One Up Solutions Northwest Blog

Managing servers can be a challenging task for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Despite being essential to your operations, servers are complex technologies that, if not managed properly, can lead to wasted time, energy, and resources. Today, we’ll explore the key functions of server management and how to maximize your current resources.

There's a lot of pressure on (often understaffed and overworked) internal IT teams to manage and maintain increasingly complex systems. For businesses noticing signs of strain on their IT staff, seeking assistance from managed services providers (MSPs) could be the remedy. Here's how an MSP like us can alleviate the pressure and contribute to workplace wellness for all.

Most businesses rely on their technology. However, a failure to manage that technology can lead to significant financial waste and operational inefficiencies. One major way a business can waste money is through over-investment in unnecessary or overly complex IT infrastructure. Let’s briefly examine how companies waste their money on technology and how to identify if technology is working for your business. 

Information technology offers businesses of all sizes significant benefits, very much including small and medium-sized organizations. Let’s go through five modern tools that offer this kind of inclusive utility to the point that we see them as essential for successful business operations today.

Cost/Benefit is a term you hear a lot. It’s always used in conversations about potential investment and means something. Well, at least it should. One of the places that many people can gain benefits from their investments is by outsourcing some of their responsibilities to an outside vendor. This works especially well with IT management. Let’s take a look at why outsourcing your technology support and management is a good investment.

A company’s IT strategy can define how it handles its entire operational strategy. That’s why it is so important to carefully consider your organizational approach to IT. Not only does it allow you to align your IT, and its support, to your business’ goals, but it also allows you to consider the circumstances that you operate under and find viable solutions to business problems. That’s not all. Let’s list some of the reasons that businesses should consider customizing their IT strategy to their business initiatives.

With technological advancements, challenges arise, and technical issues inevitably occur. This is where an IT help desk comes into play. Let’s explore how an IT help desk operates and why it is a valuable asset for any business.

Businesses use all types of sayings to try to draw in customers. One of the core selling points of managed IT services is that “it pays for itself”. This is more than just marketing. The multiple services that make up managed IT services all help a business save time and money, but when added together, it can really help the bottom line of a business more than most services they can use. In this week’s blog we thought we would go through the core elements of a managed IT services agreement to show how it really does pay for itself. 

How does your business manage its IT? Do you have an in-house team, and how busy are they with all of the hustle and bustle of their everyday duties? Do they have time to address the many challenges and requests made of them? If not, then perhaps you should consider a different model for your IT management. Luckily, we have just the opportunity for you, and you won’t want to miss out on it.

Cloud computing has been touted as one of the most innovative and important technologies for smaller businesses as they look to compete with larger organizations. How it makes this possible is by offering dynamic computing environments that can help bring these smaller businesses into the information age without saddling them with massive infrastructure costs while doing so. That’s not to say that the cloud is cheap by any means, and this month we will discuss how cloud computing is a great option for nearly any business. 

Even though the modern workplace tends to be PC-centric, Apple has had a major impact on technology and computing. It’s undeniable that Apple is pretty consistent with producing sleek, high-end hardware and efficient operating systems. Apple’s former CEO, Steve Jobs, was known to be a visionary and a perfectionist. That’s what makes this story even weirder.

Business technology is a useful tool, there’s no way around it. Unfortunately for businesses, technology has to be replaced every so often. Even if the technology doesn’t break, there are innovations made that can help your organization do what you do better. The thing is: Technology does break, so you need to understand how to get the most value out of it when it is working. 

How has your business managed its technology in recent years? Depending on the way you have done so, you could be unnecessarily throwing money down the drain when you could instead be reinvesting it into your organization. If you are ready to take your operations to the next level, consider changing your approach to your office’s technology management with managed services.

Every expense that your business takes on needs consideration. When you are looking to keep your business productive, you need to focus on keeping downtime to a minimum. In order to do that you need to have tools that don’t take a lot of work-time maintenance and have professional perspectives available that can help keep operations running when issues with your business’ technology do happen.

How often do you find yourself in this situation? You are typing away on your computer pushing through your day-to-day tasks, scratching items off your to-do list, and communicating with your employees when suddenly, your computer freezes up. You’re then forced to perform a hard reset just to get your computer responsive again.

When you walk into most new businesses you’d be hard-pressed to think that IT has only been used in business for a few decades. Most businesses today use a variety of workstations (network endpoints) to handle scheduling, inventory, procurement, payroll, and a litany of other business functions. With that in mind, it stands to reason that keeping that IT working is the only way to efficiently run your business. We thought we’d take a look at how to keep your IT support costs low while keeping your technology managed properly. 

Businesses have always relied on technology in at least some capacity, whether it’s hosting an email server or platform or using a word processor for various tasks. Many companies, however, struggle with technology procurement, management, and maintenance for a variety of reasons. Let’s take a look at what some of these reasons are, as well as how managed services can relieve these pressures to create a better experience for your company as a whole.

With the world changing in the past two years, work strategies have changed substantially. Now businesses that once were anti-remote work are embracing the strategy. This means that the way they need to manage their IT has to change with the times. Unfortunately, threats also evolve. Hackers and scammers are now doing more to target virtual private networks. Let’s discuss what you can do about it. 

Businesses often struggle with finding talent, and a variety of factors can contribute to this. Some are limited by their geographic location, although this has been made significantly less of a factor thanks to remote technology, whereas others might be limited by budget. Thankfully, outsourcing is a great way to shore up weaknesses in your organization’s operations, particularly for finding IT talent.

We live in an era of upgrades. For example, how often do you upgrade your smartphone? Do you give the same care and attention to your business’ technology? Oftentimes users ignore the signs that it is time for an upgrade even when they are crystal clear, just saying to themselves, “I’ll get by just fine.”’ This is not the correct mentality. You need to be able to identify when older devices are holding you back and take steps toward replacing them with better, more powerful ones.