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Small Businesses are Starting to Embrace AI

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Artificial intelligence has several uses in the business world, many of which utilize machine learning. With greater access to this technology than ever before, small businesses have more opportunities to grow as a result. Let’s go over how SMBs can utilize AI, including how to get started with it.

How Can Today’s Small Businesses Use Artificial Intelligence?

AI is flexible in its design, intending to mimic the cognitive processes of the human brain. Essentially, it is software that can follow patterns and establish its own learning and reasoning processes to solve problems. This is why it’s so useful for small businesses. Here are some ways it can improve operations for SMBs:

Enhancing Cybersecurity

Your employees likely have a routine that they follow, and this routine is what makes their work responsibilities consistent. AI can use data to make predictions, a process which aids in cybersecurity and productivity. AI can take note of a user’s account and showcase when it’s doing something out of the ordinary, like logins at times when the office should be closed or from strange locations around the world. It can also tell if employee behavior is at odds with your security efforts.

Optimizing Customer Service

Businesses prioritize customer service, but the unfortunate fact is that it can be time-consuming. This time is often better spent on other processes and needs. AI systems can aid in customer service through the use of automated chatbots, providing customers ways to get the answers they need, when they need them. This removes some of the burden off your workforce and might just give them time to perform other tasks. Furthermore, it’s a great way to collect data about what your customers want and need.

Finessing Customer Relationships and Marketing Efforts

It takes a lot of effort to sift through the data and insights gathered during the customer relations and marketing aspects of your business, and digging through this data can be an incredibly time-consuming and resource-intensive process without the use of AI. AI can examine this data and make conclusions based on it. You can then use these conclusions to make the most educated decisions possible for your organization moving forward.

Artificial Intelligence is More Accessible Than Ever

If you want to learn more about machine learning and other ways technology can make your business’ operations better, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

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When It Comes to Cybersecurity, Consider a Top-Down Approach

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Cybersecurity is one aspect of running a business that absolutely cannot be underestimated in its importance. It doesn’t matter if you’re a huge enterprise or a small business; if you don’t take cybersecurity seriously, there is a very real possibility that your organization could be threatened in the near future. The easiest way to ensure your business’ continuity is to develop an internal culture of cybersecurity, and it starts from the top-down with you, the boss.

In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter how advanced or high-tech your security solutions are or how secure your passwords are. If your team members aren’t behaving with security at the top of their minds, your cybersecurity solutions will not yield the results you are hoping for. To this end, it is important to establish cybersecurity as a priority within your company’s culture.

How to Build a Culture of Cybersecurity for Your Business

Social proof, a concept that is mostly applied to marketing, can be a key component of implementing any type of lasting change in your organization’s cybersecurity culture. In essence, social proof refers to the idea that people can be convinced to think or act in a certain way based on testimonials of peers and colleagues. It’s easy to see how this can influence the workplace, but as is the case with most things in life, it’s not nearly this simple.

The key takeaway here is that the culture around your organization’s cybersecurity will mold around itself over time (if you give it time to do so).

Consider this scenario: a new employee just starts working for your company and is getting set up with network access, permissions, and everything else necessary for the position. If your organization’s cybersecurity culture is poor, the new employee’s coworkers might suggest they use the same username and password, a practice that is usually frowned upon. However, if this attitude is prevalent throughout the department, then it becomes the norm. This new employee then continues to spread the practice throughout the company as new hires are brought on, creating a systemic cybersecurity issue for your entire business.

Now let’s say that the opposite is true, and your employees instead reinforce good cybersecurity practices to all new hires. If company policies require that all passwords maintain a certain level of complexity and all staff are on board with this message of security, then it’s much more likely that new hires will move forward with security at the top of their mind.

It All Starts With You

There are several ways that you can organically infuse cybersecurity awareness into your business operations. Here are just a few of them:

  • Rather than simply having password policies in place, enforce them by only allowing passwords that meet these minimum requirements.
  • Access controls are important, but monitoring these protections on a regular basis is critical to identifying and addressing weaknesses or shortcomings.
  • Security onboarding is important but should also be reinforced periodically through a refresher course.

As the leader, your business’ employees will be looking to you to take the lead on security. By setting a good example, you can change your organization’s cybersecurity culture for the better. NuTech Services can help you with not only implementing security solutions, but reinforcing best practices that will foster the kind of culture you are looking for in your business. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

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Five Solutions to Simplify Remote Work Strategies

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Working from home adds quite a few additional wrinkles into the workday, including a few that pertain to your team’s communicative capabilities. With many different people operating at their best through different forms of communication, establishing which of these forms best suits your needs is crucial. Let us consider some of the options you have, whether you’re fully investing in a future of remote operations, or simply planning a more hybrid approach as time passes.

For simplicity, we have limited ourselves to the most crucial solutions we think everyone should have.

Video Conferencing

While nothing we have right now can fully replace the capabilities of in-person communications, video conferencing may just be the next best thing available. A lot of software developers have picked up on this, which may explain why so many other kinds of software integrate well with today’s video conferencing solutions.

In the business sense, video conferencing gives your team an outlet to assemble most like they would in the office—along with giving sales teams a much more convenient way to meet with prospects. Wonderfully lightweight and accepted by the business world, most of today’s workstations are likely already set up to support conferencing. If they are not, there is a practically negligible investment to make there in exchange for greater flexibility and sustained communications and collaboration.

Instant Messaging

While infamously a way for coworkers to spend their hours chattering amongst themselves about practically anything but work, a properly utilized instant messaging platform can be an essential piece of your remote workers’ toolset. When used appropriately, a study has shown that instant messaging and other non-email collaborative solutions can increase productivity by anywhere from 20-to-25 percent.

That is not nothing, and just helps to demonstrate how unhindered communications—like those the convenience of instant messaging supports—can help liberate your team members to accomplish more on your business’ behalf. This is particularly the case where a remote workforce is involved.

Customer Relationship Management

The most important relationships a business forms are those that are formed with their customer base. As such, there needs to be a reliable means of tracking and cultivating these relationships, as well as to simplify any requirements imposed on the customer’s end. A Customer Relationship Management tool, commonly abbreviated to a CRM, has been the solution that many businesses rely on for just that purpose.

The typical CRM solution will usually feature some kind of ticketing system for customer support purposes, a scheduling module to keep everyone on task and able to access the resources they need, and various automation capabilities to help make sure everyone is spending their time on revenue-generating endeavors. As such, a CRM provides the channels for a company to reach out to its base while also maintaining its own internal productivity. Any small business—particularly one with a decentralized workforce—that intends to grow should be utilizing a CRM for all it is worth.

Cloud Computing

Access is crucial to a remote worker, and access is something that the cloud can help provide in a way that is both simple and cost-effective. Whether your business needs the storage to securely keep its shared documents or needs collaborative tools to enable your team to work with the data you possess, the cloud can facilitate that need. Business continuity is also much simpler to secure during a disaster if you’ve maintained a cloud-based backup of your data.

Of course, the cloud is also capable of more, like delivering the solutions that your team members need to them directly. Whether you need a server at scale, or enterprise-grade security, and/or robust communication tools, there is a cloud-based option waiting for you.

Onboarding Solutions

Onboarding any new employee is a process in and of itself, and this is only exacerbated when that employee is to operate remotely. In order to get them acquainted with your policies and familiar with your solution set, there is going to be some training involved.

Nowadays, Learning Management Systems (or LMS) take care of that training for you, more expeditiously. Many business software solutions have them built into the program at this point, but you can also customize your own to ensure that your new hire is prepared for their new responsibilities. On your end, you get a better-prepared team member for a decreased financial investment.

Whether you’re embracing the remote workforce moving forward or striving for a return to your base of operations, NuTech Services can help equip you for success. To talk strategy with one of our experts, call us at 810.230.9455 today.

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Taking a Close-Up Look at the 3-2-1 Backup Rule

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Data, at least nowadays, effectively makes the world go ‘round. Data is responsible for powering the operations that a business needs to undergo if it is to survive. This—as you may imagine—makes data incredibly important for businesses of all sizes to protect.

There’s a good chance that you’ve heard of a concept known as the 3-2-1 Rule of data backup. Let’s go over what this means in some more direct detail—and why this strategy is the one we recommend.

Why is a Good Backup Essential?

In a word: survival.

My apologies for sounding so distinctly melodramatic there, but it’s really true: today’s businesses rely on the data they collect, produce, and store in order to remain in operation. Losing this data would spell catastrophe for any organization.

Therefore, the smart business tactic to follow is to ensure that your data remains safe by backing it up—and more than just that, backing it up properly. We frequently recommend that businesses follow the 3-2-1 Rule when it comes to their data backup preparations.

Breaking Down the 3-2-1 Backup Rule

The 3-2-1 Rule boils down to this: your backup should consist of at least three versions of your data, in two different mediums, with at least one copy stored offsite.

Why three versions? Simple—so that you can be sure that, if something is accidentally included with one of your backups that shouldn’t be, you are more likely to have also retained an untouched copy to go back to. (We also recommend that you retain as many as possible, just three a bare minimum, by the way.)

Why two different mediums? Equally simple—the whole idea of a backup is to have another copy of your data to fall back on if it is ever needed. However, keeping all of your backed-up data on the same device as your original copy means that the backup will almost certainly be impacted byl whatever happens to your prime copy.

Why one offsite? For just as simple a reason as the other two tenets: increased redundancy. Let’s say that the worst possible scenario happens, and your business’ location is wiped off the map by some disaster. An off-site backup copy of your data is less likely to be influenced by this event, better ensuring you retain your access to your data.

Understanding the Concept of an “Air Gap”

Let’s discuss another important idea in terms of your data’s safety: air gapping.

An air gap is a basic security measure that helps to protect data from various threats, simply because there is no persistent connection between different points on your network. This kind of broken connection effectively eliminates the risk of many threats short of a physical attack.

Air gapping at least one of your data backups helps to ensure that whatever disaster may befall your local data storage will not also influence the copy you have stored there—although this approach can create other challenges.

NuTech Services is here to help you address these challenges, as we will face any of the obstacles your business and its technology encounters on your behalf. Find out more about what we can do by calling 810.230.9455 today.

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Older IT Practices That Still Hold Up

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While looking to the past isn’t often an idea tied to information technology, there are times when it can play a valuable role in your strategy for it. Let’s look at some modern IT concepts that rely on foundational ideas set back in the day.

Securing Your Business Hardware

Ensuring that your business’ hardware infrastructure and other tools are secured is the opposite of a new idea. Access controls have been utilized on a need-dictated basis ever since door locks were invented.

However, with so much more being handled electronically, the hardware solutions necessary for many standard operations nowadays are just too expensive for many businesses to manage and maintain for themselves. This is where the cloud has shown considerable value, allowing access to the hardware needed to support these processes without the associated costs of maintaining and running them. Furthermore, this makes a business’ resources inherently more secure—if a disaster were to strike its location, the resources aren’t exposed to any risks.

The Motivation Behind Adopting IT Solutions

Many businesses may look at their information technology as tangible proof of their capabilities, not realizing that seeing their IT as evidence of their success is fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose IT solutions have in a business setting.

Any good IT resource will tell you that it is their job to not only maintain functionality for businesses operating with the help of technology, but to identify the best ways to maximize the impact this technology has. Basically, your IT resource should act as a resource to help you do the most with as little as possible.

Handling Threat Management

While threat management was once entirely a responsive action, modern threat management is geared toward a significantly more proactive approach that works to identify and resolve weak points in a network before they’re taken advantage of. With end users still posing significant risks, properly training them to conduct themselves in a secure way will help to greatly reduce the severity of threats that come your way.

While businesses have access to better technology solutions than ever before, a lot still hinges on how well these solutions are used. NuTech Services is here to help implement the tools you need and make sure you get your value out of them. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to learn more about what we can do for you.

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How SMBs Use Social Media

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Social media companies are some of the most powerful entities in today’s world. Their ability to connect people with others of like mind or specific wants and needs often goes overlooked because much of the experience of operating online in today’s climate is adversarial. With the average user spending roughly two hours and 24 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, companies can use that exposure to promote themselves. Let’s take a look at how small and medium-sized businesses use social media to their advantage.

Very Small Businesses and Self-Funded Startups

For the very small business—that is the mom-and-pop shop and the sole proprietorship—social media can be the major marketing outlet for your business. In fact, many bootstrapped startups and extremely small businesses will use Facebook as their exclusive hub for marketing outreach. Since these businesses often don’t have the capital to commit to large content-driven marketing initiatives, social media gives them a way to get their brand out there at a modest cost.

For the new entrepreneur looking to build their business from the ground up, Facebook is a very good tool. Not only does it give small businesses the opportunity to get their brand out there, it also provides them with the ability to interact with potential customers and share their culture. Other social media platforms can work for these companies too, but without the strategies and services that larger businesses use, there will always be kind of a soft cap on how effective social media can be for the really small business.

Established Small Businesses and Well-Funded Startups

As a company’s marketing budget swells, so do the possibilities, especially with social media. The established small business typically has the revenue to afford at least a middling marketing strategy and will use it to create a marketing hub, create content, and further press the issue as far as getting their brand out to the world. At this level, many businesses look to purchase the services of a marketing agency. Like managed services, a marketing agency handles a lot of the marketing for your business, so that the people in a business can focus on doing what it does best. 

Startups that are well financed function a bit different but also use agency options. They are typically trying to develop products and services and use the agency right along with the development of their offerings. This strategy, while unsustainable over time, can produce faster results if and when a product or service that will produce acceptable returns is created. 

Both rely on social media in many of the same ways smaller businesses do, but don’t necessarily run their marketing efforts through it. As mentioned previously, these businesses typically have an established web presence (or at least the means to get one quickly), and use Facebook to extend their reach. At this level, tutorial videos, webinars, and other marketing efforts are well established and using Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram to share their experience, their culture, and their testimony from satisfied customers. 

Medium-Sized Businesses

The mid-market business is a large business, make no mistake about it. The accepted size of mid-market businesses is over 500 workers. For those businesses that operate with under five, that seems a million miles away. The mid-market business is typically well-established and their brands are known. They have teams of people (internal or outsourced) that actively use analytics (business intelligence, business analytics, etc.) to develop their advertising, marketing, and public relations strategies; all of which they need. In the mid-market, companies use social media as they feel they need to use it rather than something they must do. Most businesses will have a presence on all the major social media outlets, and many of them use social media to fuel their human resources needs. Since their social media budgets are in the five and six figures, they can take advantage of all the services these social media companies offer for businesses. 

What Social Media Platforms are Out There That Have Services for Businesses?

The easy answer to this is all of them. These are some of the richest and most influential companies on the planet at the moment, and they got to this point because people shop. Whether it’s for simply brand exposure, or whether it’s used for full-on advertising, the following social media outlets work for businesses:

  • Facebook – 1.6 billion daily active users – Facebook is the largest social media firm by leaps and bounds, and it also owns Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Facebook is currently used by over 90 percent of marketers today.
  • YouTube – 149 million individual daily users – YouTube is a great resource for the growing business. Not only is it the second largest search engine in the world, the video-sharing giant provides access to homespun content that can really take a business’ brand to the next level. 
  • WhatsApp – 1 billion daily active users – With so much of the world relying on WhatsApp, it can really be a benefit for those companies looking outside their own borders for business. 
  • Instagram – 600 million daily active users – The photo-sharing website, Instagram has been a big player in the marketing scheme for the past couple of years. Many brands look to build a campaign using influencers who direct business to specific companies. 
  • Twitter – 134 million “monetizeable” daily active users – Twitter is extremely popular, and can be a great way for individuals inside your business to promote content and deliver their knowledge to others.
  • LinkedIn – 303 million monthly active users – LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that many human resources professionals use when recruiting new talent. 

Other social media platforms that are actively used by marketers include: Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat and more. 

Technology is rapidly changing the world we live in, and it is definitely changing commerce. Does your business use any of these social media platforms? Which ones do you find useful? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and return to our blog regularly for more great technology content. 

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IoT Can Really Make a Difference for Your Business

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For a couple years leading up to 2020, the Internet of Things was all the rage, but for obvious reasons, IoT hasn’t been at the top of many IT administrator’s minds unless it was in an effort to secure file access for the endpoints of a newly remote workforce. Despite the questions surrounding revenue and budgets, IoT can bring a lot of value to the small business. Let’s take a look at today’s IoT and talk about a few options that you can use for yours.

The IoT

The Internet of Things has been growing incredibly fast over the past five years, but many small business owners don’t know where it fits. That’s because there are tens of millions of devices that could actually serve some purpose for their businesses and basically have buyer’s paralysis or are skeptical that integrating these tools is going to save them money. Here are some ways that the IoT could be used to do just that.

Security

Since physical security is almost certainly a priority for your business, the IoT presents several options that can be used to promote solid security standards. Products such as smart camera systems, smart locks, and other Internet-fueled security solutions can be of great benefit as they will allow a business to have both strong security and deterrents, while also having the ability to manage the system remotely.  

Lighting and HVAC

For many small businesses heating, cooling, and power costs can be prohibitive to their ability to function the way they want. IoT tools are now being developed with the ability to read the situation in your business and adjust the utilities to save capital. The more you save on utilities, the more you can spend on your business. 

RFID Sensors for Inventory Control

RFID sensors have been used for some time. Today, businesses are using them to track their inventories and supply chains. Using IoT devices with inventory control software, a business can now track fast-moving systems such as resource and product procurement and make orders should the inventory get low. The consistency and reliability of these systems can automate large portions of the procurement and inventory management process without a business missing a beat.

Mobile Card Readers

The average small business pays a lot in credit card fees. With mobile card readers, a simple app and dongle can transform a tablet or smartphone into a register. With a fee structure that works to save small businesses money, with card readers they aren’t losing their PCI DSS regulatory compliance; a big deal for the growing business.

As stated above, there are millions of IoT tools out there that can actually help you manage your business or help reduce costs. If you are interested in learning how IoT deployments can help your business, call us today at 810.230.9455 and our knowledgeable consultants will take you through how Internet and cloud-connected technology can help you transfer your costs and provide you with the innovative tools you need to grow your business.

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It’s Time to Audit Your IT

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Unfortunately, small businesses are having a hard time right now. If your operations are to continue throughout this time, some significant changes are going to be required. Here, we’re looking at how you can use current technologies to help sustain your business. Chances are, you may already have these technologies available to you.

Making the Most of What You Have

As states have mandated that businesses either close or move operations offsite for the well-being of their employees and clients, many people seem to have been caught off-guard by the duration of these orders. As a result, many businesses have since shifted from a “shut down and wait it out” strategy to trying to do whatever they can—which, for many, is implementing a remote workforce.

Regardless of whether a business tried to cobble together remote operations at the onset or later on, there are still a lot of issues that they will need to contend with. Paying the bills, setting everyone up with the solutions needed to work, and maintaining productivity are all necessary to consider.

Some businesses took the route of laying off their workforce as shutdowns began as they put their businesses on pause and were then provided a lifeline in the form of the paycheck protection program. This subsidy enabled them to keep at least some of their team working and employed. A major tool that helped to accomplish this for many was automation, as this helps to keep your finances fluid.

Automation helps businesses spend their time more productively, fulfilling tasks like payroll processing, managing operations, and invoicing. This not only helps save time, but also money, mainly because these common tasks are commonly outsourced. Of course, other business needs like collaboration, supply chain management, and project management can also be benefitted by leveraging automation.

Security Amidst Security

Cybersecurity is another critical business need that has been largely pushed to the back burner. There has actually been a decline in cybersecurity spending, despite an upwards trend in business being conducted online. Small businesses actually cut their cybersecurity budgets when revenues began to disappear. The cybersecurity industry has been growing at a rate of approximately five percent each year for the past eight years. This year? A little over one percent.

If you’re currently depending on a remote workforce, you want to give them every opportunity to experience success. This is true of most. Most organizations, while they are reducing their overall cybersecurity budget, are still investing in endpoint and intrusion protection. This shows us that, despite the uncertainty of the future, they are still reducing organizational risk by securing their network endpoints.

Of course, you shouldn’t rely on automation to eliminate cyberthreats. Despite IT solutions now heavily featuring artificial intelligence to identify threats, many attacks now rely on phishing attempts. These only become more dangerous when your employees are working remotely, and even more so on their personal devices. As a result, you need to ensure your team is aware of the phishing attempts that will be directed against them. This will require ongoing training in updated best practices, if only to prevent a major malware attack from infiltrating your network.

One way or another, businesses will almost certainly have a larger focus on remote operations moving forward. For assistance with the solutions and strategies that will keep your processes progressing from here on, reach out to the IT experts at NuTech Services today. Give us a call at 810.230.9455.

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Three Facets of Security to Focus On

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When it comes to a business’ cybersecurity, there is no magic bullet to solve every problem. No miracle cure, no panacea, no Staples “that was easy” button. Instead, you need to deploy various means of protecting your operations. Let’s discuss how your business’ security needs to be shaped in three different environments: your physical infrastructure, your cybersecurity solutions, and your employees’ security habits.

Physical Security

First on our list is the oldest kind of business security, the (sometimes literal) gun behind the counter that helps to dissuade potential attacks. It is only too easy to overlook the fact that data theft can be as simple as someone taking a hard drive, rather than hacking into it. Of course, we aren’t suggesting that all businesses should have an arsenal at the ready. Instead, technology provides assorted alternatives that should be implemented to deter attempted intrusion.

Maintaining your access controls, installing surveillance, and otherwise keeping a closer account of who is present in your business can all be considered ways to improve this security. This not only helps to keep sensitive materials safe from unauthorized access within your business, it will also help protect your investments and assets if your business is vacant for any length of time.

Cybersecurity

Of course, we can’t neglect to mention your business’ cybersecurity protections. With over one billion malicious programs out there (as of this writing) poised to attack, there are far more threats than you could handle without technological assistance. Make sure that you have this assistance protecting every aspect of your business’ technology:

  • Updates and patches serve to resolve security issues inherent in your software solutions.
  • Spam blockers help to filter incoming messages to stop threats from exploiting your email.
  • Firewalls allow you to secure your Internet connections, and web filters prevent your users from accessing risky or time-wasting websites.
  • Password requirements and multi-factor authentication enable you to keep access to various accounts secure against various threats and social engineering efforts.
  • If work is to be done outside of the office, a virtual private network can help protect your data as you communicate with the office outside of the defenses installed in the workplace’s infrastructure.
  • Turn to an external resource to perform a comprehensive security audit. Not only will they be able to determine your weaknesses, they can help you implement the tools to remediate them.

Security Awareness

Finally, it is extremely important to remember that your biggest vulnerability can easily be your employees themselves, as human beings are the most prone to mistakes and are the easiest to fool out of your business’ operational resources. Make sure that you are training your entire team on the security practices and awareness that everyone involved needs to maintain, continuing via evaluations and repeated education as needed.

Emphasize the importance of certain concerns, like:

  • Password Hygiene
  • Data Security Practices
  • Secure Processes
  • Access Control Standards
  • Social Media Use
  • Conformity to Policies

For assistance with all of this, turn to NuTech Services. We have the solutions to support your security efforts, as well as the rest of your operations. To learn more—or to get started—reach out to our team by calling 810.230.9455.

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VoIP Can Replace Analog Phone Systems

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It’s true that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is probably going to be cheaper than using an enterprise phone system through your regional phone company. While cost reduction is a good reason to choose a service, VoIP does much more than just reduce communication costs. Implementing a VoIP platform also presents a lot of solid options that can help your business be more efficient and productive. 

VoIP Allows You to Do More

While at its core, a VoIP system is a telephone system, it allows for many more options. Since it uses an organization’s available bandwidth rather than a dedicated RJ-11 connection, there are more dynamic options available. It may raise the cost of the solution a bit, but VoIP can come with instant messaging, conferencing, and call archival built in.  

VoIP is More Secure

VoIP is far more secure to use than the traditional landline because it is easier to secure a digital connection than it is to secure an analog one. The use of encryption protects all information transmitted through the system.

VoIP is More Portable

This is a big benefit. VoIP solutions can be linked to mobile applications. This means that any smartphone can become a work phone, and can be linked to the same number as the user’s business phone. This allows people to get calls on their phone without having to give over their personal number. This is either done through forwarding or by installing a simple app on the phone.

VoIP Offers Automated Client Interaction

A VoIP system can be configured to support an entire business. There are integrated automated menus that can offer a lot of value by directing calls to voicemails, alternative members of your team, and allowing employees to avoid distractions and not neglecting their incoming calls. Call forwarding, parking, and many more options can be tied to a VoIP account for additional costs.

VoIP is a technology solution for all of your business’ calling needs. Call NuTech Services today at 810.230.9455 for more information about VoIP and you can get the telephone system you’ve always wanted for your business.

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IT Trends SMBs Should Focus On in 2020

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Technology is a key part of operating a business nowadays, which is why advancements in business technology solutions are so important for organizations to keep pace with. Let’s review a few solutions and technologies that we predict businesses will (or at least, should) focus on this year.

Business Automation

As businesses have strict cost considerations to take into account, it is likely that automation will grow in popularity. While perhaps more expensive to initially implement, automated solutions can easily provide a return on investment by clearing schedules of the annoying (if necessary) repetitive tasks that otherwise eat up your human employees’ time. This combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence is known as Robotic Process Automation and enables businesses to greatly reduce how often human employees need to interfere in these tasks.

Some professionals have been hesitant to invest in AI-driven solutions, primarily due to incomplete algorithms and the negative opinion towards “replacing human jobs with robots.” However, artificial intelligence has seen some success in reducing HR costs through its inclusion in some software, and so RPA is experiencing considerable growth.

Furthermore, many of the solutions available today can be used in more simple applications, including the improvement of communications, reducing process inefficiency, and eliminating redundancy.

The Internet of Things

“Smart” devices are quickly becoming the new norm, even in the business environment. Many establishments are directing their budgets toward devices meant to improve security, evaluate utility usage, manage supply chains, and other operations.

The prevailing motivation behind implementing and integrating these devices is simple: better cost control. If a business has the tools to track and manage their costs, the entirety of the business can be better optimized. When fewer resources are expended on a business’ crucial interactions and processes, the business inherently becomes more sustainable.

Various Cloud Services

While it may seem like there has been ample time to take advantage of every aspect of the cloud’s capabilities, new services and utilities are still emerging. Sure, most businesses have adopted the cloud to support their email and file sharing needs, but this is the relative tip of the iceberg as far as the cloud’s potential is concerned. Businesses can now consider options like Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Security as a Service (SECaaS), and even AI as a Service (AIaaS), confident in the reliability of these increasingly popular utilities and others.

Cloud vendors are also creating new services to see to a business’ needs. The largest cloud vendors can effectively fill any requirement a business has through increasingly specific services. As a result, SMBs definitely have options to help resolve their operational hurdles.

Cybersecurity Awareness

At this point, there is plenty of precedent to establish — without any doubt — that businesses of every size, industry, and resource level need to have a cybersecurity strategy in place. While many may argue that enterprise-grade security solutions are above their means, the aforementioned precedent makes this argument untenable. 66 percent of all SMBs were targeted by some kind of cyberattack in 2019, and 2020 is already projected to be just as bad, if not worse.

Fortunately, there are ways that a business can improve their cybersecurity preparedness, such as:

  • Staff training – It is a simple concept: the more able your employees are to spot and properly handle a potential cyberattack (like phishing), the less likely your organization is to be victimized. Security has improved greatly, thanks to methods like encryption, rendering your employees your most vulnerable point. Properly training your staff to identify and report suspected threats, the safer your network will be.
  • Threat intelligence – If you know how you are most likely to be attacked, based on the vulnerabilities that cybercriminals usually target, you will be better prepared to handle these attacks. Think of this as the practical application of “knowledge is power.”
  • Multi-layering – With all the potential security issues that businesses face today, businesses of all sizes need to have a strategy in place to reduce all risks that face them. Therefore, all businesses and especially small businesses, need to have redundant file backup, DNS protection strategies, and AI/machine learning-enabled security features in place.

Improved Mobility

For the past decade, businesses have struggled with mobilizing their workforce. As a result, with today’s emphasis on remote work and other mobility-related concerns, solutions that enable a mobile workforce while eliminating risk have increased in importance. Now, increased connectivity, improved data security, and data protection policies like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) allow your operations to be completed from inside and outside of your workplace, with resources safely delivered to your employees as they need them.

NuTech Services can help businesses around Michigan adopt these approaches, or improve their use of them, to assist their operations and boost profitable productivity. To learn more, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

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Tip of the Week: How to Get the Most from Your IT Budget

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As any business owner knows too well, a budget is a very finite thing – and this can seem to be doubly the case when trying to budget for your business’ technology. Fortunately, there are also a few ways that technology can help you save some capital. Here, we’re offering some tips to help you reduce the financial toll of your business’ IT.

Leverage Automation

Answer me this: would you rather pay your staff to accomplish their responsibilities, or pay the same amount to have them work just as hard but only accomplish half as much?

That’s what I thought.

Automated solutions and processes can make your business far more efficient than it would be otherwise, simply because it makes it so your staff doesn’t have to take care of rote responsibilities and can instead focus on capital-generating endeavors. As a result, you can streamline how your dollars are spent, making more for a relatively small investment.

Ditch the Landline

Let’s face facts… all technology follows the same trajectory: it starts as an invention, is innovated upon, becomes the established norm, and is eventually phased out by the next invention. Alexander Graham Bell’s patent for the telephone is almost 150 years old – suggesting that it is high time for the next innovation to step into the fold.

In a large way, it already has, with Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP leverages your business’ Internet connection to place calls, meaning you no longer have to pay the telephone company for service. Furthermore, it is far easier (and cheaper) to expand a VoIP solution, making it an even better option for a growing business.

Invest Wisely

When selecting a solution, there’s a lot to be said about seeking out a bargain. However, you need to lean more towards frugality, and less towards being miserly. A solution that you may have gotten for a considerable discount, but ultimately costs you three times its worth in maintenance and repairs can barely be called a solution at all. Furthermore, cheaper devices are often cheaper because the manufacturers skimped on key aspects, like performance, security, and durability. The same can often be said of emerging technologies – it is better to be late jumping on the bandwagon than it is to be in the front row when the whole thing crashes.

NuTech Services is here to guide you as you outfit your business with the technology solutions it needs for success. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to talk to our seasoned professionals.

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Are You Leveraging these Invaluable Business Tools?

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Technology has enabled businesses to do more with less, although this isn’t always the best thing. Many small businesses simply feel that they don’t have the technology solutions that properly resolve their challenges. However, these solutions exist, and offer all the robust functionality that many businesses seek.

Here, we’ll commit some time to examining the enterprise-level technology that SMBs are now leveraging to encourage their business’ forward momentum, and how you can leverage a solution that may not initially seem to be a fit.

The first consideration that any small business decision maker needs to take is how connected people are today. This level of connectivity produces many things, perhaps most of all heightened expectations – a fact that any SMB needs to contend with.

Historically, a small business would never invest in solutions meant to improve the customer’s experience and relationship with the company – they just didn’t have to. However, consumer demand makes it so that investing heavily in software can bring opportunities that simply wouldn’t be there otherwise.

As a result, your SMB needs to have the following solutions in its arsenal:

Customer Relationship Management

It can almost be said that, if your business doesn’t use a CRM, you aren’t really in business. That’s how crucial a CRM system can be nowadays. With hundreds of options out there, there are those that are unquestionably meant for the enterprise user, as well as plenty of options dedicated to a particular industry’s needs. These particular solutions take the benefits of the CRM and integrate different options that are precisely suited to a specific industry vertical.

One of the biggest small-business benefits of a CRM has to be how it can automate a significant amount of tasks that once were handled by multiple employees – a relatively larger chunk of its workforce (and payroll) than a larger competitor would be concerned with. This makes the CRM that much more valuable to a small business, as it reduces the manpower needed to complete business-critical tasks through automation. By integrating your customer relationships with your scheduling, your payroll, and other concerns, a CRM helps to make your business and its operations more streamlined.

Supply Chain Management

The demands of the customer are more crucial than ever to meet, especially for today’s smaller manufacturer. This means that the supply chain (procurement, manufacturing, fulfillment, and distribution) needs to smoothly work in coordination with its different parts. This is made easier by leveraging a single Supply Chain Management platform. Some of the options that these platforms often include, like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, are the same that are found in a CRM. This makes it easier to combine and consolidate software solutions so that users have that much less to learn to keep business moving.

Marketing Automation

Much like was said regarding the CRM, today’s small business doesn’t really exist without some kind of online presence. Some businesses will have an entire website created, while some stick to social media profiles. If you’re looking to boost your own business’ revenue generation (and why wouldn’t you be), building up your online presence is both an affordable and an effective means of doing so. Pairing this presence with automated systems can help you to nurture leads while simultaneously speeding up business and reducing operational costs.

This is how it works: your website captures leads. Once you have these leads, your marketing automation solution takes your captured information and integrates it with the CRM – saving you from the considerable task of doing it yourself. The end result, more worthwhile conversations that ideally end in more closed sales.

With the tools that are available today, it is amazing that more businesses aren’t leveraging them to cut costs and accomplish more. Don’t you want to get out ahead? The IT professionals at NuTech Services can help by deploying the ones that fit your business’ operations. For more information, call us at 810.230.9455.

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Small and Medium-Sized Businesses are Using Enterprise Technology

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Compared to an enterprise corporation, a small-to-medium-sized business is going to have far fewer resources, especially in terms of its IT. Having said this, an SMB isn’t necessarily without a few quality options. Let’s review the needs that any business needs to have filled, and how they can do so with the right solutions.

Need #1: Security

In order to be successful, a business needs to have the security necessary to protect its resources. The first step to accomplishing that, is to identify any weaknesses in its infrastructure through a preliminary IT evaluation known as an IT risk assessment. This assessment can reveal where a business is the most vulnerable. At that point, these flaws can be mitigated using tools like firewalls, antivirus, and multi-factor authentication – tools that either SMBs or enterprises can (and do) use.

With SMBs increasing their use of cloud services, a large portion of this process should be fulfilled by the cloud provider. However, the business leveraging the cloud provider needs to make sure that the provider they have selected is able to uphold what they have promised as part of their service-level agreement. If this is the case, the SMB could find themselves in the position to leverage enterprise-caliber security solutions, for a cost that fits their budget.

Need #2: Data Storage

While their budgets put enterprise businesses in a much more favorable position to create an infrastructure that can contend with their operational needs, this is not to say that SMBs are left without any options. Any good data storage solution will perform well based on a few benchmarks: how well it works, how often it works, how easily it can be accessed, and how easily its contents can be searched.

The enterprise business has quite a few options to leverage, such as data tiering (where data of differing importance is stored on different servers) and higher-performing data storage solutions. If this is starting to sound expensive, it is – but again, thanks to the cloud, SMBs aren’t left without options, either. With scalable Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service being available for a much more affordable rate, SMBs are able to leverage the advanced tools that would otherwise only be available to corporate-level businesses.

Interested in leveraging some of these capabilities in your business, or want to find out more? Reach out to the professionals at NuTech Services! We have the experience necessary to bring your information technology to the corporate level. Reach out to us at 810.230.9455 to learn more.

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United States Citizens Demand Data Privacy… How Will It Impact Your Business?

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With over 90 percent of people in the United States feeling as though their data is out of their hands, it should come as little surprise that many are looking towards the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as inspiration. However, how close is the United States to passing this kind of legislation… and how will smaller businesses fare if (or when) some is passed?

The GDPR (In a Nutshell)

Under the GDPR – which came into effect on May 25, 2018 – any companies that have collected data on a resident of the European Union are then responsible for protecting that data. Furthermore, the GDPR grants these residents a far higher level of access and control over the data that organizations possess.

How United States Citizens Have Reacted

According to a poll, data privacy has become a bigger priority for 73 percent of respondents, 64 percent stating that they felt the security of their data was worse than it has been in the past. 80 percent want the ability to learn who has purchased their data, while 83 percent want the ability to veto an organization’s ability to sell their data in the first place. 64 percent also stated that they want the ability to have this data deleted.

How the Government Has Reacted

Governing bodies at different levels have had different reactions to these demands. For instance, the state of California has already passed the Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – a piece of legislation that the House of Representatives’ Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee isn’t too fond of, as its position is that there needs to be a singular piece of legislation at the federal level to protect data. As of right now, data privacy is addressed in a combination of state laws and some proposed federal laws.

One of these proposed laws, the Data Care Act, spells out that (in addition to promptly alerting end users to security breaches) a service provider cannot legally share a user’s data without the receiving party also being beholden to the same confidentiality standards. Others include the Information Transparency and Personal Data Control Act, which requires transparency and personal control over data, the Consumer Data Protection Act, which could throw executives in prison for abusing data, and the American Data Dissemination Act, which sets a deadline for the government to enact privacy requirements upon businesses.

However, when the Consumer Protection and Commerce subcommittee met to discuss the prospect of a federal privacy law (which it was agreed was necessary), there weren’t any representatives for the average consumer – the ones whose data is really at stake. This reflects the hearings held last year by the Senate, also without consumer representation. Instead, technology companies were invited to participate during both sessions.

Small Business Concerns

That being said, there is very little support among the committee for any regulations that are at all similar to the GDPR. One reason for this: the fear that small businesses will not find themselves able to afford the added cost of compliance.

For instance, there are a variety of potential burdens that such a measure could potentially impose upon small and medium-sized businesses. These burdens include:

  • All-encompassing overhauls that would result in lost business
  • Business failure due to inadequate budgets to make the demanded changes
  • Impeded growth after regulations are put in place
  • Prerequisites becoming too great to start a business in the first place
  • Costs passed down to SMBs from larger companies for technology services

It is worth noting that if your organization does business with people from the EU, you are responsible to adopt the privacy rules of the GDPR.

What do you think? Are laws like these necessary, especially given the cost they could put on small businesses? Have you had any data privacy concerns in the past? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Unpaid Invoices Were a $825 Billion Problem Last Year

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Businesses exist to make money. Regardless of what that money is intended for, be it to sustain someone’s lifestyle or to bankroll a cause, a business will cease to be without an incoming cash flow. Unfortunately, unpaid invoices can make that cash flow stutter and slow to a trickle, and many businesses experience this problem as billed money doesn’t come in.

This presents those who rely on a small-to-medium-sized business to make a living, from the CEO to the employees, with another problem. How can they be paid if the business isn’t receiving its payment for services rendered until 30, 60, or even 90 days later? Many industries have begun to make these their typical payment terms.
Resultantly, businesses have found it difficult to continue their operations without the financial inundation from their current clients. You may have encountered this kind of issue yourself.

If so, you are not alone by any stretch. Estimates attribute 5% of the entire national gross domestic product to unpaid invoices, with the average small business waiting to be paid around $84,000. 81% of these invoices are past due by 30 days, which is especially bad when one considers that the average small business only has 27 days of capital saved up and available to them.

All in all, estimates put the total amount owed to small businesses due to unpaid invoices at $825 billion.

Even without taking that sum into consideration, this is a clear issue that many businesses face whenever their invoices are not answered in a timely fashion. If these businesses don’t have any funds to spare beyond what is needed to stay in business (assuming they have even that), how will they ever make the improvements they will need to stay competitive? How many projects have you abandoned halfway because it caused too much financial drain?

While it may seem to make no sense to invest your much-needed capital after we’ve just announced that your company may fail without it, there is a simple way to save your business money as you work to get what you’re due. With managed services from NuTech Services, your capital spending on your technology management can be transferred into a predictable, and budgetable, consistent schedule. We can also provide you with the solutions to help you track who is repaying their debt to you, and who isn’t.

Call 810.230.9455 for more information.

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Net Neutrality Still Needs Your Help!

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December 14th is the last day that our government representatives can vote whether or not to continue the Internet’s protection under the net neutrality rules established in 2015. Without these rules in place, your data can be analyzed by your Internet service provider, and they are free to act on that knowledge and manipulate your Internet in support of their own interests.

From the beginning of our democracy, there are a few basic freedoms that all citizens have been given through the First Amendment to our Constitution: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. Rolling back net neutrality rules would allow your Internet service provider to analyze your web activity and adjust what you are able to access to support their agenda–or more realistically, that of the highest bidder–infringing on those rights in order to make themselves a bigger profit.

We recently discussed this in more depth in a post entitled Net Neutrality: Everything Business Owners Need to Know. Make sure you give it a read for more context into this issue.

How this Affects You
Small and medium-size businesses have enough competition to deal with from large corporations as it is. Without these rules, however, ISPs could essentially allow large corporations to pay for prioritization, making their website’s user experience better than yours, encouraging users to go to them instead.

Your competitors could literally pay your service provider to give you an inferior service, slowly sending you out of business.

On a wider scale, the removal of these rules would also allow ISPs to deny access to any website whose agenda wasn’t in line with their own, censor content that they didn’t agree with, or block visitors from accessing a website belonging to a protesting labor union–all of which happened before the net neutrality rules were put in place, and will happen again if they are rolled back.

What You Can Do to Help
Regardless of your industry, this will affect you as a small- or medium-sized business owner. The time to act is now. Visit www.battleforthenet.com to contact your representative today and tell them to stop the FCC from doing considerable harm to the free and open Internet. Send an email, call their offices, make sure they know how opposed you–their constituent–are to this transparent attempt by the telecoms to abuse the Internet for profit.

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What to Expect from IT in 2018

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As one of the most famous head coaches in NFL history, Vince Lombardi has several quotes that can be applied to success. One particular statement to note is “If you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late.” As it turns out, this quote inadvertently refers to technology. The technology industry moves a mile-a-minute and businesses are always looking for ways to innovate and make significant improvements to technology.

In fact, it’s just one small way you can make a big change for your small business’ operations. Here are some of the best developments to look forward to for your business’ IT in 2018, as per some of the most notable IT professionals in the United States.

  • Emerging technology is important. Of all technology observed, security (81%), mobile device management (51%), and big data (49%) are likely to play a major role in future technology development.
    • What this means for the small business: The threat of a hacking attack or data loss should never be underestimated. In order to commit to keeping your business secure, it is best to proactively take steps to keep threats out of your network. Considering how popular mobile solutions have become, you need to include mobile device management in your maintenance strategy.
  • Network security is a focus. Businesses understand how crucial it is that their network data is properly protected. 70% say that securing this data will be their top priority in 2018.
    • What this means for the small business: While peer pressure isn’t usually a good thing, this statistic is the exception. When almost three-quarters of your industry contemporaries are taking steps to improve their security against cybercrime, it’s a good indication that you should as well.
  • Balancing in-house and outsourced solutions. 54% of survey respondents plan to combine internal and external IT support and administration to fulfill their needs.
    • What this means for the small business: Some positions are simply more difficult to fill as a part of an in-house staff. For example, there just aren’t enough security experts for all the vacancies in small businesses, especially when large businesses lure candidates away with more pay, better benefits, and other perks. Furthermore, not many small businesses would likely need a full-time security resource if best practices are followed.

      As a result, many businesses are looking externally for their cybersecurity needs. A managed service provider can provide an outsourced team of experienced IT professionals who will communicate and work with you to meet your organizational technology needs. This allows you to preserve your budget by eliminating the need to hire and train your own internal resources.

  • Increased use of a virtual environment. It is expected that using the cloud and virtualization technologies will lead to a 69% decline in utilizing installed applications on local systems.
    • What this means for the small business: Complicated infrastructures have no place in the digital climate of today, and relatedly, there is a need of scalability to meet the needs of your business and workforce. A virtual environment lends itself to that ability to change, and easily allows you to securely make necessary changes to your data–whether those changes are alterations to user access permissions, the addition of new user accounts, or scaling services.
  • Increase in SaaS. 61% of those surveyed predict that the operating system will gradually become irrelevant as applications move more and more to the browser.
    • What this means for the small business: The move from self-managed applications and software to fully-managed Software as a Service will allow business users to be productive from anywhere, with their solutions maintained for them by the hosting service. This includes installing updates and applying patches as they are released.

How do you plan to leverage these technologies in your business? Whatever your plans are, NuTech Services is here with the solutions and experience to help. For more information, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

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Managed IT Can Help SMBs Tackle These 3 Common Challenges

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It’s only natural that new and improved technologies will be challenging for employees to embrace and become accustomed to using. These challenges tend to shape how businesses will make their decisions as time passes. A few industry research firms have released their projections as to what challenges businesses will face in the coming months of 2017.

While their reports were far from identical, there were a few consistencies in the findings that each firm came across. These consistencies can help the average small and medium-sized business adjust their approach in the coming months to optimize their ability to grow.

Both research firms found that, in varying order, the top three challenges that SMBs will face have to do with maintaining their current solutions, organizing restricted budgets and necessary costs, and increasing their security. However, one of the firms found that the concern over security was more focused on their mobile devices. Despite this minor difference, there is still a pattern to the priorities that SMBs will have throughout 2017 that enables us to establish what solutions will be in high demand.

Most notably, the companies who were examined as a part of this research were highly concerned about their finances–specifically, how to optimize their spending in order to receive the highest return on investment as possible for the least amount of capital expended. This considerable task becomes much simpler once a managed service provider is introduced into the equation.

The way things used to be, a company would (for the sake of their budget) assume that they wouldn’t encounter any issues and devote limited funds to resolving them, but when an issue was encountered, the company would end up spending their entire budget and then some, leaving them at a deficit the next time a problem surfaced. An MSP, on the other hand, will provide its services for a regular (and therefore predictable) cost, allowing your business to properly budget for its IT maintenance.

The studies also showed that many businesses were concerned about a few other factors that an MSP can help resolve. An MSP will take proactive steps to make sure that a company’s solutions don’t encounter issues that could throw its productivity into jeopardy. This can be accomplished by proactively monitoring the technology a company has in place. An MSP will also make sure your security solutions are maintained so that threats are less likely to make it onto your network in the first place.

An MSP can help to serve your business beyond these top three concerns throughout 2017 and beyond. For more information into what an MSP can offer, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455.

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Tip of the Week: 3 Ways the Cloud Streamlines Operations for SMBs

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The cloud is a great asset that your business can use to your business’ operational efficiency, but only if you’ve put plenty of thought into the implementation process. Since the same cloud solution likely won’t work in the same way for two different organizations, you’ll need to intimately know what your business needs so that you can build and deliver a cloud solution to meet these demands. This week’s tip is all about helping you determine the best cloud solution for your organization.

Here are three factors that you need to consider when seeking out a cloud solution.

Hosting and Maintenance
It’s likely that hosting complicated technology solutions isn’t your organization’s forte. Not only is it a time-consuming endeavor, but it’s also technical and challenging. Plus, your organization may not have anyone dedicated to the task. In this case, it’s ideal to simply outsource this responsibility so that a cloud provider can host your solution and maintain it for you.

There are three types of cloud solutions that allow your organization to adapt to its specific needs: public, private, and hybrid. Public clouds allow your organization to store data in a shared online space that’s managed by the provider. Private clouds, on the other hand, can be hosted on-site on your own network, or virtually by an outside provider. Hybrid clouds are designed in a way which allows for the convenience of a public cloud while retaining the privacy and functionality of a private cloud.

Flexibility
Since your business will inevitably grow, you’ll be likely to add new users and implement new technologies. You’ll obtain more clients, and in doing so, your workload will increase to the point where your previous infrastructure might not be able to handle it properly. Therefore, if you want your cloud solution to be a valuable asset in the future, you’ll need to think about growth.

The cloud allows organizations of all shapes and sizes the flexibility to adapt to changes in their workforce or the number of devices accessing company data. You will have complete control over how many user accounts and how much data storage your organization has. The main difference, however, is that the public cloud makes it a bit less expensive to expand. If you choose a private cloud solution, it is sure to require a substantial investment on your part, as you will have to secure the resources. The main benefit of the private cloud is that you will have full control over the management and maintenance of the computing infrastructure, providing complete situational flexibility.

Security
When it comes to running a business, there are few things more important than security. Considering how cloud storage is based in the Internet, you have to worry more about hackers. There are security solutions designed to keep breaches from occurring, but not all cloud solutions offer the same level of protection.

What’s the major difference between these cloud solutions in regard to security? The public cloud generally allows for a set level of protection, with the potential for increased levels of service depending on how much you’re willing to pay. The good news is that the public cloud is relatively safe, the reason being that these cloud providers generally have trained IT teams that are dedicated to keeping your data safe. Of course, this is just to keep their own organization safe, but it’s nice to know that you can count on them. The same can be said for any managed service provider who offers a private cloud hosting service. If you host your own private cloud, you can implement whatever measures you desire.

Do you need a hand choosing a cloud solution for your business? If so, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.