The Connection, Inc Blog

Everyone has a smartphone, but only a fraction of people use it productively. Instead of using your smartphone for wasting time, you could be using it to stay productive and get more done, reducing your stress levels and creating a better work life. Today, we’ll give you three useful tips  on how to change the way you use your smartphone.

Today, there is a lot to consider about how businesses handle mobility. Think about it, today it isn’t surprising when someone pulls up work-related content on their phone outside of work hours. It’s just part of their job. This shift is relatively new, and needs to be examined to see if the pros outweigh the cons for the employee, but also for the business.

For a growing business, mobility has a distinct place. It isn’t all about using a phone for productivity, or having access to tools when you are out of the office, it is a philosophical decision to get the most out of your company’s data. Let’s look at the ways that enhanced mobility can benefit your professional services firm.

Your IT is a central part of your organization’s operations, but its role has changed significantly as business processes have grown more streamlined. There are always shifts and changes in the way that businesses function which must be accounted for, especially in the modern office environment. How have these shifts affected your business’s IT management?

We’ll discuss three of the most important new trends that your organization likely has to deal with, especially if you want to ensure the continued security of your organization’s technology and data.

Increase in Mobility
The use of mobile devices is a major trend that is helping employees be more productive, but at the cost of network security. While solutions like the cloud are allowing employees to access data and applications on their mobile devices, this prompts them to bring the devices both into the office and on the road with them. This type of mobility could create a situation where your data is put at risk, even if it’s through no fault of the employee themselves.

To counter this notion, businesses have begun to implement Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies that reinforce proper security practices on mobile devices. This includes everything from mobile wiping of devices to whitelisting apps that are needed and blacklisting apps that are wasteful or dangerous. The idea is to educate your employees on proper security practices, and reinforcing these practices with technology solutions to shore up any notable weaknesses.

A Focus on Security
Security has always been important for businesses, but now it’s more so than just about anything else. The threat landscape has considerably changed over the past decade. While the most dangerous threat out there consisted of viruses or malware that could halt your operations or steal data, there are even greater threats out there that have increased the level of security required in order to preserve your business.

Advanced phishing attacks that impersonate higher-ups in your organization pose a greater threat than before. Furthermore, ransomware has become a major part of any would-be hacker’s toolkit, extorting funds from unfortunate victims to further their hacking campaigns. Only the best enterprise security tools and knowledge of these advanced threats can be enough to keep them at bay.

From Reactive to Proactive
In the past, businesses would focus on alleviating problems as they crop up. The belief was that they would save money by only administering maintenance when it was really necessary, rather than trying to spend money when it wasn’t. Unfortunately, this mindset leads to even more revenue spent on repairing systems due to one major factor: downtime. When an issue becomes a problem that keeps your employees from doing their jobs, it becomes quite costly.

Organizations that take advantage of break-fix technology maintenance are more likely to experience trouble in the long run compared to proactive managed services. By preventing issues from evolving into major problems, you are effectively saving money by keeping downtime to a minimum.

The Connection, Inc specializes in preventative solutions designed to help your organization save time and improve IT maintenance. To learn more, reach out to us at (732) 291-5938.

When it comes to using technology to improve your business, it’s hard to beat the benefits that cloud computing provides. The cloud can help to boost your functionality in a variety of ways. As a result, cloud technologies have seen explosive adoption rates--and it’s no wonder, when you consider what the cloud is capable of, and how it can benefit your workforce.

Boosted Mobility
One of the most significant pain points that businesses have experienced in the past is a lack of access to their files. Unless there were multiple copies of a file floating around (which increases the risk of data leakage and inconsistency) an employee would have had to remove the business’s sole copy of a file to work on it, greatly increasing the risk of data loss.

However, the cloud mitigates these potential issues almost completely by allowing documents and data to be accessed from anywhere that an Internet connection can be established. As a result, there is a greatly reduced risk of data loss due to misplaced files. Another consideration is that if your organization gets hit with a disaster, a secondary workplace is much easier to set up.

Business Continuity and Data Backup
On the subject of disasters, cloud technologies also enable businesses to better ensure their ability to continue their operations should something befall their physical office. In cases such as floods, fires, or other destructive forces, it is much better to have your data safely stored in an offsite location, rather than keeping your critical files in a filing cabinet that gets damaged in a disaster.

The cloud also allows businesses to add another layer of data redundancy to ensure that it protected if something terrible happens. It accomplishes this by storing the data in multiple off-site locations, so when it is time to recover data, it is accessible and easily restored.

Collaboration
When was the last time that you wasted reams of paper, as employees who were working on a project printed out copy after copy, only to scribble all over them, crossing out things, and annotating others? This approach is inefficient, wasteful, and expensive.

The cloud, on the other hand, allows these documents to be shared and edited online, ensuring that all of your resources have the same version to reference and eliminating the vast majority of your printing and production costs.

Scalability
Physical storage solutions generally come in a limited assortment of sizes, meaning that you could potentially have to make a large investment to keep a relatively small number of files. While having to buy a filing cabinet or two may not seem like such a large investment in the grand scheme of things, it also depends on how much utility you’ll ultimately need from it.

This is where the cloud has the advantage once again. Working with the cloud provider, you are able to arrange to have exactly as much storage space as you’ll need, with the ability to increase or decrease your allotted storage as necessary. As you do so, the fees that most managed cloud providers charge will adjust incrementally, ensuring that you pay only what your provider is due.

The Connection, Inc can help you when it comes to implementing a cloud solution for your business. Give us a call at (732) 291-5938 for more information.