’s technology user experience. We bet you can already start to see why it’s important to keep this in mind when implementing or examining your business’ technology solutions.

Why Should You Care?

Simply put, employees are more effective and more engaged in their work when they feel like their input surrounding how they get that work done matters. They want to have an easy time navigating their way through the various tools and user interfaces that you expect them to use on a daily basis. If you don’t take care of your employees’ DEX, they will be more likely to suffer from burnout, leading them to move on to a different place of employment that does prioritize such things.

Furthermore, the pandemic has many employees working in a remote or hybrid environment, meaning that the technology they use day-to-day is even more important than ever before. They want to feel connected to their coworkers and their organization, something which is incredibly difficult without an on-site presence. DEX can help you learn more about how to keep these employees engaged and satisfied with their work.

It can be difficult to admit that technology you have implemented over the years is no longer effective for your workforce, but that’s okay. Technology has evolved so much over the years that you can’t be expected to maintain the status quo with what worked twenty, ten, or even five years ago. Be willing to accept and embrace change, and you’ll find the workplace is a more enjoyable place for all.

Improve Your DEX with Managed IT Services and Training

You want to ensure that your team is actually using the tools at their disposal, and you want to know that they are satisfied with the tools you provide them. This is where managed IT services come into play. You can provide the best solutions on the market, complex with comprehensive support and training, to your employees. It doesn’t take a huge budget to offer this type of benefit to your employees; it just takes knowledge and industry expertise, both of which MSPNetworks offers in spades.

We can work with your staff to ensure they know how to use the technology at their fingertips. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

What does your IT budget look like for the remainder of this year? According to Gartner, your IT costs might be increasing. So, we ask you this: are you being intentional with your IT spending, and are you spending your business’ hard-earned revenue on technology which advances your organization’s ability to succeed? Let’s take a look at Gartner’s study to see what we can learn from patterns in IT expenses.

IT Expenses Projected to Rise

Gartner predicts that IT spending will increase globally by about 3 percent this year, totaling $4.5 trillion. While this growth is slower than that of 2021, it’s still significant in that the world is still experiencing issues with the supply chain and technology acquisitions as a result of the global pandemic and ongoing global conflicts. The bulk of this spending is being attributed to cloud services and data centers, which makes a lot of sense when you consider the trends over the past couple of years.

But Isn’t Technology Hard to Come By?

The big question is why there is so much spending occurring, something which John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, is attributing to higher potential prices moving into the future. IT decision makers would rather commit to new technology now before it gets even more expensive in the near future. In a way, this makes sense, especially with many companies having issues acquiring technology. They would rather take preventative action now to prevent themselves from spending too much later by investing now.

Other notable numbers related to IT spending for the remainder of 2022 include the following:

• An increase in cloud spending of about 22.1%
• An increase in server spending of about 16.6%
• A decrease in PC sales of about 5%

Take Action with Managed Services

Businesses spend a lot of money on IT, but that doesn’t mean that you have to. Managed IT services give you access to more affordable technology management and maintenance options than ever before, and with MSPNetworks on your side, you can increase your bottom line while transforming capital costs into operational expenses.

To learn more about how we can help your business, reach out to MSPNetworks at (516) 403-9001.

With Amazon’s annual Prime Day having come and gone, we can’t help but wonder how many of you bought consumer electronics while they were on sale through the web retailer. If you did, that’s amazing, and we’re glad you got what you’re looking for. However, we do want to strongly urge you to consider disposing of your old electronics in an environmentally conscious way.

Why is E-Waste Bad?

Consider how quickly we go through consumer electronics. How often do you replace your smartphone? If most adult humans in the world have a smartphone that they replace every couple of years, e-waste can accumulate remarkably fast. That’s without mentioning the countless laptops, desktop PCs, appliances, and so on that go bad or are replaced by newer, better, more modern technology that makes your life easier.

Even though there is markedly less spending on new electronics, and the supply chain has been significantly disrupted due to the ongoing pandemic, people are still going to buy new technology, leading them to discard their old. The problem is that these devices don’t get properly recycled; instead, they get shipped to landfills in third-world countries where they collect into massive mounds of electronic waste.

These devices are not cheap to produce, and they contain several valuable metals within their components, like gold, silver, copper, iron, and platinum, along with harmful chemicals that are horrible for the environment and the people who inhabit it, like mercury, lead, and cadmium.

Don’t Forget to Wipe, Either

It’s not just the e-waste that becomes a problem for businesses and users, either; it’s the data stored on these devices. Oftentimes, people will forget that these devices house immense amounts of data that could be valuable to others for the right price. You never know who could be rummaging through landfills trying to find working devices that they can then crack and sell to interested parties. To prevent this from happening, you must wipe all data from your devices before recycling them. In many cases, this means physically destroying the hard drive so it is unrecoverable entirely.

We Are Happy to Help!

If you are unsure of how to properly dispose of your old electronics, MSPNetworks can help point you in the right direction. We can help you wipe your company’s old devices so that they no longer contain sensitive user data on them, as well as locate a place that can and will recycle your devices so that they don’t wind up in an overcrowded landfill halfway across the world.

To learn more about how you can do your part for a safer, healthier, and cleaner environment, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

It’s safe to say that businesses have had a difficult time lately. In addition to the issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have also had to deal with supply chain issues and other challenges related to their data. How does your company manage its mission-critical technology solutions?

Managed Services Can Provide Modern Businesses with a Reprieve

It’s not much of our business, but we can’t help but wonder how you pay for your IT services. Depending on the business model, you might be paying in a way that is not sustainable over time. If you pay for your IT on a case-by-case basis, for example, you could very well be losing capital in the long term.

The issue with pay-as-you-go IT services is that there’s no motivation for the provider to solve issues in the long term.

If you think about it, you will never get the IT services you deserve from an organization whose business model relies on your failures. If you don’t need them at all, then they will go out of business—it’s as simple as that.

Managed services are designed to address this shortcoming. Instead of focusing on problems as they arise, managed services work to actively prevent and deter issues from becoming problems in the first place. It’s like changing the brakes on your car before they get worn down entirely, causing a crash that could total your vehicle. With a comprehensive managed services agreement, your technology can be maintained in a way that prevents catastrophe from striking in the first place.

This Predictability is Something that Today’s Businesses Need

In such uncertain times, the last thing you need is to worry about whether or not your technology will work tomorrow when you go to the office or remote into your desktop. This uncertainty can lead to many challenges when managing business technology.

By making the switch to managed IT services, you can make considerable strides toward making your technology management practices much easier and more predictable. It can give you more of an ability to budget for IT challenges, as issues that would normally incur severe costs will instead be covered by your managed services agreement.

MSPNetworks can help you take the next step toward taking back control of your IT budget. To learn more about how you can achieve this, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Innovation is something that you want the people working with your technology to have a highly-developed sense of. Creativity isn’t often associated with business IT, but it is something that should be considered a true benefit if it can be brought into your operations.

Let’s explore exactly why creativity is an asset (even with your in-house IT team) and how you can nurture it in your employees.

Why Creative Thinking is a Business Benefit

Employing and nurturing a creative team in your business—in IT or not—presents many benefits. Having said that, it should be clear how your IT department would particularly benefit from a creative mindset after we consider some of the impacts that one imparts:

Improved Efficiency

If someone is a creative thinker, putting a challenge in front of them and telling them, “Go,” is a great motivator… and their thought process will immediately bypass those ideas that they can see won’t work. This makes it possible for better results to be accomplished faster… a key goal for any department, but particularly for IT.

Focus on Results and Problem Solving

Speaking of, creative people are largely results-oriented. Not only are they motivated to complete their objectives, they are also empowered to focus on the process instead of how the process itself will ultimately play out.

But, you may be asking, what if the process doesn’t work out? With a creative team, this is still a problem, sure, but one that you have a much better chance of resolving faster and more effectively. 

Better Ideas and Thought Processes

As it happens, this is often related to our next benefit: more productive thoughts in general. When a creative mind is applied to an issue, new and innovative ideas can result, with improved thought processes to match. The benefits are derived from having a team that is able to consider a problem from different angles, not just the ones presented to them initially.

Leadership Skills

Finally, creative people often have the ability to take leadership—whether that’s over their own work and its challenges, or over a team and its combined struggles. Giving some of your creative team members this kind of leadership—even on a small scale—can result in improved internal processes.

How to Cultivate a Creative Team

Naturally, having creative individuals on your IT team is a good thing, so let’s explore some ways you can help them embrace their creativity and put it to use at work.

Encourage Collaboration

Here’s the unspoken truth that a lot of collaboration-promoting businesses like us don’t want you to know… IT, as a general rule, isn’t a very collaborative role in an organization. However, you can fix that. Try breaking your IT team up into groups every once in a while and challenge them to solve a problem. Not only can your team members blow off some steam by focusing on a low-stakes challenge, they are naturally driven to balance their own expertise with that which their teammates hold.

Focus on Customer Challenges

Here’s another idea—ask your IT team members to brainstorm ideas for the most impactful projects… with the constraint that they can only address issues that your customers and clients have. Not only will this limitation help them to focus their efforts and think more creatively, you have the opportunity to discover the solution to a considerable business problem your team can then focus on solving.

Encourage All Ideas

We all know that all the ideas your IT department comes up with aren’t going to be winners. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage these ideas to be developed and shared. On top of being good creative exercise for your team members, some part of one person’s idea may help to inspire another to come closer to solving the problem at hand.

We’re Here to Free Your Team Up for Their Creative Efforts

The biggest obstacle most teams face that prevents them from developing creative ideas and plans is time. If your team’s schedule is packed with improvement line items and support requests/demands from the rest of your team, there’s not much time left for creativity.

That’s where we come in. We can take on some of the responsibilities that bog down your IT team’s time, freeing them up to have good—no, great—ideas that directly benefit your business. Reach out to learn more about our services at (516) 403-9001.

When you run a business, solid decision making is crucial to achieving success. This goes from hiring and managing your staff, choosing the right prospects, supporting your customers, and procuring tools and resources that make your business possible. Today, technology is not only important, it is a major consideration when determining your yearly budgets. Let’s go through a couple of tips on how to make the best technology decisions for your company.

What could be the most crucial variable in the whole technology-procurement process, understanding how the technology you purchase will work for your business. There are a lot of cool technologies that are effectively worthless for your company because it just doesn’t fit the practical needs of it. If you want to spend the money that you’ve earmarked for your technology needs, following these four suggestions will help you get rolling in the right direction. 

Consider Alternative Costs 

Your business is putting in a new system that promises to enhance efficiency and boost productivity. Great. How is that going to work when 99 percent of your staff has never seen, let alone used, the technology that promises these returns? Technology typically just doesn’t work, it needs to be ushered in with security and usability in mind. If you expect to get returns out of an implementation without considering the costs and time in training and testing your staff, you probably will be disappointed about the return you get on your new investments. 

Involve the Right People In the Discussion

The technology you purchase for your company very rarely is utilized by a single individual. As a result, during your evaluation you should look for perspective from the people who have the most to lose if the technology implementation goes sideways. That means receiving input from experienced employees, stakeholders, as well as management before spending a dollar on new technology. These perspectives can give you the best idea of what exactly needs to be done to improve the processes you already have. 

Choose Your Partners Carefully

One consideration many less-adept business owners don’t make is who they are dealing with. Sorry to say, not every business you work with will have the future of your business in mind when working with you. Sure, they want the sale, but if you get a vendor that doesn’t see the relationship as a two-way street, you may want to consider backing off.

Remember to Set Achievable Goals 

One of the most important parts about implementing anything new into a business that already produces is to set realistic goals. Sure, to make big changes you must have some notion that this is the direction you want to bring your company, but even small projects can bind up productivity and cost immense amounts of money if they aren’t handled correctly. You’ll want to Identify goals and create objectives that progress toward them; putting too much pressure on any deployment will be sure to have negative consequences. 

Business owners need to listen to their instincts and have realistic expectations when trying to make technology decisions that will have an effect on the health of their business for years to come. At MSPNetworks, our consultants understand that business technology is a tool that can be leveraged for great benefit if it is implemented and supported correctly. If you would like to have a conversation about the future of your business’ technology with some of the best IT minds in New York, give us a call today at (516) 403-9001.

Burnout—a psychological process that can impact an employee and lead to stress, exhaustion, depression, and frustration—is a serious threat to any workplace. However, have you ever considered the potential harm that could be done if your IT-focused staff members succumbed to these feelings? Let’s examine the phenomenon of IT burnout, and how we can help fix it.

First, let’s dive a little deeper into burnout itself, and then apply it to your business’ IT team.

What is Burnout, and Where Does It Come From?

Burnout is a complicated animal, as it involves a lot of different feelings and phenomena that vary from person to person. Bill may become cynical about his role and be easily frustrated in the workplace, whereas Olivia may more frequently call in sick and feel depressed when she is in the office. Laura may make uncharacteristic errors in her work. Oliver may seem disconnected from his role.

All of these individuals could be feeling burnout, and just be exhibiting it in a different way. According to a 2018 Gallup survey, nearly 25% of employees felt burnout… and that’s before the concept of the workplace became a lot more complicated and, in many ways, stressful.

In short, burnout is a form of psychological exhaustion brought on by conditions in the workplace.

The reasons that people feel burnt out are just as diverse as the way that these feelings are displayed. While most people might assume that burnout is related to an employee’s workload (as it often is), other reasons can contribute to these feelings as well. If an employee is unsure of their role, for instance, or they feel they are not being adequately represented or treated fairly in the office, they could easily feel burnt out. Maybe they feel they don’t have the time or the support to accomplish what they are meant to accomplish. This is another source of burnout that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Lately, IT Professionals Have Been Hit Especially Hard

While this perhaps isn’t such a surprise, information technology professionals have recently shown particularly high levels of burnout. So much was proven in a global survey conducted by Yerbo, a mental wellbeing platform.

In this study, The State of Burnout in Tech -- 2022 Edition, Yerbo collected 32,644 survey answers from IT professionals from 33 different countries between January and September 2021. We encourage you to review the study’s conclusions for yourself, but we’ve assembled a few highlights here:

Burnout Leads to Four Major Issues for Employees, Each with Their Own Impacts

Based on the study’s findings—which had an entertaining facade put over them reminiscent of the famous cabinet arcade game Pac-Man—their Burnout Index identified four symptoms frequently felt by those suffering:

• Exhaustion often impacts burnt-out IT professionals, with 62% feeling drained physically and emotionally after the workday and 56% being unable to relax once back at home.
• Self-Inefficacy, which can develop into chronic procrastination and Imposter Syndrome, was shown to impact 51% of those surveyed to make them feel as though they were underachieving, and 33% feeling inefficient at work.
• Cynicism builds walls between a burnt-out employee and the rest of their team, causing diminishing engagement amongst 43% of those surveyed and causing 27% to lose sight of their purpose in the workplace.
• Depersonalization, or the emotional shutdown of the burnt-out IT professional, led to 26% of respondents reporting fears of growing harsh with their teammates and a lack of sympathy amongst 22%.

Ultimately, the survey concluded that almost half—42.1%—of the IT employees they surveyed faced a high risk of burnout.

So, How Can You Help Reduce Burnout Amongst Your IT-Focused Employees?

Fortunately, there are a few ways to actively fight against feelings of burnout in your workplace and the team members you’ve hired to work there—including the people who make up your internal IT department.

Eliminate Stress Wherever You Can

Perhaps this is a little bit obvious, but if you can make their jobs even a little bit easier and express your appreciation for their efforts, you can go a long way toward reducing your team’s feelings of burnout. By giving them more specific objectives to meet, providing them with the training they’ll need as time goes on, and otherwise creating a more supportive and comfortable workplace (including sufficient time off), you’ll take away a lot of the stress that burnout feeds on.

Giving Your Team Some Autonomy

Let me ask you something: when was the last time having someone hovering over you, breathing down your neck, motivated you to do something?

I didn’t think so, so why would it ever help motivate your team members? Giving them a degree of self-management and reasonable flexibility will help to keep them engaged and motivated to do their jobs to the best of their ability. Paying them at a rate that reflects this autonomy will help as well.

Provide Them With the Support They Need

If your IT team is feeling overworked by the responsibilities your business presents them with—particularly if it’s to the point that they are working extra hours to keep up and don’t have the opportunity to keep up on their certifications—burnout is certain to set in. We can offer our services to help support your team by taking over some of their workload. Think of us as adding a bunch of employees to your existing team for a single monthly cost. We’ll let your internal IT team do what they do best and pick up whatever is left over, allowing them to succeed, which translates into greater benefits for your business.

Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to discuss your options with us today!

Businesses that depend on their technology try to stick with it as long as they can so as to not incur large unnecessary costs. Ironically, that may be the thing that is causing a lot of those costs. Today, we thought we would take a look at a couple of variables that can let you know it’s time to upgrade away from your current technology. 

Deciding when to upgrade your business’ technology isn’t always cut and dry. You have to consider the pricing and deployment models you want, and probably most importantly, whether or not the new technology strategy will be disruptive to your team’s productivity. Additionally, you need to know that when you do look to upgrade new technology that it will be compatible with your business’ needs.

Why Upgrade at All?

If you’ve been using the same technology for several years without many problems, you may ask, “why even upgrade at all?” Outdated technology can cost you in several ways, let’s briefly go through a few.

• Downtime - Older technology is prone to failure. Computers are extraordinarily complex machines and after some time their components can fail. Failing technology is one of the most recognized causes of downtime. Since there is so much operational capital tied up in your employees, technology failures can cause a lot of time where your staff is not actively working on revenue-generating or business-building tasks.
• Turnover - One situation that many businesses find themselves in over the past couple of years is a significant employee turnover. One of the main reasons cited by people leaving organizations is that their technology isn’t kept up to date. Employees, especially the younger ones just entering the workforce, demand suitable technology to work on, otherwise they will find an organization that has it. 
• Lack of Support - If your business has been using the same technology for a while, you may run into a situation where the software is no longer supported by the developer. This can be a major problem as unsupported and unpatched software has a significantly larger chance to have vulnerabilities. More vulnerabilities mean that it has a better chance of being hacked. 

What is the Average Refresh Timeline?

For the average business, you should consider refreshing your technology every three-to-five years. This is largely because of the factors listed above as well as the propensity for new technologies that are developed that can better help your processes. You can often get away with keeping your technology past five years, but remember, it may be more unreliable the longer you use it. 

What Types of Technology Need to be Upgraded?

Sure, your physical infrastructure needs to be constantly maintained and refreshed regularly, but most of that is due to the need to run the applications (with corresponding storage) that you need to run your business. Today, there are many more options available than just purchasing new servers. You can choose to utilize cloud-based servers, effectively offshoring your computing infrastructure to service providers that maintain the infrastructure you host your applications on. This can provide substantial cost savings insofar as you will be paying service fees rather than having to come up with large amounts of capital to purchase new infrastructure or pay a hefty amount of interest on a lease. 

It’s just not your central infrastructure that needs to be updated, either. You need to replace routers, switches, workstations, and accessories on top of implementing new technologies that may help automate parts of your business. All-in-all, it is important to consider the return each part of your computing infrastructure will have on your day-to-day operations and set up a refresh schedule that prioritizes them. Then you can piecemeal the rest of it as you go.

How We Can Help

At MSPNetworks, we can not only help you plan out your refresh schedule, we can use our vendor relationships to procure your new technology fast. Our team of technicians can design, deploy, and support your entire business’ computing infrastructure to ensure that your new technology investments are working for your business. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to have a discussion about how you plan to move your company’s computing refresh forward today. 

Most businesses set out to do an IT project when their technology needs an upgrade. Whether your business is looking to add new hardware, refresh the systems you already have, migrate to the cloud, or add new applications to your playbook, it can get pretty intimidating as cost and time overruns threaten your profitability. This week, we thought we would discuss an approach that can help any business—large or small— get their IT projects completed and integrated effectively: co-managed IT. 

What Problems Do IT Projects Present?

Before we get into explaining co-managed IT, we want to talk about the problems that can happen when integrating new technologies. It starts with management. Before the project commences, you need to have all of your ducks in a row. This means having a dedicated project manager that has a clear idea about what tasks need to be delegated, how those tasks fit into the project as a whole, and what deadlines and cost restrictions there are for the project. This is a lot of work, and as a result, it can be difficult to keep a project on the rails, especially if the project is a major overhaul of your current computing infrastructure. Some of the problems you may run into when implementing new technologies include:

• A lack of a clear path forward - Many businesses will want to add IT without putting together a clear and efficient plan. This will inevitably cause issues with inefficiency, problematic implementation, and cost overruns that could put a damper on your new technology and on your business. 
• No plan in regards to vendors - In order to make a successful IT change, you will need to coordinate with the vendors supplying the technology to ensure that they can deliver as you are ready to implement it. 
• Problems with the speed of progress - Most IT implementations require input and work to be done from different vendors, suppliers, and workers. This collaboration needs to be coordinated so as to not hinder the speed of progress. If one or more collaborators are lagging behind, there will likely be deadlines missed and the project will take longer, and cost more than you had planned. 
• Changes in scope or priority - Many times, businesses will alter an IT project’s path forward. This puts a lot of pressure on the project manager and can lead to a devastating lack of results. Plan ahead and adjust only when absolutely necessary to get the most out of any project. 
• A lack of compatibility - One issue that can really derail an IT project is to get to a point where it needs to be integrated with standing technology, and the two systems aren’t compatible. Know what you need before you get too far down the road so as to not run into problems that could put your whole endeavor at risk. 
• Not planning for training - If your business is looking to include new software systems into your IT infrastructure, it stands to reason that the people who are using it will need time to adjust. If you don’t plan for that adjustment period, you could be looking at a complete failure. 

How Co-Managed IT Can Help

IT projects are detail-oriented ventures and require a lot of attention to produce the expected results. This can leave a business’ IT administrator and technicians searching for ways to complete an efficient project while still maintaining a company’s IT infrastructure for regular production. With co-managed IT services from MSPNetworks our knowledgeable technicians can either help run the project to get it implemented effectively, or we can take over the proactive management of your business’ IT infrastructure to keep your business running productively as your IT team proceeds in implementing your business’ new technology. Not only does this service work to get more trained eyes on a project, it can also be advantageous as we have relationships with vendors that can expedite the project’s progress. 

With the IT professionals at MSPNetworks working for you, you can ensure that your business runs as intended and get the experienced resources needed to make your new IT project a rousing success. If you would like to learn more about our co-managed IT services or talk to one of our consultants about the future of your business’ technology, give us a call today at (516) 403-9001. 

If you suspect that your organization has trouble managing its technology, you are far from the only one. Small businesses tend to have more difficulties with technology management and maintenance compared to their enterprise-level counterparts, mostly due to limitations placed on resources and time. You can make things much easier for your business by working with a managed service provider.

How Managed Services Free Up Resources

First, we should establish what a managed service provider actually does for your business. Basically, for a business that doesn’t have an IT department, a managed service provider can offer services in accordance with what the business needs, no matter how complex or how simple. MSPs are an outsourced service, so you get services rendered in accordance with a service level agreement. You can control just how much you need or how little you need.

This frees up resources by giving your small business more reliable access to labor for technology maintenance, and it’s something that absolutely cannot be understated in its value. If you are currently relying on your employees—those who are not trained to maintain technology, mind you—to take care of your IT infrastructure, you are putting your organization on the line. It’s better to work with a managed service provider like MSPNetworks to ensure that you get access to the professional maintenance and services you need to be successful long-term. Even if you do have an in-house IT department, we can take some of the burden off of them by way of taking on the more menial tasks associated with IT maintenance, like patching and updating systems.

Managed Service Providers Save Time (and Money)

The biggest benefit of working with an MSP is that you can save time and money, either in the short-term or the long-term, depending on your level of commitment. Businesses using the break-fix IT model are known to address technology issues as they occur rather than prevent them outright, a prospect which can be both wasteful and time-consuming. You can save so much in terms of time and resources simply by taking proactive steps to maintain technology rather than respond to issues as they occur.

This is no small task, so we recommend that you work with an MSP to detect and resolve problems by way of preventative maintenance and monitoring services. This is the best way to eliminate downtime for your business. Imagine what you can do with all of the time you’ve taken back from the clutches of downtime! How will you use that additional revenue and time? We’ll let you answer that question for yourself.

MSPNetworks can be your go-to IT resource and managed service provider. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call us at (516) 403-9001.

The past several years have brought about a shift in the workforce, and it’s not one that anyone could have seen coming. More people than ever before are leaving their jobs. How can you keep your employees engaged so they have a minimal chance of leaving their position within your company?

Here are some tips you can use to keep your employees from participating in “The Great Resignation.”

What is Driving The Great Resignation?

Several different contributing factors are involved, the result being 47.8 million voluntary job vacancies in 2021 alone. This was the highest number recorded since 2001, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022 will likely not be any better. In February alone, there were 4.4 million resignations in the United States.

This trend is not exclusive to the States, either. The social media posts about people quitting their jobs with the highest levels of engagement are from all over the world.

But Why Are People Quitting?

Some people who are leaving their positions joined during the pandemic, where remote work policies were in place and the people involved–those in the Gen Z age group, for example–are not interested in a commute to the office. On a similar note, many parents, some of them new, are finding that the time spent at home while working remotely helps tremendously to balance their home life responsibilities.

In fact, some are leaving their positions because they are being urged to return to the office, something which is simply not preferable for some workers. In this case, the needs of workers are being sidelined by companies’ needs to control their workforce. This has ultimately led to workers making sacrifices in their flexibilities and pay just to remain in a remote work environment.

Other reasons to leave might include poor workplace interactions and a lack of work/life boundaries. The Great Resignation has forced many people to look at their own priorities and to shift their focus to things that matter most in their lives, and work does not seem to be among them.

How Can I Avoid Losing People?

Simply put, you can do a lot of good by acknowledging that remote work is a possibility for your workforce, and it will do a lot to aid in employee retention. This will be particularly helpful to keep employees on both the younger and the older sides of the spectrum. You might even consider offering hybrid options if you can’t bring yourself to commit wholeheartedly to remote work options.

MSPNetworks can help you implement the technology needed to aid in this shift. To learn more, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.