Author: ARRC Technology

No matter what kind of business you run or what industry you are in, we all know that technology is crucial to our success. Using the right technology can put your business on the path toward growth and success. And a lack of proper IT tools and strategies could make you fall behind your rivals and lose considerable profits.

Practical Applications of Technology for the Modern Business

Most business owners understand that a reliable IT system is necessary for network security. Internal and external communications, database management, and other high-priority areas. But IT is also valuable in improving practically all aspects of your business. Let’s look at the following not-so-typical applications.

Onboarding

In most companies, onboarding is the transition process your new employees go through right after they come aboard. This process can take a lot of time. Through technology, you can speed up the onboarding process by using paperless forms, digital introductions, and online training, allowing your new employee to adjust quickly and work with minimal delays.

Offboarding

Similarly, when an employee leaves the company, there is an offboarding process for efficiently managing their exit to reduce business risk and workflow disruption. Manual employee offboarding is the traditional method, but we have already shown this to be risky and tedious. With the help of technology, you can increase the speed and efficiency of the entire process while also strengthening the security of your business.

Cloud Computing

The cloud platform is a very cost-effective alternative to traditional business solutions. By transferring a portion of your operations onto the cloud, you can save funds you might otherwise spend on physical hardware. In addition, you will also enjoy better resource management, increased efficiency, and portability of business operations.

Business Automation

By automating business processes like data collection, billing, and monitoring, you can relieve your staff of these tasks and let them concentrate on their duties. Using technology frees up time for your employees and reduces business costs.

Information Security

Online threats are continuously becoming more rampant in this digital age. Employing the right IT strategies for security is crucial to keeping your data and your network safe. It also protects the confidentiality of your business information and the privacy of your employees.

Remote Work

Technology allows people to work from remote locations and deliver high-quality performance without being physically present at the workplace. This benefit has been helpful in the last couple of years. Also, remote work gives businesses easy, fast and convenient access to experts from any part of the world.

Business Expansion

There are a lot of tasks to take care of during business expansion, like scouting for a new location. Canvassing for new suppliers, hiring new employees, purchasing new equipment, and so on. By using technology, these procedures can be simplified and made more organized.

Ways to Keep Your Business Updated with the Latest Technology

Having the right technology for efficiently running your business is essential, but not enough. Keep your business updated with the latest IT solutions as time passes. Technology changes rapidly, so you need to keep up with it to stay ahead of the competition. Here are some of the best ways you can keep your business updated.

Being Proactive

As opposed to being reactive, being proactive means being able to expect new IT developments and plan for these changes accordingly. Instead of solving a technical problem when it happens, you should be able to predict it and already have the necessary IT solutions in place before it even arrives.

Partner with an MSP

Since most small businesses can’t stay on top of technology on their own, the practical solution is to work with an MSP, or managed service provider. A good MSP will keep your technology updated for you. Choosing the right MSP helps your business keep up with technology and provides many other services for the growth of your business. If you need and help with new technology, or if you’re ready for upgrading your old equipment, we are here to help you. It’s our job to make sure your business operates as smoothly as possible. To make sure you are using an MSP that works best for you, we are offering you an on-demand webinar where we talk about choosing the best managed service provider. Click HERE to listen to the webinar and let us know if we can assist you in any way.

In the digital era that we live in, we cannot overemphasize the significance of an IT provider for the different aspects of your business. It is impossible to start or operate a business without relying partly on IT services and support. It is a challenge to stay competitive in your industry if you do not have a trusted IT person or managed services provider by your side.

Ways of Getting IT Support

There are different ways to get the IT support you need for your business. Each method has its pros and cons, and the choice will depend on your business. And the particular needs of your operations.

Having an Internal IT Guy

Some companies hire an IT expert as a regular employee, which seems convenient as there will always be someone to rely on if any technical issues arise. However, this is a limited strategy since you will only benefit from the skills of a single individual. And they will not be available on weekends, holidays, vacation days, or when they’re sick.

Break-Fix Method

Many small businesses use this method, which means they will only hire an IT professional whenever the situation calls for it. When something breaks, they will contact an IT professional to fix it. This approach appears to be the most cost-efficient, but when emergencies happen, especially outside business hours, it might not be easy to find help.

Managed Service Provider

Contracting an MSP is the most reliable way of getting IT support for your business. Working with an MSP gives you access to top-quality support and other services you may need. They will not only fix your problems but can also help you set up, manage your network, improve your data security, and even grow your business.

Choosing Your IT Provider

As in any other industry, there are some problems that you might encounter with hiring an IT expert. Some providers might not have the right skills you need. Consequently, certain individuals may impose unreasonable prices. Some do not communicate well or respond too slowly when you need them. To avoid these problems, be meticulous when selecting your MSP.

Interviewing a Potential IT Service Provider

The interview is the first and possibly the only time that you will get up close and personal with a potential IT provider. So you need to take this opportunity to ask the right questions. There might be dozens of things that you want to know. But given the limited time of an interview, it is best to stick to the most important topics. Ask them about the IT services they will provide for network upkeep, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity insurance. Ask about the level of expertise they possess and gauge whether this will be sufficient for the needs of your business. It is also worth asking about their guarantees for task completion before deadlines and within the budget. We have compiled a list of 21 crucial questions that you should ask a potential IT provider before hiring them. Click here to check out the list.

Knowing When to Replace Your IT Guy

Despite your intense scrutiny during the interview, you may still hire someone who is not the best fit for your business. For this reason, you must consider the first few days or weeks of a new IT provider to be a period of observation. Watch out for signs that show that you might have made the wrong choice. For starters, if they are consistently late or do not show any sense of urgency when you call in an emergency issue, then it would be best to replace them immediately. The same is true if you find out they bill you with extra charges not mentioned in the initial quote you’ve received. Or if they make the initial problem worse or more complicated because they could not deal with it properly.

Conclusion

IT services are crucial for your business, but you should not just get them from anyone. You must have the right IT service provider to ensure smooth operation and the ultimate success of your business. We have prepared an on-demand webinar that illustrates what could happen if you do not have a MSP. When you partner with us as your Managed Service Provider, you will get superior technical support and reliable customer service. Contact us for a free consultation to discuss how we can help take your business to the next level!

A positive ROI indicates that an investment has delivered welcome profits. But it’s more than just a metric used to monitor the feasibility of your business investments. By maintaining a solid ROI, you are also creating positive effects on your total cost of ownership, R & D, job security, business continuity, and many more.

It Provides a Financial Metric

The primary function of a business ROI is to provide a means to measure the success of your business per investment made. It lets you gauge how well or how poorly you are doing, letting you know which to keep and which to drop. For instance, an investment with a decidedly positive business ROI is worth keeping, while you should avoid an investment that shows a negative ROI at all costs. It also lets you compare different profitable assets to find the best choices.

What is TCO?

The total cost of ownership, or TCO, is the sum of the purchase price and the operating costs of an asset over its lifetime. As your ROI grows, your total cost of ownership on your various assets also increases.

More Access to Resources for Innovation

The more your business earns, the more accessible resources become. Once you can set up your business plans and strategies to generate a good business ROI, you will have started a dependable cycle of profits that will provide you with funds for research and development.

Reduce Investment Losses

Thorough planning is crucial each time you make any kind of investment. Study the feasibility of each business investment to increase the chances of getting a good business ROI. There will always be a risk because you never really know if an investment will give you good returns or not, but with careful thought and planning, you can stick to those investments that are more likely to generate positive results.

Job Security

One of the contributing factors to excellent business returns is the performance of its workforce. If your employees are delivering results, there won’t be any reason for you to downsize or shuffle your workforce. Thus, a higher business ROI increases the job security of your employees and may even give them better benefits and perks.

Competitive Advantage

In any industry, it is among the primary goals of a business to have a competitive advantage over its rivals. Maintaining a good return on investment gives you an advantage and makes you more attractive to potential clients when compared to your competitors. These days, potential clients and customers don’t just look at the product or service you offer. They also examine the internal components of your business, which is why having a favorable business ROI will be an advantage.

An MSP Can Help Boost Your Returns

Exerting considerable focus and effort towards improving your business ROI is very worthwhile because, as you can see, it can affect several areas of your business. Improving your returns does not only mean getting higher revenue. It also has a lot of positive implications for your business, your employees, and your clients.

One way of ensuring that you get a good business ROI from your investments is by working with a trusted managed service provider. Your MSP can provide multiple tools and strategies to keep you on track to achieving your goals and generating profits.

For some extra help, we have prepared a comprehensive on-demand webinar that clearly illustrates what could happen to your business if you do not have a managed service provider by your side, as well as the multiple negative impacts this can have on your employees and your clients.

Conclusion

If you want to learn more about how an MSP can help improve your business ROI, contact us and we will be happy to discuss how our services can help boost your returns and your overall business performance.

Business budgeting is a very important part of running a business, regardless of whether you are a startup or an established company operating for years. Creating a budget is not a problem for most business owners. The challenge is sticking to the budget as the business grows and the spending expands.

The Problem of Hidden Costs

If you are like many owners of small and medium-sized businesses, you probably focus on the services and products you need when making a projection of your business expenses, which is what you should do. However, do you also consider the hidden costs of all these services and products? Are you even aware that many vendors today charge these hidden costs to unsuspecting business owners?

If you don’t regularly assess your purchases for these hidden costs, there’s a good chance that you are spending far more than you should be. You might go over your allotted budget. This mistake can have implications for your business.

Laying Employees Off

To bring down spending, many companies resort to the solution of laying employees off, believing that a smaller payroll can help the business get back on track financially. Unfortunately, cutting down on your workforce will increase the load of your remaining staff, which can then lead to stress, job dissatisfaction, and reduced performance.

Taking out Loans

Loans are a quick fix for any financial problem, but they can have heavy long-term consequences. If you get a loan with high repayment terms, it might eventually lead to even greater financial problems for your business.

Reduced Productivity

As hidden costs eat away at your business funds, you and your employees will naturally try to curb the spending. In doing so, you will inadvertently take people away from the jobs that you hired them to do. Your employees’ focus will need to be split between their actual duties and trying to solve the problems with business budgeting. The result of this would be much lower productivity.

Where Do Hidden Costs Come From?

Besides the blatant overcharging of some vendors, there are a few other sources of hidden costs that all business owners should know.

Loan Interests

Most business startups run on borrowed funds. If you have taken out a loan to help you establish your business, you need to include the interest on this loan in your business budget. You will also need to be very responsible for repaying such loans on time. Otherwise, the interest cost will increase and might take a heavy toll on your business funds.

Employee Benefits

In business budgeting, many new business owners make the mistake of accounting only for their employees’ salaries. They do not consider the employees’ benefits, which they will also need to grant.

Legal Expenses

No business owner expects to pay legal fees because no one wants to be involved in a lawsuit. But if these problems happen, you need to allocate funds for this in your budget.

Taxes

If you were an employee in the past, your company automatically deducted taxes from your salary. Now that you are a business owner, you will still need to pay taxes, and you will have to compute these on your own. If you forget to consider this in your business budgeting, you might be short on funds, and could even have problems with the IRS.

An Easy Solution

Staying within your budget can be a tough challenge with all the hidden expenses some vendors charge. To ensure that you do not spend more than you need to, you can use this business hidden expense calculator. This tool will reveal which services or products come with extra charges that you don’t need to pay. Once you are aware of these costs, you can plan your spending more efficiently and start saving valuable funds for your business. If you have any other questions, please contact us any time.

Doing business in this digital era comes with many advantages, thanks to the developments brought about by new technology. But this same technology also brings a new breed of threats that could have negative implications, from minor inconveniences to serious security risks.

First Line of Defense

You can install an antivirus program and take safety precautions to protect your business. This precaution is for anyone who wants to stay protected from viruses and other digital threats. However, the online environment is rife with potential threats that easily penetrate basic anti-malware programs.

Just think about it. How many email advertisements have you received in your inbox this month alone? Probably dozens, right? You don’t even need to open these emails, but if you accidentally click on even one of them, it will expose your system to other online threats and compromise the security of your business.

Staying One Step Ahead of the Hackers

Of course, the scenario we mentioned above is just a very mild example. Hackers these days are remarkably creative and aggressive in their strategies. Some hackers will steal your valuable data and destroy your business with just a few clicks, especially if you do not have a proper IT security system.

Potential Problems of Not Having IT Security for Businesses

If you do not defend your business with a reliable security system, you put your entire organization at risk and give cybercriminals an open invitation to infiltrate your network. Here are some potential problems you might face if you don’t invest in proper IT security for businesses.

Constant Risk While Surfing Online

While your employees are online, they can unintentionally pick up malware from the websites they visit or the links they click on. These malicious programs can easily attach themselves to your system and infect it.

Identity Theft

With information stored digitally, it is easy for hackers to steal personal and financial information, either for selling to others or for personal use. If your system is weakly protected, your employees might suddenly find themselves locked out of their workstations or discover that hackers have wiped their bank accounts clean.

System Shutdown

Viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malware can cause damage that causes your website to go down. You might recover with the help of an IT professional, but the hours or even minutes you have lost while you were offline can cause a massive loss of revenue for your business. Some malicious programs can have long-lasting implications that can drastically pull down the performance of your business.

Reduced Productivity

Certain viruses can attack even the most powerful servers. Even if you don’t fall victim to cyberattacks, the gradual deterioration of your computers’ speed and performance will significantly reduce the productivity of your employees. This issue can lead to a decline in their job satisfaction and cause problems for your business.

The Solution

An easy yet effective preventive solution to all these problems is to implement the right strategies for your IT security. Work closely with your IT provider or a managed service provider who specializes in IT security for businesses to get the best results.

The solution will begin with a comprehensive IT security audit where your MSP will thoroughly assess your IT infrastructure and check for vulnerabilities in your network. After this, they will create a custom security solution that fits your business requirements perfectly.

In our on-demand webinar, we discuss how we can help improve the IT security of your business. Click here to register for the webinar, where you will also discover the many ways that a managed service provider can positively impact your business.  Or, if you have any other questions, please contact us any time.

The cloud network for businesses is a new development. While widely used today, before it came into existence, many businesses had to make do with the limited in-house resources that were available. If you have not yet signed up for a cloud network for businesses, you are probably experiencing these limitations that can hold your business back.

Using a Cloud Network to Help Your Business

Business growth and success are the primary goals of any business owner. If you want your business to grow, you will usually have to hire more people, invest in more advanced IT infrastructure, buy more complex equipment, and allocate more resources for the different operations of your business. But doing this will require massive funding that most small business owners do not have. Fortunately, the cloud network for businesses has come to the rescue. Let’s look at the following scenarios.

Expensive IT Costs

When you rely solely on your own company’s resources, you will have no choice but to buy all the software and hardware that you will need for your business operations. We all know how expensive these products can be, but you will have no choice but to buy them if you want your business to grow and succeed.

Limited Productivity

Whenever IT issues arise within your business, your in-house staff will have to take time off from their regular duties to address the problems. IT might not even be their specialty, so there is no guarantee that they can resolve the situation. It reduces their productivity because they won’t be able to focus on their core responsibilities.

Frequent and Extensive Downtime

Software and hardware both need regular upgrading so your business can keep up with the rest of the industry. But installing these upgrades takes a long time, perhaps a couple of hours or more than a day. During these periods, your business will essentially be on hold. And this creates a hassle for your employees and customers.

Lack of Mobility

Traditional business setups require employees to be tied to their desks for the entire business day because everything they need is on their workstations. If you assign one of your employees to work in the field, for instance, they might have to wait until they get back to the office before being able to access their data.

The Solution

These scenarios present an assortment of issues that can drastically limit the performance of your business. While the cited situations are very different, we can improve them with a single solution: cloud computing. If this is an unfamiliar concept to you, there is no need to worry. Your IT provider can give you a thorough overview and assist you in getting a custom cloud solution for your business.

Cloud Computing Is the Answer

A cloud network for businesses costs very little compared to purchasing all the needed software and hardware. You will enjoy the most advanced IT tools for a modest monthly fee. It can also maximize your employees’ productivity. With the right network in place, you will no longer have to pull your staff from their regular duties to fix IT problems.

Upgrades for software and hardware will still be necessary, but with a cloud network, these upgrades will only take a few minutes. Most of the time, you won’t even notice that an update has taken place because the cloud service provider will handle it all for you.

If you want to find out more about the advantages that you can get from cloud networks for businesses and from working with a managed services provider, tune in to our on-demand webinar. This webinar will enlighten you on the benefits of cloud computing and its positive impacts on your customers and staff. You can contact us anytime!

Mobile phones have evolved tremendously in recent years and now have many powerful features never seen in previous phone systems. Many businesses rely on mobile phones as vital tools in business operations, and some have ditched their phone lines completely in favor of mobile devices. But is this the best decision? Have business phone systems become irrelevant or even obsolete?

The Importance of Business Phone Systems

The value of modern communication systems is incontestable. But this doesn’t mean that traditional business phone systems are no longer needed. Let’s look at some of their main uses for modern businesses.

Integration of Several Phone Functions

Business phone systems remain in place because they allow multiple phone functions to integrate into one efficient hub, making them easy to manage.

Conventional features like call forwarding, call screening, and call logs are staples of all business phone systems. In addition, we can seamlessly integrate them with some of the most popular online tools, like Google Apps, Microsoft Outlook, or your helpdesk application.

Cost Efficiency

Compared with conventional phone systems and their high maintenance costs, modern business phone systems are very cost-effective. From installation to operation, maintenance to updates, modern phone systems are incredibly affordable.

Scalability

Another plus for modern phone systems is that they are completely scalable. You don’t have to worry much about how many phones you need or which features to install. Modern business phone systems expand as your business grows. If you need to cut back, it is easy to eliminate the units and features that are no longer useful for your business. This way, you don’t get stuck paying for services you don’t need.

Potential Problems with Having No Proper Phone System

Despite the many advantages that modern business phone systems offer, some traditionalists still think they are an extravagance. They stuck with their old phone systems, believing that they were still serving them well in the modern business age. Unfortunately, this loyalty might lead to several problems for your business and your employees.

Lack of Privacy for Employees

Without a proper business phone system, it’s hard to keep business and personal communications separate. Using your mobile phone number for business calls might sound practical, but it won’t be long before this practice takes a toll on your private life. Business associates will reach you even while you’re away from the office or vacationing with your family.

Lack of Security for Business Data

On the flip side, losing or misusing mobile phones is bad for business. If you lose your mobile phone used for business calls, critical business data might be at risk. With a proper business phone system installed, we can easily separate business and personal calls with simple automation and forwarding settings. And it can store business data as needed.

Limited Access for Clients and Business Partners

If you do not have a modern business phone system in place, your clients will only be able to call you during your business hours. If your business closes at 5 pm, your customers will have to wait until the morning to call you back.

While some clients might wait for someone to answer, others will move on to the next open shop and do their business there. The lack of a business phone system can cost you many potential customers.

The Solution

These are a few ways it will limit your business if you do not have a proper business phone system installed. Fortunately, the solution is simple. All you need to do is get in touch with us and ask about a custom phone solution that fits the specific needs of your business.

Each business is unique, so there are no one-size-fits-all business phone systems. As your IT provider, we will assess your needs and provide you with the exact phone system that you need.

To learn more about the benefits of a proper business phone system, you can check out our on-demand webinar where we talk about how managed services providers can help you with your business communication system requirements. And, as always, please let us know if you have any questions.