MSPNetworks Blog

Information technology—IT—is a necessity for the vast majority of modern businesses to function. For the sake of these businesses and their operations, it pays to optimize this IT by any means available.

Let’s go over the benefits that a relationship with a managed service provider gives businesses, particularly regarding the overall efficiency these businesses see as a result.

As a small business, we’re sure you want to improve your profit margin so that you can offer more exciting and innovative services or products. One way that many businesses bleed capital is through their IT expenses. While it might make sense on paper to address technology challenges only when they present themselves, the truth is the exact opposite.

Data is at the heart of all successful modern businesses. The information you collect and store can help you make better decisions, plan better strategies, and gain a competitive advantage. Let’s look at how your raw data can be refined into more meaningful insights through the use of business analytics tools.

What is art? It’s not an easy question to answer, especially with new techniques and mediums being developed all the time. By definition, art can be basically summed up as the creative expression of an individual through some medium.

For Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi, that medium is one that is familiar to those in and out of the art world.

Tatsuo Horiuchi Excels at His Craft…

…in a very literal sense. His art is not formed by clay or paint, but instead, the cells found in a Microsoft Excel worksheet.

Upon his retirement from his work as a medical equipment engineer, Tatsuo wanted to keep himself occupied, and his thoughts turned to becoming an artist. Lacking the supplies to do so traditionally (as well as the desire to invest in these supplies), the burgeoning artist decided to utilize a tool that he already had access to: Excel.

As he had never actively used the software for his work, Tatsuo dove into learning about the software and its features, teaching himself how to use different tools to accomplish different things. The autoshape feature helps with the overall design, the graph-focused line tool was repurposed to create trees, and the fill tool allows him to accomplish the shading that amplifies a painting’s depth. Gradually teaching himself these little tricks, Tatsuo’s process began in 2000 with the goal of creating something he would be willing to show to people within 10 years. His first three years were focused on learning to use Excel’s tools to create recognizable shapes and objects, while the next three were focused on combining them all into a cohesive image. In 2006, he won the Excel Autoshape Art Contest.

Since then, Tatsuo’s art has been featured at the Gunma Museum of Art, an honor shared by the likes of Monet and Renoir.

You can check out some of his work here.

One Moral of the Story: Technology Can Be Leveraged in Many Ways

All it takes is a bit of ingenuity. That being said, we don’t want your business to go without the information technology that would benefit its processes—or that keeps it compliant with various regulations and requirements.

Our team at MSPNetworks has been helping businesses around New York manage their IT since YEAR, and we’d love the opportunity to help you with yours. While we can’t promise to turn your team into award-winning artists, we can help them do more with their technology. Find out more about our managed IT services and what they can help you accomplish by calling (516) 403-9001.

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.

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.

There is a scam going around that convinces organizations to pay for their Google Business Profile, and if you paid for this free service, you’ve fallen for the trick. Google is taking legal action against the scammers who have dragged their name through the mud, using Google’s notoriety to defraud businesses who just want to look competitive.

Let’s look at the announcement to determine what your business should keep in mind regarding these scammers.

Google Wants Consequences for the Scammers Who Charge Businesses for Business Profiles

The first thing you need to understand is that a Google Business Profile is free for business owners to claim and use to share information about their business with the public. This means that anyone who calls you to tell you to pay up for the profile is straight-up lying to you and attempting to scam you.

The problem has escalated to the point where Google needs to take action against these scams. The idea is that taking public legal action against the scammers will keep would-be scammers from acting while also increasing public awareness of these issues. Google’s blog post claims they were able to stop 12 million scammers from creating fake Business Profiles, and that there were 8 million attempts to fraudulently claim Business Profiles.

Again, Google charges nothing for Business Profiles. Such accounts are mutually beneficial; they give you a platform to show off information about your business, and Google can make their search engine better as a result. If you ever receive a phone call from someone claiming to be Google to sell you a profile, then you can rest assured it is most definitely a scam.

How You Can Identify Phishing Scams

Phishing scams can be tricky to identify, but with a little knowledge and training, you and your staff can be well-prepared to deal with any scams that might come your way.

• Look for urgency: Most scams will operate with a sense of urgency to get you to act before you have had a chance to think things through. Don’t fall for it; nothing is so important that it can’t wait 10 minutes while you verify the request.
• The devil is in the details: If you receive a call from someone who claims to be from Google, for example, you can always check the Google Business Profile page to view details on account creation. In this case, the page confirms that it is free, so you know you’re the target of a scam.
• Don’t take any risks: If you have reason to believe that a call or a message is a scam, don’t give yourself any room to make a mistake; just hang up or ignore the message until you can confirm that the message is legitimate or fake. If it’s not, then the person on the other end will surely have to respect your caution.

Let’s Make Your Business Security a Top Priority

If you are ready to take scams and cybersecurity seriously, MSPNetworks can support you throughout the process. To learn more, contact us today at (516) 403-9001.

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.

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.

With inflation proving to be a significant concern for businesses at the moment, reaching highs that it hasn’t in decades, there is a distinct need for businesses to get as much value as they can out of the investments they make.

Let’s discuss a few technologies that offer this more desirable cost/benefit ratio so you can consider them for your own use.

Could Technology Investment Reverse Inflation?

According to Morgan Stanley, potentially!

The financial services provider recently released their list of (as they call them) Deflation Enablers—companies that are trying to cut their customers’ costs despite inflation or product scarcity. Included on this list were a few automation platforms (Appian, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and UiPath) as well as supply chain efficiency software (C3.ai, Palantir, and Snowflake) as well as some other technology providers, like a little company known as Microsoft.

The idea is that by investing in solutions and services provided by Deflation Enablers—specifically, those that cut costs while boosting productivity—a business puts itself in a position to succeed, in spite of whatever economic challenges the world at large is facing.

Of course, that’s all well and good for these major companies… But what can the average business in New York do?  

What Many Companies Are Doing to Fight Inflation

There are a variety of ways that businesses can do (and are exploring) to save money and actively use their resources more efficiently. One big one that came about in response to the last few years’ increase in remote operations: office downsizing.

Businesses of all sizes, from small to enterprise, are actively considering how they can scale back their real estate and reinvest those dollars elsewhere—incidentally, many choosing to invest in IT and sales.

This is no accident, either. Remember, quite a few of Morgan Stanley’s Deflation Enablers were IT providers that focused on automating processes. Automation is inherently a cost-saving endeavor, as it effectively doubles your productivity for each employee it frees from a menial task.

Reach out to MSPNetworks to find out more about automation, and the other ways we can assist you in making your dollar go further. A few examples that come to mind are our inclusive managed services and our remote monitoring and management services.

Give us a call at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

Outsourced IT is a great option for the modern small business, and no matter where your shortcomings lie in managing technology, we are confident you can find value in the service. Whether you need a full-fledged IT department or someone to help implement new solutions, we’ve got you covered, and for the right price point, too! Let’s take a look at some of the trends you can expect from managed IT, as well as how they influence the costs compared to those of the traditional break-fix model.

A Comparison Between Managed Services and Break-Fix

Let’s begin by really distilling the two options into the most basic description of each.

• Break-Fix services are transactional in their nature, with each issue in need of resolution being billed separately. 
• Managed services operate as an outsourced department would, with all services (based on the established agreement) covered by a set monthly subscription cost.

At the root of it is how the business is charged for the IT services rendered. While there are countless other differences between the two types of services, such as proactive versus reactive maintenance, and the scope of services rendered, we want to dial in on the financial differences between the two.

It Comes Down to How Much You Get for Your Money

With break-fix IT, you are going to have to get used to at least a certain level of downtime, as it’s built into the service model. You can’t fix technology that isn’t broken, after all. You are reacting to issues that appear after your processes have been disrupted. This means you are losing money due to the lost productivity and perhaps even missed opportunities. You have to weigh the value of these missed opportunities and issues against the cost of the services. Is it worth it? We don’t think so.

When compared against the value that managed service agreements cover, including complete monitoring and maintenance through the use of remote technologies, and live assistance available whenever your employees need it, there’s no questioning the difference. Some issues might need to be addressed in-house, but the data collected prior to that visit will make the technician’s job easier and more expedient. In all, you can expect a more consistent and predictable service offering from a managed service provider, making the service easier to budget and prepare for. It’s comparable to having a full-fledged in-house IT department on your side, only much more cost-effective.

While We May Be Biased, The Comparative Value We Offer Speaks for Itself

When you work with MSPNetworks, we ensure that you aren’t getting charged for every little thing done to your infrastructure; our business model is all-inclusive to ensure that you know what you are getting at all times. We try to limit the surprise expenses associated with technology management so you can focus on running your organization the way it’s supposed to be run.

It might be tempting to go with a low-commitment style of technology management, but we assure you that the break-fix providers are not going to have your best interests in mind. You deserve IT maintenance from a team invested in your prolonged and continued success. To learn more about how we can help you with this, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

If you ask a person that has been using the same technology for years what they would like to see in new technology, you’ll often get the answer, “for it to do the work for me.” This is a popular response that is almost always delivered as a joke. With technology going the way it is, it’s not as funny as it once was. Today, automated tools are being developed that work to actually do a lot of that work for you. This can be both a detriment and a benefit for your staff. Today, we’ll take a look at both.

Where Automation Fits

Businesses have been committed to automation to both keep costs down and to keep their staff from having to deal with elements of the business that may not suit them. Many businesses not only try to add technology-driven automation to their production processes, they routinely use them in their administrative processes. The most frequent parts of a business that gets automated today are: 

Sales and Lead Acquisition 

Two of the most crucial parts to running a successful business are selling your products and services and finding new customers, and since sales is a competitive and costly side of your business, using automation only makes sense. Today, businesses automate all types of sales and lead acquisition activities, including:

• Lead scoring - Using the metrics available, automated algorithms can score businesses on their likelihood to need and want the products or services you offer. 
• Client onboarding - After your business signs up a customer, automating a welcome package can not only make the client at ease with their decision, it can keep from having to assign your staff to handle it—which can be a massive cost savings.
• Follow-ups - Automating follow-ups can help keep prospects engaged without spending time and resources on doing so.

Marketing

Businesses may not be able to completely automate their marketing, but automating some of their marketing processes can keep costs down and allow a business to do more. Here are some places automation works for marketing:

• Email marketing - Targeting potential customers or keeping current customers engaged can often be difficult. With automation, you can automatically roll out different marketing materials at different intervals in the client-business relationship.
• Social media - Social media is a great tool for small business marketing, but with so many platforms to manage, it can be costly and time consuming. By automating your ability to push out promotional materials and status updates, you can make a potentially never-ending job work. 

Customer Relationships

Cultivating positive customer relationships is much harder than it seems. Many different parts of your business need to work together to make it happen. Many businesses utilize Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that brings a lot of solid automation with it. These include:

• Workflow management - Maintaining a consistent workflow keeps your business efficient and productive, leaning on automated tools such as setting appointments and delivering necessary reports to decision makers can go a long way toward building functioning and prosperous customer relationships.
• Chatbot support - Automating customer support using AI-fueled chatbots can drastically improve your business’ ability to support your products and services, while also saving substantial capital. 

Administrative 

Finally, automating aspects of your administrative tasks can save a lot of headaches for the people that work in human resources and make it possible to streamline your business. Here are two ways automation fuels efficient administrative management:

• Recruitment - A lot has been made recently about the hardships many small businesses are having finding people that fit their business. There is software developed that automates the job of listing openings, allowing businesses to spend less to find the right candidates for their current openings. 
• Data backup - Automating the data backup process has changed the way people look at business continuity. Now, systems are more reliably protecting the data that is so key to running a modern business. 

The Negative Perception of Automation

With all the good things automation can do for a business, there is one major negative aspect. For the more jobs that computers and software can handle, people are going to be doing those jobs less and less. This has many people thinking that if they aren’t needed to do the job, they are expendable.

This theory is more of a bound than a step.

You see it’s true that with the rise of automation, less human resources are going to be needed to do the job. Machines are more efficient, more productive, and return a lot more than a human worker. This fact makes workers nervous. The truth is, however, that what is happening is more of a shift than a complete assault on the worker. Workers are still needed, they are just needed to have different skills. For centuries physical and manual labor was in high demand, but with increases in automation social and technological skills will be in higher demand. 

Make no mistake about it, it’s a big deal as many older workers will find themselves being replaced with machines and with less time available to learn new skills, it could create problems for society. For younger workers, this shift won’t be as dire. 

What Will Companies Do?

You know that companies will almost always make the decision to benefit their stakeholders. In the small business sector, this isn’t as evident as it is with enterprises, but it will still be an issue. Businesses have some responsibility when figuring out what to do with their workers. Here are two ways the modern business will deal with the rampant escalation in their automated efforts:

• Employee retraining - The first one is obvious. You have workers that are put out by your new automated tools, retraining them to do something else for the business should be a priority. This builds a positive company culture and while some employees won’t take to it as well as others, it is a positive strategy that will get your workforce the skills they need to help your business move forward.
• Employee redeployment - This is the strategy of taking employees with specific skills and building workflows that take advantage of them. Changing workflows to support your employees is a strategy most businesses should already be doing, but if you plan on dispatching more automation, it will become more important than ever. 

Automation is here to stay, and with innovations happening in quick succession, you need to be ready. If you would like to talk to one of our IT professionals about getting new automated tools or how to fit them into your business, give MSPNetworks a call today at (516) 403-9001. 

Did you know that the United States is the leader in ransomware payments? According to a survey from Mimecast titled “The State of Ransomware Readiness,” the U.S. has the highest average payment for ransomware out of the entire world at more than $6 million per victim. These shocking numbers likely stem from high-profile ransomware attacks, but they are also indicative of a larger problem, that being people who still pay the ransom.

This study examined 742 cybersecurity professionals and found that 80 percent of them had become victims of ransomware attacks over the past two years. Of that 80 percent, 39 percent paid the ransom, with the average United States victim paying $6,312,190. To put that into context, let’s take a look at other parts of the world.

• Canada: $5,347,508
• United Kingdom: $850,000
• South Africa, Australia, Germany: $250,000

That’s for those who actually paid up, though. Close to 40 percent of victims did not pay the ransomware at all, and some were even able to negotiate a lower ransom. That said, the survey also cites that the primary instigation of these ransomware attacks were phishing attacks and web-based threats, and many victims believed that they needed to improve the security of their data centers.

Perhaps the best tool against ransomware attacks is to have a data backup system in place, but again, the survey claims that less than half of respondents had data backup systems in place. Even with this fact, 83 percent of respondents claim they can get their data back without paying the ransom, and 77 percent believe that they can get their operations back to normal within two days.

If your company were to suffer a ransomware attack, we urge you to think before taking any action to resolve it. First of all, what if you’re not actually infected and just making things worse for yourself by paying up? Second of all, what guarantees do you have that your data will be safe and unencrypted should you decide to pay the ransom? And third, how many other businesses or individuals are going to suffer because you just funded the activities of a cybercriminal? All of these factors influence how successful a ransomware attack is.

One thing you absolutely should do is contact your trusted IT resource to determine the extent of the attack. After this has been determined, you should have an easier time figuring out how to address your predicament. Still, we never recommend you pay the ransom. There are often other options to pursue; you just have to have the gumption to look past the immediate panic and focus on the big picture. Plus, you can also implement security solutions and measures that can deter ransomware later on, like multi-factor authentication, user permissions, and unified threat management.

Don’t let ransomware hold your business back from achieving its full potential. To learn more about how you can secure your company’s future, reach out to us at (516) 403-9001.

Businesses use cloud resources all the time; and, they use them for many different reasons. Some use them because they have to support a remote workforce, some use them so they don’t have to come up with large swaths of capital or don’t want to pay interest rates for financing their central hardware. Some only use them sparingly to fill in the gaps created by product and service demand.

Whatever your business uses the cloud for, there are some major problems that can arise if you don’t actively manage your cloud accounts. Let’s take a look at three major issues small businesses can run into when over-relying on cloud services:

Cost Management

Consider that an individual can forget that they have signed up for a streaming service or another Internet-based service. This is exactly the problem with cloud services for business. Workers or departments can sign up for services through the business, and then never use those services again, but since most cloud services auto-renew every month “for convenience”, companies can be paying substantial money for services they don’t even use.

Beyond that, most cloud service providers market their services to small business owners and decision makers as being cost effective, but the more that a business depends on cloud services, the more they will pay for those services. Sure, they have the flexibility to scale up and back as needed, but if services that aren’t being used continue to be paid for, it can be plenty expensive.

Another consideration for businesses that forgo the software-as-a-service model to host their own infrastructure in the cloud can have difficulty predicting the costs of their hosted computing resources. Since most businesses need to set a baseline of cost for any and all of their technology, it could conceivably become problematic if the processing costs supersede the budgeted amount. There are ways to keep cloud computing costs under control, of course, but they can be difficult to manage for small businesses that may not have the IT coverage some larger companies do.

Lack of Security

From day one, the biggest bugaboo surrounding cloud computing has been the security costs, with good reason. The biggest problem is that, when using cloud computing, companies cannot see the location where their data is being stored and processed, and with no control over the physical infrastructure hosting the resources, they have to have faith in the provider to do the right things to protect data and infrastructure. In fact, it can be a very important consideration when storing what could be potentially sensitive information in the cloud. 

All the threats that a business faces from the Internet are still relevant for cloud providers. Things like data breaches, compromised authentication, hacked interfaces, account hijacking, and other security problems don’t go away because your business uses the cloud. It makes trusting a third party business to protect your data a little more difficult. Some tips that will help include: 

• Ensure the security of your cloud provider - You will want to choose cloud platforms that have identity management, authentication and access control tools integrated to give you the best shot at protecting your data. 
• Check their privacy and security controls - Before choosing a provider you will want to check which database privacy and security laws they adhere to. There is a growing list of new laws on the books. The organizations that adhere to those regulations will be more reliably secure than ones that don’t. 
• Ensure they help you stay compliant - This goes without saying, but if your business has regulations that you have to maintain compliance with, you will want to choose a cloud provider that will make that possible. 
• Set up cloud management - Today there are several business intelligence tools that can help you monitor the effectiveness of your hosted solutions. This will not only help you maintain security, it will also provide you with insights on how the solutions are working for your business. 

Cloud Performance

One issue that you don’t always hear about, but is an important consideration is how the cloud platform actually performs for your business. Of course, downtime is always going to be a consideration for platforms that require an Internet connection to work. That obviously isn’t going to be an issue if you’ve already decided to use cloud-hosted solutions. What is a consideration, however, is that if your business is using the cloud to gain access to tools that you likely couldn’t afford otherwise, will the cloud-based services have the reliability that is advertised?

A couple of the major cloud providers have had major outages the past couple of years, and this could actually negatively affect the continuity of your business. You will want to make sure that if there is an issue that the provider you choose has a system that will alert you as the problem is happening and not after, when it is also a major problem for your business. Remember, if you have problems with your cloud-based services, you have problems with your business, so be sure to do your research before adding cloud SaaS services to your infrastructure. 

Cloud computing can be a godsend for your business, but it can also change the way you need to think about your IT. Give MSPNetworks a call today at (516) 403-9001 to talk to one of our consultants about getting the reliable and secure cloud services your business needs.

For some companies, their IT is like a boat to a fisherman: they could conceivably do the work without it, but they wouldn’t have a business. For this reason it is important to know how to ascertain which technology investments are right for your business at any given time. Let’s go through a few considerations decision makers should highlight when choosing new technology for their businesses. 

Start With Business Problems

There is very little reason to add new technology to a business if the business already functions optimally. You know that saying, “you can’t draw blood from a stone”? Many business owners will try to add technology to their business only to find out that it is more of a hindrance than a benefit. If you want to choose the most beneficial technology, start with the parts of your business that don’t function the way that you’d like them to.

The best way to go about ascertaining this knowledge is to ask your employees what the business can do better. You might find that your staff has the best insight on what you can do to make their jobs less stressful and help them to be more productive.

Prioritize Security

When deciding which technologies to add to your business’ IT infrastructure, it’s important to prioritize the ability to secure the solution. The sad truth is that each day more and more businesses become victims of cybercrime, and this makes adding technology that much more difficult. In order to successfully add technology that is secure enough to use for business, business owners must realize that cybersecurity isn’t just about having the right preventative technology solutions in place, it requires a great deal of awareness and efforts from the entire staff. 

It is important to have a well-thought-out information security plan in place that states the goals and priorities of the organization as it relates to cybersecurity. This extends to all aspects of the organization’s computing infrastructure, including social media, email, and other Internet-facing resources. Another consideration is to have a regularly-updated inventory that identifies all of the hardware, software, and sensitive data that the organization keeps. Beyond that, you’ll need an access control system in place and comprehensive employee training to ensure that your staff has all the necessary information and skills to keep your business’ data and infrastructure safe. 

Consider Long Term Costs 

Another important consideration is to figure out what the new technology will cost your business. Sure there is a price tag on new servers or workstations, you know what you pay for new software, but if you are looking to add to your business’ computing infrastructure, the actual cost of the solution is going to be much greater than the sticker on the box or what shows up on the invoice.

Is your new technology going to have to be replaced in two years? Five? Eight? You’ll need a plan of attack and an idea of what all the resources surrounding the new implementation will cost. While the point of new technology is to improve your business, what is an acceptable ROI for each new deployment? To do this most effectively, you’ll want to figure out the total cost of ownership (TCO) of any new technology. The TCO’s math isn’t always simple. The variables that go into it include:

• The cost of acquisition
• The cost of implementation
• The cost of operation
• The cost of improvement and maintenance

Each variable has several considerations. For example, the cost of implementation also includes the costs related to testing the technology and training your staff. These costs often dwarf the acquisition costs. You’ll need to figure out if a technology project provides the return you are looking for, or if adding the solution is going to cost your business more capital than it’s worth. 

Understand Your Limits

You may not even know where to start when it comes to adding technology. Fortunately, the IT professionals at MSPNetworks can help you choose the right technology, help you get it in place, and assist you in every part of the process. Give our technology experts a call today at (516) 403-9001 to learn more about how we can help you get the technology you need.

With all the communication tools that businesses use today, there still is no more important option than the telephone system. Unfortunately for small businesses, the telephone system can be expensive and hard to manage. However, there is a way for you to get a fully featured telephone service with some of the most important tools your business needs, at a fraction of the price you currently pay for your enterprise telephone system.

With that, we’d like to introduce you to VoIP.

What Is VoIP?

VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a telephone system that uses your business’ Internet connection to fuel its telephone system. Rather than paying the antiquated telephone company an arm and a leg, you can now use your existing Internet connection to host a dynamic and reliable telephone platform. There are different tiers of VoIP, but today’s most cost effective, and popular, is a VoIP platform that is hosted in the cloud. 

Using a VoIP system can frequently provide a business with a variety of operational perks:

• VoIP is easily manageable - Your VoIP solution will either be hosted on your in-house infrastructure or in a dedicated cloud server, making management simpler and reconfiguration possible in just a few clicks.
• VoIP enables mobility - A VoIP system doesn’t restrict your employees to only using their business telephone while physically at their desk. While it will work with a dedicated business phone, your employees can also leverage a mobile device via a dedicated application.
• VoIP provides cost reductions - One of VoIP’s most attractive benefits is how it can scale back your communication costs in multiple ways. VoIP eliminates the need to pay for phone services on top of your Internet service, and most “premium” features are generally included.
• VoIP incorporates integrations - VoIP solutions can be integrated into your other management and line of business solutions. 
• VoIP offers advanced features - VoIP has some built-in options that can really be a huge benefit for your business. These include call waiting, call forwarding, instant and text messaging, and video and audio conferencing. 

Naturally, higher-tier plans will have a greater selection of these features available, allowing you to boost your operations even further.

Would you like to know more about VoIP? Call MSPNetworks and our IT professionals today at (516) 403-9001 to get more information.

All businesses, in some way, shape, or form, exist to generate revenue—whether their profits are retained for their own benefit or dedicated to supporting some other cause. Either way, this balance makes the difference between the investments a business makes and the return these investments see a critical consideration. By using modern technology, today’s organizations can tip this balance to be more in their favor.

Let’s consider three ways that you could leverage technology to ultimately benefit your cash flows.

Improving Operational Efficiency

Let’s jump right into it and acknowledge something: the more you can effectively accomplish with the time, energy, and resources you’ve invested, the better off your company will be. Today’s technology offers a means of doing so through automation.

Rather than having an employee commit time to certain tasks, modern IT can easily carry out these tasks with minimal oversight or interaction. With predetermined triggers to instigate key processes, you and your team can spend less time on busy work and more on tasks that will help to increase your business’ dealings.

Whether you need to track and organize data, send out repetitive communications, or generate insights and reports, there are some means of carrying these out properly.

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Business technology is, in a word, expensive. Whether you need a specific software suite to support your operations, or improved infrastructure hardware, or more storage space for your team to use, the associated costs are typically substantial if you plan to support it yourself.

Now, today’s technology opens a new option: cloud-based services. These services can be tailored to better fit the situation of the business using them, in terms of the number of users and specific services rendered. That way, you can optimize your budgetary spend to suit your precise needs, eliminating waste and freeing up more of your budget than otherwise possible. Furthermore, these services give you more flexibility overall, as your delivered services can be trimmed to match your precise needs more closely.

Reconsidering IT Expenses

On the topic of cloud-hosted services, the pricing structure these offer can also assist you in optimizing your budgetary spend. Rather than a single, lump-sum price to be paid up front, the cost of cloud-hosted software services is billed per month as a subscription. This helps to make your expenditures far more predictable, assisting you in managing your available budget, while also offering flexibility as your needs change over time.

Furthermore, not all cloud providers and vendors are created equal, and the market is volatile enough that one service might not always be the best option for you at a given time. Therefore, you should regularly go over your available options to ensure that you are investing as much as you can in the ideal choices.

Managed IT services offer many of these qualities, enabling you to squeeze every bit of value out of the technology you rely on. Find out more about what MSPNetworks can do for you by calling (516) 403-9001.

COVID-19 has changed the way that most business owners look at a dollar. For months, businesses have been making strategic budget cuts to try to stay afloat. Cybersecurity has been the ultimate growth industry over the past several years, but in the face of the pandemic, the market for these products and services is seeing substantial retraction. In fact, Gartner estimates that in 2020, the cybersecurity industry will shrink by almost $7 billion. Today, we’ll take a look at the cybersecurity market and why it is important not to slow your cybersecurity spending if you can help it.

The Cybersecurity Market

As more people lean on technology, the cybersecurity industry has been a major beneficiary. The cybersecurity market was estimated to hit $170 billion in 2020 with the United States and Europe making up for nearly 70 percent of all spending in the area. The areas that have seen the most growth recently are the SIEM/security analytics market, threat intelligence, mobile security, and cloud security. In fact, cloud security has seen a 50 percent increase since 2016. 

Why is all this necessary? Simple. Cyberattacks evolve as fast as (or faster than) the security systems in place to thwart them. This has led to massive growth for the better part of the past decade. Since cyberattacks cost businesses nearly $500 billion a year, the large market growth is justified. New sectors like FinTech have pushed cybersecurity companies to innovate faster than ever.  

The COVID-19 Effect

The era of ridiculous cybersecurity spending was on its way out already with business owners and decision makers finding that the return on their security investments weren’t strong enough to facilitate limitless spending initiatives. What nobody who works in cybersecurity saw coming was a global pandemic that would force CIOs to cut into their cybersecurity budgets. 

That’s not to say that businesses weren’t heavily investing in cybersecurity. They absolutely were, and are, but with the only metric to compare it against is a full-fledged data breach, notoriously optimistic executives see the value in spending that money on other things; and; make no mistake about it, until something terrible happens, they will look correct in appropriating those funds from cybersecurity to some other use.

Cybersecurity is the Last Technology You Should Cut

Without strong cybersecurity protections, your business has an even smaller chance to survive an already risky situation. It doesn’t take much for an attack or breach to put a healthy business out of commission, cause layoffs, or at the very least, put financial strain on an organization. If it were to happen now, it will sting even more.

Let’s talk about your cybersecurity, and how to get the most protection for what you have. Give us a call at (516) 403-9001.

The cloud has proven to be an extremely useful tool for the modern business. Not only does it provide anywhere-anytime access to applications, processing, storage, et al; it also delivers those products as a service, allowing you to budget for recurring costs rather than major upfront ones. This provides your organization with functional, supported, and secure computing environments that eliminate a lot of the support costs that traditional computing environments require. It sounds like a perfect scenario for small and large businesses alike, but things aren’t always what they seem, as a lot of cloud users have found that they have incurred several hidden costs by using cloud platforms. Today, we take a look at these hidden costs.

A study from Research In Action polled 468 CIOs about their cloud usage and the costs associated with them. Many admitted that cloud investment was one of the largest expenses their organization would have from a technology point of view. The study went on to find that while a majority of CIOs considered the “hidden” costs of this technology, much of the concern is alleviated by the reputation of their vendors. Some of the potential problems they considered include:

Having to put forth more effort to properly manage vendors, and their corresponding Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Bottlenecking and the impact poor cloud performance could have on brand perception, productivity, and customer support. The increased cost of solving complex problems inside cloud environments.

Are these concerns justified? Sure, but they are hard to measure. Many businesses just haven’t developed a system to properly quantify the perceived loss in revenue tied to cloud inefficiency. In fact, most companies don’t have updated, automated methods in use to track and manage their cloud performance.

Costs of Scalability

Many organizations also run into cloud cost overruns when dealing with the scale of their cloud platforms. Costs associated with over-provisioning (buying too much), under-provisioning (buying too little), management, and administration of cloud hosted environments present costs that may not look significant up front, but over time can have negative effects on the overall profitability of a business. Understanding the amount of space/processing you’ll need to meet your organization's needs is almost always going to be a fluid situation, but understanding how they affect your business’ bottom line is crucial to mitigate unwanted monetary responsibilities or cost overruns associated with the cloud platforms you utilize.

Going Too Far

Cloud platforms are nice, but you don’t have to look much further than your personal situation to see how the ease of use these platforms provide can get expensive pretty quick. For the individual, costs add up quick thanks to cloud-based streaming media and other platforms that come in a subscription model. You’ve got Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, and many, many more that are relatively cheap. Microsoft Office 365 is exceptionally useful and affordable, providing unparalleled value for about any computer user. The more you subscribe to, the more costs add up, which is why you’ll want to design, and stick to a dedicated plan to avoid overextending yourself, or your organization.

Utility computing in the cloud, whether it be applications, storage, processing, or some other form, is extraordinarily valuable, but only if you understand how to avoid paying more than you should for your cloud assets. The knowledgeable technicians at MSPNetworks can help you come up with cloud deployment strategy, while also helping you avoid cost overruns typically associated with these assets. Call us today at (516) 403-9001 to learn more.

If you’re trying to minimize your operating costs to improve your budget, it is important to keep in mind that sacrifice isn’t your only option. Instead, you also have the option of streamlining and minimizing some of your larger expenses by enlisting a managed services provider and the more sustainable business model we adhere to.

What follows are a few ways that support costs can inflate, and how recruiting an MSP can provide superior services at a reduced cost.

How Support Costs Inflate

There are various reasons that acquiring support for your technology can quickly become an expensive investment:

• Your technology may be inherently expensive to repair, or if need be, to replace.
• Repair fees factor in additional fees and travel costs, on top of the charge for the actual service.
• Repair services tend to only focus on solving the immediate problem, with no consideration for the future. This leaves the possibility of the issue recurring, or even for the fix to create more problems in the future—either of which would often require another billable visit from the provider.
• The responsibility ultimately falls to you to call in a technician to fix any issues that do pop up and schedule a time for them to come in, potentially leading to significant downtime and the lost revenue that comes with it. This lost revenue can be considered an additional cost and therefore adds to the total bill you’re stuck with.
• These expenses are effectively impossible to accurately plan for, considering how variable each support bill will be. As a result, it is very easy to over-budget or under-budget for your annual IT support needs.

This is all the case if you were to rely on the more “traditional” method of obtaining technical support, rather than subscribing to an MSP’s services. Let’s go over how the MSP is far-and-away going to provide better value for your investment:

How an MSP Prevents Cost Inflation

There are various ways that the MSP eliminates the challenges that the traditional provider’s services present.

• In addition to remaining up-to-speed on best practices regarding repair and remediation, an MSP will have formed business relationships with a variety of vendors who offer them better prices for the technology you need.
• Rather than requiring a member of their staff to travel to your location, your MSP will utilize remote access tools to diagnose and mitigate everything that doesn’t require hands-on intervention, resolving issues more quickly. Any additional travel time and associated costs included in the agreement are also covered by the monthly fee.
• When needed, the MSP goes beyond fixing the symptoms of a problem. Instead, they’ll use their access and monitoring tools to identify the source of the issue and resolve that, helping reduce the likelihood of further action being needed.
• Using their toolkit, an MSP is also capable of monitoring your network and systems for errors, inconsistencies, and other signs of a problem… even identifying potential, not-yet-realized issues. As a result, they can proactively prevent obstacles from interrupting your workflows.
• As an MSP operates similarly to a subscription service, budgeting becomes particularly simple as your financial commitment is made much more predictable. This also makes it simple to adjust your agreement to meet your needs, as your fee is simply adjusted to match whatever your business requires.

To learn more about what a managed service provider can do to benefit your business and its operations, reach out to MSPNetworks! Give us a call at (516) 403-9001.