Business Archives - Page 8 of 10 - NuTech Services LLC

Mar, 2017

Do the Right Thing This World Backup Day and Back it Up Right

In today’s business world, having a reliable way to access your data is key to your company’s success. Everything you do depends on the data you have at your disposal–so what would you do if that data was no longer available to you?

This is a far too common circumstance that creates problems for many businesses. It doesn’t help matters that so many factors can lead to data loss. Malicious programs, hardware failure, even a “whoops” moment from a user, can put your data in peril.

Even worse, events like these have a way of causing businesses to fail, as they no longer have the tools they need for success. However, there are methods to protecting your business from these issues.

One such method is to maintain a comprehensive backup to ensure that, regardless of what may happen, your critical data will be safe. With a solution that takes a snapshot of your data every 15 minutes, you can keep your losses to a minimum should something go down.

Today is World Backup Day. At NuTech Services, we dedicate a lot of time and effort to implementing and managing comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery solutions for Michigan businesses. To that end, we have the solution your business needs to protect and preserve your information, and we can equip you with a backup plan that specializes in your company’s unique data needs.

NuTech Services has the experience you’ll want in a provider of such an important consideration. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to hear what we can offer you in defense of your data.

Mar, 2017

Tip of the Week: Looking to Save Money? Try These 4 Proven Business Tactics

Unless you have the good fortune to be running a large, well-funded business, you’ll always want to find ways to cut out unnecessary costs and improve the way your organization functions. When you’re cracking down on your budget, you might notice that even making a small change to your spending could yield quite a large return in the form of savings. We’ve compiled four ways that your business can start making more for less.

Be Mindful of Utilities
You might not notice the benefits right away, but we promise that smart monitoring can yield results. Since nobody is in the office at night, you can turn off lights and monitors that nobody will use. While it might be annoying to make the rounds at the end of the day to turn off unnecessary technology, it can save you quite a bit on your next electric bill. Turning down the heat or air conditioning when nobody is in the office accomplishes the same thing. You can use smart lights and thermostats to conserve energy consumption, and over time these investments will pay for themselves. If possible, arrange your office in a way which helps you get the most natural light from windows to cut down on electricity consumption.

Pay for Skills Rather Than Experience
When you create a job opening, do you include all sorts of qualifications, including a minimum amount of experience required? This is usually how it works since businesses typically look for only the best candidates, but the best candidates usually demand top dollar. If you want to save some money during the hiring process, look for workers who have the skills required to perform their tasks rather than industry experience. Experience is something that they will gain while working for you, so you benefit from bringing them onto your team at an entry level salary, using hard work as an incentive to achieve better pay and benefits.

Recycle Your Unneeded Equipment
Have you ever tried to trade in your old technology to vendors? Doing so can often get you a discount that can make it easier to afford new equipment. You might be surprised by how many companies offer these kinds of incentives, so be sure to ask about it next time you reach out to the organizations you procure your hardware from.

Try Outsourcing as Much as Possible
One of the best ways to make up for shortcomings in either the skills department or your budget is outsourcing. These days, if you can think it, you can outsource it. A particularly great way to save money is by outsourcing the maintenance and oversight of your IT infrastructure to NuTech Services. Our trusted IT professionals know how best to help you get the most out of its technology.

We’re confident that these four methods of saving money can help your business achieve more flexibility in your budget. What are some of the best ways your organization has saved on operational costs? Let us know in the comments.

Mar, 2017

Pair Up the Right Workers to Increase Productivity By 10%

Keeping your workers as productive as possible is a challenge for every employer. According to a recent study by the Harvard Business Review, there is one easy that you can increase productivity: By keeping a productive worker in close proximity to other workers.

Such a profound discovery could be enough to shake the foundations of how you form your departments and how the interior of your office looks. Theoretically, you could simply arrange your office in a way which takes advantage of this “productivity by proximity” rule, keeping those who get the most work done at the center of the action. This could inspire your less-dutiful employees to better themselves and improve how they work.

What’s interesting is just how the study describes this phenomenon: “We saw that neighbors have a significant impact on an employee’s performance, and it can be either positive or negative. In terms of magnitude, we found that approximately ten percent of a worker’s performance spills over to her neighbors. Replacing an average performer with one who is twice as productive results in his or her neighboring workers increasing their own productivity by about ten percent, on average.”

Maybe you’re feeling that you should reevaluate how your organization is approaching the office setup, but before you go and make drastic changes, keep in mind that doing this haphazardly could actually make things worse. This study highlights the benefits of productivity by proximity, but keep in mind that it also warns of how the exact opposite can happen too. For example, an employee who wants to get the most done, for example, could be held back by a slacker that’s nearby.

You need to also consider other factors that influence worker productivity, like motivation. If you have a worker who wants to learn how to do a better job, putting them next to someone who is highly motivated and willing to go the extra mile could help dramatically. On the other hand, a worker who doesn’t care about doing a good job won’t be impressed by the positive attitude of their peers.

This is a negativity that your business can do without. In this situation, it might seem tempting to just isolate workers so they don’t influence each other. You can do this by either providing them with their own office, giving them the freedom to work remotely, or removing the problem employee from the equation completely.

As you can see, motivation is a crucial when it comes to worker productivity. It’s logical to assume that if you can provide powerful motivators, your team will be more likely to do their best work. Allowing workers to improve themselves by learning from motivated employees can be a spectacular way of improving productivity.

One last thing to consider is the technology that your organization uses. Implementing cloud-based collaboration software and communication solutions like VoIP and instant messaging can be a great way to help employees stay in touch and be more productive, regardless of where they are working. This helps your staff (especially those who might need help) stay in constant contact with those who can help them, allowing your team to be productive at all times.

To take advantage of the latest and greatest technology solutions, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2017

Here’s a Cost-Effective Alternative to Onboarding Additional IT Staff

An internal IT department serves two primary purposes for businesses. The first is to keep an eye on your technology problems and resolve them. The second is to plan for the future and implement new strategies that will help your organization function more effectively. The problem for the average small business is that their IT department often doesn’t have the luxury of performing both of these tasks.

The root of the problem is that most IT departments are too busy dealing with technology support issues and requests from employees to innovate. Eventually, this lack of innovation could cost your business money.

Do You Know What You’re Paying Your IT Department For?
By definition, your IT department is supposed to plan methods for your business to improve its infrastructure through any means necessary. On the side, they are supposed to help your organization by providing technical support for your assets. By adhering to this model, your IT department should be able to find ways to improve your technology infrastructure, while providing technical assistance for those who need it. The problem is that, as technology becomes more complicated, the help demanded by employees increases.

While it might seem ideal to approach IT support with an internal IT department, it rarely works out. IT departments just don’t have as much time as they need to really work toward improving anything. Often times, these issues are either recurring or resolved simply by rebooting the system, which is a waste of your IT department’s time.

Is Your IT Department Taking Your Company Nowhere?
While your IT department struggles to keep up, your team will naturally need to make forward progress. However, when all they do is respond to problems without making progress in order to prevent them, it’s easy to overlook the fact that many of these problems can be prevented in the future with a little innovation in the present. Plus, when routine maintenance is foregone for the sake of solving short-term problems, you’ll lose out in the long-term due to decreased performance and security issues.

As you can see (perhaps even from your own experience), an in-house IT department is often more distracted by problems that aren’t even theirs to resolve, which pulls them away from work that could make your business better. As a result, many organizations seek to outsource the IT work of their IT department’s in order to make up lost time. This can include innovation, but more often than not, you’ll find that outsourcing routine IT tasks and technology support to be helpful to your company’s overall goals.

After all, your technicians were hired to innovate, so why not give them the opportunity to do so?

To learn more about outsourced IT, reach out to NuTech Services. We can provide a help desk, network audits, and so many more valuable IT services that will help your organization improve efficiency. Call us today at 810.230.9455.

Feb, 2017

The Difference Between a Satisfied Employee vs a Loyal Employee is Huge

When you’re emotionally invested in something, there’s a better chance that you will enjoy it and find reason to do it. This is why marketers always attempt to use a good old tug-at-the-heartstrings tactic, as they know that if they can get their audience invested on an emotional level, they’ll be more willing to take the dive and try something new. The same tactic can be used to turn good employees into great employees.

Dr. John Fleming of Gallup conducted a survey that shows as much. He suspected that customer loyalty to a specific brand, product, person, or company was the result of an emotional attachment. To go the extra distance and get someone from being satisfied to loyal, the same general formula can be applied. According to Jay Forte of REWORK, the formula works like this:

If we don’t get it right, we create a dissatisfied customer. These customers don’t return.
If we get it right (deliver the service or product as expected), then we create a satisfied customer. These customers may return.
If we get it right and do something more (something that creates an emotional connection), then we create a loyal customer. These customers not only return, but they become brand evangelists.

If you consider why you’re loyal to the brands that you are, this makes a whole lot of sense. The formula predicts that this “conversion” from being a normal customer to a loyal customer is the result of getting more than what was expected from a brand in the first place. In other words, exceeding expectations is the key to taking satisfied customers and turning them into loyal, lifelong customers.

Now, let’s return to the original question; how can you turn a normal employee who is satisfied with their role in your organization, into a driven worker who wants to help your business succeed not just for its own sake, but for their own. One way you can bridge this emotional connection is by providing your employees with not just working technology, but top-notch technology.

Not getting it right: Imagine that you are an employee at a growing organization who is stuck using a lackluster workstation prone to freezing. You would quickly grow frustrated and imagine that management doesn’t care that your job performance depends on their technology working properly.
Getting it right: Now imagine that you’ve been given technology that works properly and keeps downtime to a minimum. Your major points of contention are taken care so you can perform your job adequately. These types of scenarios might allow for good work, but certainly not exceptional work.
Exceeding expectations: What if you were not only provided with working technology, but management also listened to your preferences and made sure that everyone was using technology that they were comfortable with? What if employees could use their own devices for work purposes? For many users, this is what is meant by going above and beyond.

What it comes down to is providing employees a good reason to stick around, as it would be a shame for good employees to leave if management can’t offer them emotional investment in their work. Similarly, it would be a shame if your technology were to break down if you don’t make time to take care of it. This is something that you don’t have to worry about; or, rather, you shouldn’t have to. After all, NuTech Services is here to help.

We believe that if we can provide great IT support, we can help your business improve and exceed even your own expectations. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Feb, 2017

How Consolidating Your Technology Vendors Will Save You a Ton of Time

Who manages the relationships that your organization has with its various vendors? Do you have someone who specifically handles this role, or is it pushed onto your already-full schedule? If this is something that takes up a significant portion of your day, vendor management (though necessary) can become a detriment. Thankfully, there is a better way to handle your vendor relationships, and it doesn’t involve stretching yourself thin.

With NuTech Services’s vendor management strategy, an outsourced provider directly handles all vendor relationships so that your organization doesn’t have to. Vendor management solutions have the potential to save your organization a large amount of time and capital.

Basically, how this works is that you no longer have to deal with the frustrating and time-consuming process of reaching out to each and every one of your vendors, and the outsourced provider handles this responsibility for you. In a sense, a service provider like NuTech Services can be your single point of contact for your technology vendors.

There should be no question whether you have time to deal with the emails and phone calls required to keep up with your technology. We can handle all of this for you, plus some, reaching out to your vendors as your business encounters issues. If you have questions about your products, you don’t have to worry about being put on hold or finding the right technician. We’ll deal with all of that for you so that you don’t have to waste your time.

Consolidating Your Vendors Into a Single Phone Number
Without vendor management, your business would be wasting countless hours that would be better spent on profitable initiatives. Furthermore, relying on vendors to resolve issues can quickly put a time-sensitive project behind schedule. With outsourced vendor management, you achieve all of the goals that you want to get to without sacrificing the time that you would spend making sure that your technology solutions are working as intended. This single point of contact allows you to take the unpredictability out of your tech support.

If your business wants to improve operations and take technology management to the next level, consider our vendor management services. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jan, 2017

Millennials to Make Up ⅓ of the Workforce. What’s This Mean for Your Business?

Millennials are entering the workforce at a considerable rate. In fact, some experts claim that millennials will soon make up at least one-third of the entire workforce. Thus, it’s important for both employers and workers from previous generations to understand how this generation thinks, acts, feels, and most important of all, works.

Traditional vs Flexible Work Hours
One of the most prominent trends seen in millennial workers is that they have a strong desire to keep a balance between their professional and personal lives. Yet, this desire isn’t necessarily exclusive to them. It’s reasonable to suggest that most workers would prefer this type of work-life balance. Commonly seen amongst millennials is their desire to work hard during their scheduled hours, but they still want to go home at the end of the day. Basically, they want some sort of control over how their time, both in and out of the office, is spent.

A great example of this can be seen in the daily commute. Millennials might be fine with driving to the office, but it’s probably safe to say that they would rather be using time spent on a commute to get right to work remotely. To put this claim in perspective, let’s take a look at some recent statistics. There are currently around three million remote workers in America, and this is expected to grow by 63 percent in the next five years. Pew Research Center suggests that 64 percent of millennials would at least like the option to work from home on occasion. Similarly, Pew found that 66 percent of millennial workers would prefer a shift in their work hours, allowing for a more flexible work/life balance.

Career Growth and Improvement
One of the top priorities of millennial workers is that they want to experience growth and improvement in their professional lives. They aren’t going to be satisfied with just one job in their lives. They always seek both professional and financial opportunity, and it’s something that they hope to get from your business. Rather than having a direct supervisor, they want to consider authority figures within your organization to be mentors; someone who helps them learn how to do their job better.

These workers will also want to provide their own individual input into big projects, and they want to feel valued and validated. One way you can accomplish this is by giving new hires small responsibilities at first, and offering the possibility of expanding on these responsibilities in the future. Provide quality feedback and tell them what they are doing right (or wrong) so they can plan out the next step of their professional development.

Technology is Second-Nature to Them
Last but not least, it’s crucial that your business understand that millennials have grown up surrounded by the technology that many take for granted today. They can adapt to systems quickly and efficiently, and (since they want to be challenged) this gives them a great opportunity to test themselves with new software or hardware solutions. By letting them use the latest and greatest technology solutions, you’ll give them a great incentive to stick around longer.

If you want to ensure that your millennial employees will hang around and continue to be a benefit to your organization, NuTech Services can equip your business with the latest technology solutions. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jan, 2017

Tip of the Week: 4 Ways to Attract and Retain Top Talent

The endgame for most businesses is to improve what they do and increase their profitability. While this might mean selling more products, getting more customers or clients, or a myriad of other metrics, the driving force behind your business’s operations–your employees–are crucial toward this goal.

Top talent can be difficult to come by. There are several factors that come into play, especially in a competitive industry. However, employees that go above and beyond are easily worth the struggle that it takes to find them. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to do everything you can in order to make your business attractive to them. Here are four ways that you can make your business a magnet that attracts talented workers.

Offer Benefits
One of the most effective ways to attract new employees is by offering benefits and sign-on bonuses. However, this can lead to you getting more applications than you have time to go through, with many of them possibly not being qualified for the position at all. On the other hand, this makes a particularly impressive employee stand out from the rabble.

In fact, these benefits don’t necessarily have to involve finances. Instead, something as simple as flexible work hours, career advancement, and education may be motivation enough.

Challenge Them
Hard workers appreciate challenges as they provide a valuable outlet for users to test themselves. When you’re looking for new employees, consider implementing some sort of challenge or homework assignment that you can use to gauge whether the prospective employees actually know what they’re doing. This effectively helps you cut down on unqualified applicants, while also allowing you to engage your prospects from the get-go.

Idealize the Workplace
You can hire as much talent as you want, but if you don’t provide your high-demand talent with a great work environment, they may pack their bags and look for a place that does. Be sure that you emphasize to your new onboards what the strengths of your company are, and allow the prospective employees to get a feel for your workplace. Plus, if your current employees have plenty of good to share about the company with the prospect, they’ll be more likely to seal the deal themselves.

Provide the Latest Technology
It’s a known fact that the latest technology can significantly improve the way that you do business, but did you know that it’s also great for attracting new workers? A study of millennial workers found that 42 percent of them will seriously consider leaving a job if the technology used by the company doesn’t meet their high standards. While this might be seen as your typical millennial boo-hooing, keep in mind that they will make up the majority of the workforce as early as 2020. Therefore, it make sense that you would want to hang onto young talent when you can.

One of the ways that you see millennials using their technology in the office is through the use of smartphones, which can also put your business at risk. Be sure that you implement a solid BYOD policy and ensure that they adhere to it. NuTech Services can provide you with the assistance needed to do so.

Basically, these four tips are meant to help you attract the best talent possible. Plus, if you manage to get some good employees, that means that they aren’t working for your competition, which is always a plus.

Bonus Tip: Outsource the Technology Upkeep and Maintenance
One of the biggest issues that SMBs might have is finding qualified technicians to take care of their office technology solutions. While this is a challenge, it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Outsourcing services like IT is often preferable to hiring new employees and adding new salaries to your budget. Instead, all you have to do is make room for an IT budget, which can save you plenty of capital in the long run, and then be used to onboard talented staff. In fact, we highly recommend outsourcing as much as possible. To get started, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jan, 2017

Is Break-Fix IT Breaking Your Budget?

Most modern businesses rely on specific technology solutions to ensure operations can work as intended. This includes servers for data storage, networks for data distribution, and workstations for employee productivity. Of course, you have to wonder if this is wise; after all, what happens when this technology fails?

Break-fix IT used to be the staple for business technology maintenance. Organizations would use their technology solutions until they broke down, and would only utilize IT when it needed to be fixed. At the same time, companies would have to struggle with downtime–any time when technology isn’t working as intended. This can quickly lead to a time sink in which you’re losing out on possible revenue, all while fixing technology issues that could have been prevented in the first place. These big hits to budgets can make operations difficult even after recovering from downtime.

Managed IT services are an option that modern SMBs have in order to bypass the shortcomings of break-fix IT. Instead of only resolving IT issues as they happen, proactive managed IT aims to take preventative measures to keep problems from happening in the first place. This includes most all solutions that are managed and hosted by a third-party provider, with the intention of removing responsibilities from your in-house team. Unlike your in-house team, who may struggle with managing some aspects of your technology, you can rely on a third-party managed service provider to guarantee that your technology gets the attention it needs.

A good comparison would be comparing an automobile to managed IT services. If your car is making weird sounds, like the engine spitting and sputtering, you’ll naturally want to get it checked for major problems. However, due to the cost of vehicle maintenance, you might choose to forego maintenance. After all, your car still runs, so surely the problem can wait a bit. In this case, it’s better to get the problem resolved quickly before a motor problem leaves you stranded on the side of the road, with both a towing fee and the repair costs.

On the other hand, having your own team of mechanics that can repair and maintain your car for a monthly fee is a better investment, as they will perform the tuneups and the maintenance needed to keep your car in good shape. This is what having managed IT services feels like.

Preventative maintenance can help to keep technology solutions from experiencing hardware failure for as long as possible. No technology lasts forever, so the ideal way to minimize the damage done by hardware failure is to plan for it. By implementing preventative solutions like data backup and disaster recovery, you can limit how much damage downtime causes your organization, and you’ll be able to make the transition to new technology much easier.

Does your business use proactive maintenance to mitigate threats to your business? If not, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jan, 2017

Tip of the Week: Maximize Workflow By Rethinking Your Office Layout

Of all the potential causes for a deficit within the office environment, the physical office itself isn’t likely to first come to mind. Even so, the value of establishing certain practical design and organization strategies have shown to improve employee morale, collaboration, and productivity. While these solutions may not be for every office, if your company is experiencing hindrances in productivity, these tactics may be beneficial implementations to incorporate within your business.

Keep it Clear
Are the desks in your office cluttered with papers, equipment, and other items that are keeping employees from completing their work? If so, it may be time to distribute more storage solutions to encourage your employees to keep their desk clear and relatively distraction free. Otherwise, you could institute the many solutions available to help your business go paperless. Document management solutions can allow many employees to access, edit, and collaborate on the same document without the expense and mess of multiple paper copies.

If office clutter is caused more by the equipment your employees use, there are a variety of solutions that can assist in reducing the amount of real estate this equipment takes up. Office telephony is clunky and expensive and may easily be replaced by a space- and cost-efficient, hosted VoIP solution. As far as wires are concerned, if not properly managed, they can quickly become a distracting waste of space. Fortunately, there is a trend in manufacturing to assist in managing and concealing wires at the workstation. If data storage, whether it’s incorporated into each employee’s workstation or housed in a large on-premises drive, is creating a space deficit, a cloud solution can reduce the amount of in-house storage needed to maintain operations.

Provide Spaces to Collaborate
If your business needs to keep its lines clear to contact clients, limiting the availability of VoIP communication, or if a face-to-face conversation is simply the more effective option when it comes to collaborating on a project, it is best to have a space dedicated to communal work. This can be as simple as a large table set aside for groups to utilize, or as complex as mobile workstations and adjustable equipment. A highly effective approach to encourage positive, organized group work is a concept known as a war room.

A war room is simply a dedicated space designed to engage the spatial memory of those using it. By putting a certain piece of information in a certain space, it becomes easier to remember. By filling a room with whiteboards (or even rolling whiteboards) and movable furniture, you create the ideal space for a group to meet and create a plan that can be referenced and adjusted as needed.

Prepare for the Worst
If disaster struck your office, be it fire, flood, or failure of some essential equipment, would you still have a way to safely access your data in order to continue your operations? These circumstances, along with any others that would qualify as a disaster, are why one of your most important office setup considerations should be completely removed from the office. To fully protect your data, the most advisable course of action is to use an off-premises, isolated backup solution that can restore your data, should it ever be lost.

While many considerations are totally yours to act upon when setting up a workspace, NuTech Services can provide the expertise to be sure any of your technical systems will meet the very high standards you need them to reach. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 for help with any of your technology needs.

Dec, 2016

Why FitBit’s Purchase of Pebble Matters to Businesses

Smartwatch enthusiasts now have one less brand from which to select, as rival Fitbit has successfully taken over the former Kickstarter project Pebble’s business. For companies that rely on software for their mission-critical tasks, lessons learned from the end of Pebble reminds business owners that, when it comes to innovative technology purchases, there is always a bit of risk.

First, some background: Pebble made the announcement on its Kickstarter page that “due to various factors,” the company “could no longer operate as an independent entity” and had “made the tough decision to shut down the company” after Fitbit completed the purchase of some of Pebble’s assets. The company went on to disclose that they would no longer be continuing any hardware operations, ceasing the production of their wearable products.

As for the devices that had already been sold, Pebble advised their customers that their devices “will work normally for now.” However, since what remains of the company will no longer release software updates, the devices will quickly become vulnerable to malicious threats until they gradually become totally obsolete. These devices are also no longer eligible to be returned or exchanged, leaving their users stuck with a device with a considerably-shortened shelf life, and with no financial recompense.

In short, it’s clear that out of all parties affected by this buyout, it’s the users who are left with the short end of the stick; stuck with insecure electronic devices that they may have contributed a significant financial investment towards, and without warranty.

While this transaction will likely have little effect on a business, it’s worth considering the ramifications of tech companies engaging in similar deals.

For example, let’s say your workplace is exclusively equipped with desktop solutions from Company A. One day, it’s suddenly announced that Company B has come in and bought Company A, and is ending support for Company A’s products. As a result, your office is now filled with unsupported devices that will become obsolete much quicker than anticipated, with an increased susceptibility to security threats after support has ended. Sure, you could update your workstations, but it would be costly to receive customized support.

If you want to be protected against the whims of the tech industry, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455. We can keep your systems maintained with a managed services solution, and an eye on the industry to help you roll a bit better with the punches.

Nov, 2016

Tip of the Week: Crank Up the Tunes and Turn Up the Productivity

With the use of portable personal music players and streaming services like Spotify, Google Play Music, and Pandora, unobtrusively listening to music in the workplace has become much easier–but has it also made it easier for employees to be more distracted from their tasks? Additionally, assuming that music does create a boost in productivity, why does it do so?

Research has shown that, depending on what variables are present in the environment and what the employee is engaged in doing, music can either boost or hinder productivity levels.

One such variable was the nature of the task itself, and how much cognitive creativity and focus it demanded of the employee. The process of checking email certainly doesn’t change very much as it progresses, but developing a proposal for a business transaction very well might. In cases where a task is mostly repetitive, studies have shown that listening to background music does show notable benefits to both employee performance during such tasks, and how efficiently the task is completed.

Another hypothesis is that (especially in the increasingly-popular open office spaces) productivity may be boosted simply because the headphones employees use to listen to music also help to drown out the other distracting factors present in the office environment. These other distractions, whether they’re caused by equipment noise or coworker conversations, can break employee focus and disrupt tasks. Naturally, if these distractions are blocked out and overpowered by a consistent environment created by music, the employee will be less likely to shift their attention to the distraction, and instead, be more likely to stay focused on their work.

Despite the boosts to attentiveness that listening to music can provide to someone performing a relatively mundane, basic task, someone trying to focus on a new or complicated process will most likely find that even the most subtle tones can be horribly distracting. These effects can be made worse if the song is unfamiliar to them; worse still if there are lyrics involved. After all, the first instinct many will have when encountering new music (especially music with lyrics), is to focus on the tune as part of their overall critique of the music. In fairness, studies have indicated that tasks involving parts of the brain that don’t deal with verbal language can be benefitted by lyrical compositions–designing and developing software, for instance–but it may be safer to stick with exclusively instrumental pieces.

Of course, every worker is different. Some may not be bothered by lyrics or new music being introduced to them, others may find that these common distractions are uncommonly distracting. As a result, it may not be a bad idea to give your employees a few options to take advantage of until they can lock down how their own auditory secret sauce is composed.

What do you prefer to listen to while you’re working? Share your favorite selections in the comments below!

Nov, 2016

Tip of the Week: 4 Tools that Provide Your Employees With Greater Flexibility

Flexibility is an important part of the modern work environment, especially as technology has made it much easier to work anytime, anywhere. Employees understand that this flexibility exists in many industries, and they want to reap the benefits of a flexible work environment. However, it’s not that easy; there are quite a few pitfalls that can easily take a stab at your business’s productivity.

On the plus side, flexible work hours allow your team to flourish as people, rather than employees. Your employees no-doubt have families and personal interests of their own that they would like to devote time to. However, the biggest argument for workplace flexibility comes in the form of mobile technology becoming practically omnipresent in today’s environment. In the context of society, mobility is, more or less, a primary concern. Everyone carries a smartphone with them in order to stay up-to-date on email, and to receive important phone calls or to dial into a conference call.

Then there’s the problem of achieving a work-life balance. If an employee is constantly tethered to the office, even while at home, it can feel somewhat invasive to that employee’s domestic life, which can lead to dissatisfaction, and in some cases, disruption. Nobody likes to receive a phone call in the middle of the night, or at the dinner table, about something that can easily be handled the following morning.

Whether or not you want to implement a flexible workplace environment is ultimately up to you, but if you do choose to go all-in on this investment, you’ll need the proper technology solutions to ensure maximum communication and productivity.

Voice over Internet Protocol: A VoIP phone system uses your Internet connection to send your voice to the call’s recipient. It’s basically like a traditional phone system without the complex wiring. VoIP systems also come equipped with your standard phone line functions, like transferring, conference calling, etc, and some even have video conferencing technology.
Virtual Private Network: A VPN encrypts data that’s sent to and from your business’s infrastructure. They’re great for keeping sensitive data secure from hackers who would steal information while it’s in transit. The reason you’ll want this is because hackers may be lurking on public Wi-Fi connections, just waiting for someone like you to access the network.
Cloud Computing: Your business’s data and applications are available to those who are hooked up to your on-site network, but what about those who choose to work remotely? Cloud computing lets you host information and applications in an online environment, where anyone who has access to an Internet connection can utilize it.
Mobile Device Management: If your team is using their own devices to access your company’s sensitive information, you need to make sure that they comply with your BYOD policy. A mobile device management solution can be used to limit access to data on a per user and per device basis, as well as allowing you to remotely wipe devices that are potentially compromised.

If your business is ready and willing to invest in a flexible, modern workforce and workplace, NuTech Services can help. Our solutions are designed to give you maximum control over your data, while allowing your team to work anytime, anywhere. To learn more, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

Oct, 2016

Tip of the Week: Take Commuting Out of the Picture and Watch Productivity Soar!

Commuting to and from the office is a regular occurrence all over the world. In the United States alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average commute for the everyday worker is around 25 minutes. Even if this commute is necessary, it could be holding your business back from achieving its full potential.

Think about it this way; if your employees are on the road for an hour every day, that’s an hour that’s not being used for work, and an hour that the employee doesn’t have to themselves. It effectively adds an hour to the workday, but it doesn’t benefit either your business or the employee. This knowledge can be disheartening, but there are plenty of other reasons why a commute can put a damper on your bottom line.

Commuting Eats Away At Your Energy
How much time do you spend sitting in traffic every day on the way to work? This can be exceptionally frustrating and rage-inducing if you live in a metropolitan area. Any positive energy that you had when you left for work in the morning is completely gone by the time you get to the office, and when you start the day on a bad note, it can only get worse. Plus, longer commutes can cause health problems due to increased stress.

Commuting Causes Exhaustion and Sleep Deprivation
Even if the average commute for the United States worker is about 25 minutes, what about those who are on the higher end of the spectrum? If you have workers commuting 45 minutes or more, they could be losing out on precious sleep. When your team isn’t well-rested, mistakes can be made, and on a long commute to the office, they could even be putting their lives at risk.

Some organizations believe that remote workers are a liability and that they cost more than they’re worth, but the reality of the situation is that remote workers aren’t costing you money, and they aren’t decreasing your bottom line. If anything, they’re helping your business; remote workers don’t use your technology or your electricity, which means that you don’t have to provide them with the hardware required for the job, and your energy costs decrease. In an interview with Inc, Sara Sutton Fell, CEO of the job platform Flexjobs, states that 47 percent of her workforce works remotely, and this has saved her organization around $78 million. Even if you’re a small business owner, you can benefit from immense cost savings associated with remote workers.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by allowing your team to work remotely. As long as you have the technology solutions to make it a productive environment, your workers and your business can flourish remotely. Not only will your employees be happier and healthier, but this improvement can lead to greater productivity and employee satisfaction that’s crucial to retain talent.

To get started with remote technology solutions, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455.

Aug, 2016

It Pays to Outsource Your IT

Technology can be fickle at times. When it’s not working properly, it can hold your business back from reaching its maximum potential. Therefore, in order to maximize your bottom line, it becomes common sense to ensure that your technology is in proper working order at all times. The problem lies in the fact that you may not necessarily specialize in technology management, and don’t have the time or budget to perform maintenance yourself. What’s the SMB to do?

In the past, break-fix IT services allowed users to get the technical support they needed, but at a steep cost. IT companies would tell the user what was wrong with the technology, and offer a price for what it would take to fix it. By nature, this type of IT maintenance is designed to thrive off of the user’s technology failing to work properly. Therefore, from a break-fix IT company’s point of view, there’s no real reason to put preventative measures in place that would save the user money in the long run.

In stark contrast, managed IT services do the exact opposite of their break-fix counterpart, and that’s to save businesses money by preventing issues from developing into costly and downtime-causing problems. This helps organizations keep their IT budgets intact, even if they don’t have a dedicated in-house IT department. Preventative maintenance detects small issues and resolves them in a timely manner, preventing them from becoming major problems.

Here are some examples of effective managed service offerings that can save SMBs money in the long run:

Server Hosting
Your server units are the hardware responsible for the safe storage and distribution of your organization’s digital assets. Therefore, it makes sense that you would want to guarantee that they’re being cared for properly. The problem here is that server maintenance and hosting requires a specific skillset that only a professional technician can provide, and that the SMB typically has a limited IT budget that doesn’t necessarily accommodate hiring new staff members for this purpose. This is often why organizations outsource this responsibility to a managed service provider that can guarantee consistent uptime and the prolonged health of server units.

Network Security
If your business doesn’t know the difference between viruses, malware, trojans, phishing scams, and other common threats, it’s a good idea to have a trained security professional on-hand to manage your network and endpoints. Businesses can outsource the responsibility of maintaining and managing solutions like firewalls, antivirus, spam-blocking, and content-filtering components, that are capable of mitigating threats and limiting exposure to dangerous situations.

Remote Maintenance and Management
There are times when technological issues aren’t immediately known to the user, and they can become disastrous problems later on if ignored. Technology professionals can identify these issues by remotely monitoring statistics like CPU usage, RAM consumption, and other critical factors, in order to prevent them from escalating into major unavoidable disasters. These issues can then be resolved remotely, without the need for an on-site visit from a tech, helping you keep your budget under control.

Backup and Disaster Recovery
Small businesses might be agile enough to respond to threats and disasters promptly, but this is only the case if they’re taking measures to keep their data safe. It’s been shown that businesses that fail to recover their data following a data loss incident, will likely go out of business within one year of the incident. Therefore, you need a comprehensive solution that’s designed to limit data loss and practically eliminate downtime.

If your business has difficulty managing and maintaining its technology infrastructure, why not reach out to NuTech Services to ask about what we can do for your business? To learn more about backup and disaster recovery, network security, and more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Aug, 2016

Tip of the Week: 4 Easy Ways to Make Working Remotely Work for You

Working remotely is made much easier thanks to today’s modern technology solutions. Many organizations have at least part of their workforce working remotely, but without the proper support, remote work wouldn’t be possible. With the latest technology and a couple of best practices, the remote worker can be just as productive, if not more so, than the in-house worker.

Here are four ways that you can maximize your productivity while working remotely.

Have a Dedicated Office
In the office, you might have your own cubicle or workspace. However, when you work remotely, the world is your office. As long as you have Wi-Fi, you could turn a restaurant booth into your desk, or a living room into a home office. Yet, this can often lead to counterproductive or distracting circumstances. Rather than let these distractions take over your workday, you should instead invest in a dedicated home office, where you have plenty of space and privacy. This is the place you want to go to if you need to get pressing work done. This also helps you avoid busy public places, like restaurants.

Set Specific Rules for Family and Visitors
Working remotely means that you’ll need a dedicated workspace, and as such, you should keep distractions out of it; this includes family or visitors, who may drop in unannounced. You should set clear boundaries to when they can (and can’t) drop by. Furthermore, you should keep your daily chores to a minimum while you’re working remotely. It might be tempting to do the dishes or clean up a bit so that you don’t have to do it later, but you’re working remotely to do your job, not clean.

Work Until the End of the Day
Sometimes you might get the impression that, since you’re working remotely, you could cut out early at the end of the day and nobody would notice. While you might be right, doing so could become a slippery slope that could affect your daily productivity. Before you know it, fifteen minutes could turn into a half-hour, then an hour, and so on. Be sure that you don’t abuse the privilege.

Implement the Right Technology Solutions
Since your remote workers aren’t in the office, they’ll need the proper technology to do their jobs as if they were in the office. This includes making your infrastructure as accessible as possible, but not without ensuring its security. A virtual private network and Voice over Internet Protocol can help your remote team stay connected to the office. If your business needs assistance making your infrastructure mobile-friendly, NuTech Services can help.

For more information about how to keep your remote workers productive, contact us at 810.230.9455.

Jun, 2016

How NOT to Maintain a Backup

A data loss incident is considered a major disaster scenario, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. All it takes is one moment to lose your business’s entire data infrastructure. We’ll walk you through a story that should serve as a cautionary tale, one that hopefully teaches you to adhere to data backup and disaster recovery best practices.

Marco Marsala, a hosting provider, posted on a server forum looking for advice on how to deal with a major issue he encountered while trying to delete a few files. He had utilized what’s called the “rm-rf” command with undefined variables, which wound up destroying all data on the system. Like any good hosting provider, he had backups of the files, but, like a dumb-dumb, he had the backups stored on the system that he accidentally wiped. What a mess.

This is actually a similar blunder to one that Pixar experienced, almost deleting Toy Story 2 prior to its release.

As a result of Marsala’s negligence, all of the data that his company had stored was destroyed. This included the data of 1,535 customers, whom he had built and hosted websites for. Without any backups stored off-site, he had no way to recover the data.

As you might expect, the responses that Marsala received from other users of the online forum were quite negative. Many completely dismissed the possibility that his company could recover from such a devastating failure, and others questioned his abilities as a hosting provider. One poster even went as far as recommending that Marsala seek legal counsel, rather than attempt to restore the data, predicting that Marsala was “going out of business.”

The conclusion: Marsala’s best chance of recovering from this major blow was to recruit help from a third-party data recovery firm. Fortunately for him, the company was able to recover his files, but that doesn’t change the fact that his simple mistake was a huge hit to his company’s finances. The company suffered from fees associated with the disaster recovery process, as well as reduced income from the loss of business suffered as a result of his negligence.

The lesson: neglecting to follow best practices got Marsala in some hot water, and his failure basically invited disaster to his doorstep. Following the accepted best practices of data recovery could have easily prevented the situation from escalating as quickly as it did. In fact, Marsala’s reason for distress (user error) is one of the most common reasons to use a backup and disaster recovery solution, a solution that stores your backups off-site on a separate system.

Storing your data off-site allows your organization to avoid the many causes of data loss, including user error, fires, electrical surges, hardware failure, theft, and so much more. This minimizes the risk of these events threatening your business’s operations.

How do you manage your business’s data backups? Are they stored off-site, and do you have a system in place to rapidly deploy them in the event of a major disaster? If you’re uncertain, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

Jun, 2016

What You Need to Know About Upgrading to Windows 10

It’s been over two years since Microsoft stopped providing Windows XP with security updates and patches. The Windows operating system was known as one of the most popular Windows operating systems ever. Both businesses and consumers were affected by this major update, being forced to migrate to more recent operating systems in order to stay secure. Thankfully, an upgrade to Windows 10 isn’t nearly as difficult as one from XP to Windows 7, largely because of the hardware costs involved.

Budgeting Issues
The first major lesson that can be learned from Windows XP’s end of life is that many businesses felt a financial strain when considering the upgrade from such an old operating system. With Windows 10, this isn’t an issue… yet. Organizations that are currently using Windows 7 or 8.1 as their preferred operating system can still enjoy the free upgrade to Windows 10. This means that they don’t necessarily have to be worried about applying huge strains to their budget. Plus, businesses that ran Windows XP likely had to upgrade their hardware, as well, which was another major expense that caused organizations to dread upgrading and put it off for as long as possible.

In comparison, those who used Windows XP likely upgraded to Windows 7 or 8.1 leading up to and following XP’s end of support date. This means that organizations have a free upgrade to Windows 10 that can be cashed in until July 29th, 2016. Now is as good a time as any to invest in Windows 10, especially considering you already did the hard work of getting away from Windows XP.

Legacy Applications
Moving applications and internal software solutions can be a huge pain, regardless of which operating system you’re moving from, or what you’re moving to. Particularly with XP, organizations needed to perform extensive research into how to make their internal solutions work on more recent operating systems. Thanks to Windows XP’s end of life event, this research has already been done for many organizations.

In theory, a Windows 7 and 8.1 upgrade to Windows 10 will be much easier to pull off than an XP-to-Windows 7 upgrade. Of course, we’re not going to make any promises; each business is different, and will require varying degrees of compatibility with legacy software and applications. It’s important that you perform this research before you make any significant changes to your computing infrastructure, as even the slightest hiccup can cause downtime and hamper the migration process.

With over 300 million devices actively using Windows 10, it’s time to ask yourself when you’ll be implementing Windows 10 on your workstations and mobile devices. It’s important that you do so before the deadline for your free Windows 10 upgrade arrives. The latest technology could be a great benefit for your organization, and you’ll want to take advantage of the free upgrade before it’s gone forever.

To learn more about migration, contact NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

May, 2016

Taking a Vacation From Your Technology While On Vacation Can Actually Make Things Worse

Everyone loves a good vacation, especially if you have the good fortune of having a reliable staff on-hand that can handle the administration of your office while you’re away. Although, it might be tempting to just cut yourself off from technology and enjoy your time off, doing so might cause problems down the line that could easily be prevented by simply checking your email or calling home-base once in a while.

The reasoning for this is simple: you want to make sure that operations are proceeding as intended, even if you’re not there. If you completely check out from the workplace every time you leave, you could return from your vacation to a complete and total disaster that may have been prevented with your intervention or insight. In order to keep this from happening, here are three tips that will help you enjoy your vacation, without completely forgetting about the life’s blood of your existence: your business.

Check your email once a day. While you’re in the office, how many times do you check your email every day? While it’s recommended that you check your email once every couple of hours while you’re at the office, you shouldn’t be doing it this often while on vacation. The problem with this practice is that your inbox will quickly fill up and be overwhelming upon your return. Instead, you should check your email as often as you might check your personal email inbox– maybe once a day. Address major questions or problems, and leave the less important inquiries for later. Doing so can make your return to the office easier and less stressful.
Set boundaries for your availability. You can’t have your employees calling you left and right with supposed emergencies. Instead of having uncontrolled chaos, you should implement a time where you will be available to discuss issues. It shouldn’t be very long; maybe an hour in the morning or afternoon, depending on how large your role is within your organization. Use this time to check in with the office and see how operations are running. If everything is fine, you can go back to your vacation without a care in the world.
Establish a clear chain of command in your absence. People need leadership, and as the business owner, it’s your responsibility to ensure that they have someone they can turn to while you’re out of the office. In general, it’s a good idea to have a clear chain of command even when you are in the office. This helps your team understand who is in charge, and where they need to bring issues to. Doing so can alleviate some of the pressure that you might feel when out of the office; plus, you’ll have more time to relax if you’re certain that your office is in good hands during your absence.

By taking advantage of these three tips, you can make it easier than ever to come back from an extended vacation, without leaving your office grasping for straws. For more great tips, tricks, and technology management best practices, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

Apr, 2016

3 Ways the Internet is Changing Things, for Better AND for Worse

We’ve all become so adapted to the conveniences of the Internet that it’s difficult to remember what society was like before it. This becomes especially obvious when watching old movies. How odd is it to see characters do pre-Internet activities like go to the library to research information and use a phone book? These are just some of the ways that the Internet has dramatically changed society, for better and perhaps for worse.

Consider these three ways that the Internet has changed how we work and live, and then ask yourself truthfully, “Are we better off?”

Increased Productivity
One advantage the Internet affords us is that we can be productive virtually anywhere that we can connect to it. This includes places that were previously thought to be off limits from the reach of productivity, like at the beach while on vacation, on the road for business, we even hear that some users take their favorite devices into the bathroom with them. Looking at this situation from a purely business standpoint, it makes you as a business owner feel good that your staff is spending every waking moment being as productive as possible. However, looking at it from the standpoint of the human experience, it makes one feel like we’ve lost something when we can’t go but a few minutes without stopping to look at our mobile devices.

Yet, Productivity Decreases
While the Internet affords us more opportunities to access the web and get work done, it can also be a major distraction for the times when we actually sit down to, get work done. For example, at the end of the work day, how many tabs does your web browser have open? If you’re like the average modern office worker, your screen is full of interesting news articles, YouTube videos, multiple instant messaging conversations, and more, much more.

The problem here is that all of these little distractions presented by the Internet actually cut into productivity in a major way. In fact, it’s proven that it takes anywhere from 5-to-15 minutes for a worker to refocus on a single task after they’re pulled away from it. Therefore, having the Internet bombard an employee with distractions all day long actually results in getting less work done. But hey, they can always make up for it at home, or even in the bathroom.

Access Any Information Instantly
So far, the future we were promised is disappointing because it lacks flying cars, laser guns, and hoverboards (we don’t count the “Hoverboards” found in today’s retail stores). However, thanks to the Internet, virtually all of the world’s media and information is just a click away, and can even be carried in your pocket. This is a huge advancement for our civilization; one that would make the Jetsons green with envy.

Yet, all of this instant information is killing our attention spans. Consider these two sobering statistics from List25:

50 percent of Internet users quit waiting for a video to load after 10 seconds.
The average shot length in an English-language film has decreased from 12 seconds in 1930 to only about 2 seconds in 2015.

Therefore, while the Internet is satisfying our need for instant gratification, it’s making patience much harder for human beings to come by.

In what ways do these benefits and drawbacks of the Internet play out in your office? Is your staff more productive and more distracted? Is work time cutting into leisure time? Are people so impatient that they resort to Googling a question instead of having an actual discussion about it? Are you taking any measures to control online distractions in the workplace? Of course, these are just some of the ways that the Internet is changing everything, both for better and for worse.

Do you have any points to add to this list? Share with us your thoughts in the comments.

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