Technology plays a pivotal role in the way modern businesses function, and as a result it carries some element of risk. An example of this is how companies store electronic records. While the implementation of measures that are designed to provide greater ease of use and organization for a business’ employees make business move faster, it also makes it that much easier for a hacker to locate and steal data. Small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, are vulnerable, as they may not have dedicated IT security.

All businesses have certain software solutions that they need to keep their operations going. Be it an email solution or a productivity suite that you lack, your business is held back from ideal operational efficiency. The traditional way of acquiring these pieces of software can be holding your organization back, so we’ve come to you with a solution: Software as a Service (SaaS).

Everyone has a right to privacy. However, with the popularity of social networks, the Internet is a very hard place to remain a private individual. Digital communication is everywhere. Cybercrime has become a fairly regular event. This week’s tip of the week takes a glance at three websites that you can use to help enforce your right to privacy.

Servers are a critical part of any business or organization’s IT infrastructure, as they are the backbone of data distribution. This could include access to applications such as your productivity suite, or even the storage of vital data that’s necessary for day-to-day operations. Unfortunately, this critical hardware must be continuously maintained. The question becomes: Is your business responsible for keeping your server infrastructure in proper working order?

Ransomware is a tricky piece of malware that locks down the precious files located on a victim’s computer, then (in theory) will return access to them when a ransom has been paid. Depending on the files stored on a victim’s computer, they might simply blow it off and not worry too much about losing access to a couple of pictures or videos--but what if this ransomware threatened to expose your web browsing history?

Technology maintenance and management is one of the major pain points of all businesses, but it comes more easily to large organizations that have large budgets. Unfortunately, small organizations are often left out, placing such an important aspect of managing their business on the back burner. How, then, can you take advantage of proactive IT maintenance without breaking your budget?

SMBs often have a lot of work on their plates due to having smaller workforces. Thus, something as important as IT gets put on hold in favor of the day to day responsibilities. The problem with that is if IT is not managed properly, it will result in downtime. One would think that adding a few heads to focus on technology management would be a solution, but adding salaries to your budget can be an expensive endeavor. Ultimately, there’s a better way.

Before you consider hiring technical staff, let’s have a conversation about managing your technology so you don’t need to put your focus on it. If you’ve been burned in the past by your regular computer repair person, we get it, which is why do things differently. Ordinarily, a business seeking computer support would suffer from what’s known as break-fix IT. This is a type of maintenance that your business seeks out when it’s suffering from broken technology.

When your technology doesn’t work properly, you will seek out assistance. The break-fix IT provider will then dispatch someone to resolve your problem. They will finish their work and you’ll pay any support fees that you’ve accrued (sometimes this includes travel time, an hourly budget, parts, service fees, etc.). This type of IT maintenance is more reactive than proactive, as it responds only when you are currently experiencing problems rather than preventing them in the first place.

At Telesys Voice and Data, we pride ourselves on proactive IT maintenance. This type of managed service can remotely monitor and resolve most issues that your organization encounters before they evolve into bigger, more expensive problems. An example of this is actively monitoring your network for signs of hardware failure, then proceeding to assist you with replacing the problematic hardware before you deal with downtime. It’s just one way that your business benefits from proactive IT maintenance.

Thus, as long as it’s covered in your service level agreement, managed IT expenses will continue to be much easier to budget than the costs associated with break-fix technology maintenance. Outsourced IT services from Telesys Voice and Data can be your first step toward optimizing your business’ operations and taking the strain of IT management off of your capital budget. To learn more, reach out to us at (800) 588-4430.

Special text characters are an integral part of typing. For the most part, however, they are not something that your normal, run-of-the-mill keyboard or laptop keypad is able to access easily. Luckily, for Windows 10 users, there is a shortcut that allows you to access all sorts of special characters.

Consultation is one of those words that you take for granted because you see it everywhere. Think about it, most businesses that provide a professional service offers some semblance of consultation. For the small business owner, can you really afford to pay premium prices to “experts” for them to give you their so-called professional opinion? Besides, what do service providers mean when they use the term “consultation”?

In the traditional sense, a consultation is a meeting to discuss a contracted issue. To that end the consultation provides the opportunity for a party that is dealing with problems to get a professional opinion about how to resolve that problem. This works wonders when you have a rash and go to the doctor, or if you have a wicked toothache and go see a dentist. These consultations typically result in near instantaneous relief of a problem, but for business owners that are suffering from inefficiencies, cost overruns, and other major operational problems, there is a good chance that there is a way to leverage technology and automation to eliminate any problems your organization could have.

At Telesys Voice and Data, our consultants have a strong grasp on the technology the modern business uses to mitigate their inefficiencies. To that end, our consultants will perform a full network and infrastructure assessment that will give us a better idea of what kind of changes need to be made to your process, to your technology, or to your workflow.

Since you want your business to grow, we don’t just look at how you can fix the problems you have, we make a comprehensive plan on how you can leverage technology to sustain the growth you want to see and eliminate downtime and other profit-sapping inefficiencies over time. This IT roadmap can include hardware refreshes, software deployment, additions to network and physical security, and much, much more.

Our technicians understand how today’s most dynamic IT systems can work to build efficiency. We also understand that there are plenty of products on the market to help you. That’s why we put you beside some of the industry’s best vendors to get you using reliable and powerful technology to benefit your business. Best yet, the problems you have day-in and day-out with your aimless approach to technology will quickly be replaced with a strategic technology plan that works for your business. Aside from our value-based consultation service, some of the technology solutions we can provide your organization include:

• Full network and server management
• Network security monitoring
• Help Desk
• Hardware repair
• Hosted utility computing (cloud computing, hosted communications, etc.)
• Line-of-Business software (consumer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, etc.)
• Physical security solutions (access control, security cameras, etc.)

If you think you can get more out of your business, you are probably right! Call Telesys Voice and Data at (800) 588-4430 today to make an appointment to meet with one of our knowledgeable representatives and get consulted on how to best move your business forward.

There are some tasks that are essential to the health of your business’ network. For example, you need to make sure that you are engaging in regular network management activities. Do you know what this task entails?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business, a large enterprise, or if you're in a rural town, or a larger city. You still have to worry about the security of your data and the integrity of your infrastructure. Thankfully, there are services out there that allow even small businesses to leverage powerful, enterprise-level tools for maximum network security. The most valuable of all is perhaps the Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool.

Every business is searching for ways to improve productivity. There are now quite a few methods being used to boost the amount that each employee can accomplish, many of which revolve around technology. Admittedly, some of these methods may not be attainable for the average SMB… yet. However, as technology advances you may find yourself able to leverage some of these productivity-enhancing tools to improve the look of your bottom line.

Someday, You Could Have Smart Desks
For instance, smart desks. By connecting to the company’s local-area network, these Internet-of-Things workstations can track the behaviors of your employees to help improve their health. We’ve all heard that it is better for the human body to stand up than sit at their desks, but how many people actually do? A smart desk helps to solve this problem by alerting its occupant when to stand. Furthermore, smart desks can serve as a health monitor for an employee, allowing health issues to be caught preventatively, potentially reducing time out of the office and the amount of missed productivity.

On the topic of furniture, offering employees adjustable office furniture to use will reduce the amount of discomfort employees will experience as they attend to their responsibilities.

Yes, Television Can Be More Than a Distraction
If handled correctly, keeping a few televisions in the office can be a benefit to your employee’s productivity. After all, they don't necessarily have to be playing an afternoon soap opera or reality show. Use a television to display important company matters, like upcoming meetings, deadlines, KPIs, sales wins, and other business subjects to keep goals and deadline top-of-mind for employees. In fact, these displays can even help to inspire a little friendly competition in the office, as different departments see each other being more productive and feel the need to measure up.

There’s also a lot to be said about the value of video conferencing. If an employee needs to be two places at once--like in a critical meeting while also across the country attending an important conference--a video conferencing program can allow them to do both.

Work Smarter to Work Harder
Of course, there are plenty of other tools available to make being productive a simpler prospect for your employees. Automation can eliminate manual tasks to free up resources. After all, the more time an employee has to spend initiating a data backup or some other day-to-day. critical, but time-consuming task, the less time they can spend producing some benefit for the company.

It is also crucial that your employees are working with the solutions that will benefit their productivity the most. This means that they aren’t dealing with outdated hardware and software that experiences issues and hang-ups, and are equipped with the means to achieve optimal output. Ensuring that your technology is up-to-date and well-maintained can have a big impact to how well they work, and as a result, how well your workforce can do their jobs.

For help with creating a plan that ensures maximum productivity for your entire office, reach out to Telesys Voice and Data. We can help you implement the necessary components to ensure your office remains productive. Give us a call today at (800) 588-4430.

If there’s any experience that’s universally shared by the modern worker, it’s the sensation that there aren’t enough hours in the day. Fortunately, there are some habits that can be developed that can help to mitigate these feelings by enhancing productivity. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss some of these practices to help boost your office’s time management capabilities.

Some organizations want to better understand the process that they use to take backups of their data and restore them in the event of an emergency. This is great, because the value of being able to do so cannot (and should not) be understated. A proper data backup and disaster recovery system could be all that stands between prosperity and failure.

Putting together your workforce is something that requires painstaking attention to detail. You found workers who are willing to work as hard as possible to further your organization’s goals. Yet, you have to remember that even the most perfect employees are still human, and that they can make mistakes and can put the organization’s data at risk. User error is a common problem, and it is one of the most important things to keep in mind while you set up your information systems.

The Internet of Things has been growing rapidly, and with this growth it has become a major part of daily life. There are connected devices you couldn’t even fathom being needed, but some have turned out to be exceeding useful. In 1977, the release of Star Wars saw people’s imaginations expand. The science end of the sci-fi went into overdrive, and soon communications and computing would change forever. Despite being a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the Star Wars universe introduced several concepts of the Internet of Things, decades before the IoT was even conceptualized. This week, we will take a look at the modern day Internet of Things, and how Star Wars primed us for our own future.

If you use Google Drive as your preferred cloud provider, you know that it’s a dynamic service that offers everything from word processing to spreadsheets to file storage. However, there are many other ways to use Google Drive that you may not even be aware of. Here are three secret tips that can help you get a little more value out of Google Drive.

It’s time to face the fact that those times when your technology acts up, you don’t have the time to spare waiting around for the issue to just go away...you need to react. Many small businesses just don’t have the means to maintain an in-house IT resource to solve their problems. What if we can offer you a different solution.

In order to function properly, any business will need to procure certain pieces of equipment. Some of this equipment will be specialized to the business’ purpose, while some will be the sort that may be more commonly found in offices everywhere. This equipment must be procured from somewhere, and this is where vendors come in--but who in your organization is responsible for your vendor management?

Phishing attacks have been around for decades, first being recorded in 1995 where scammers would pose as AOL employees and request a user’s billing information through instant messages. Nowadays, email phishing attempts have tricked users into handing over personal information of all kinds. There are many methods of identifying a phishing attempt, but today we’ll focus on one.

The Internet is always changing, and anyone who has been using it for a while has experienced this change for themselves. While it might be strange to think about, the latest statistics have proven that the current changes to the Internet are some of the most significant--especially for businesses. “Online business as usual” will be significantly different moving forward.