Tag Archive for: Colorado Springs IT provider

How Can IT Make 2021 a Great Year for Your Business

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Ready to turn the page on 2020? No matter what business you are in, you faced unprecedented challenges during the last year. The businesses that survived—and even thrived—had to adapt. Remote collaboration, sales, and customer service are here to stay. But is that enough? What else can you do to grow your business in 2021 amidst the continuing complications of COVID, uncertain economic pressures, and high levels of unemployment?

Embrace Remote Technology

Everyone is now acquainted with Zoom, Skype, Teams, or some other remote streaming platform. But just having access to an app may not be enough—at least not to distinguish you from your competition. For many businesses, the inability to interact face-to-face with clients, prospects, and teammates disrupts normal best practices. Here’s what you can do to embrace the new normal:

  • Upgrade audio capabilities so you can communicate clearly
  • Consider what background will best represent you and your business
  • Turn on your video or webcam for every professional interaction
  • Ensure your home or office has adequate Internet connectivity
  • Train every employee on the fundamentals of Zoom, Teams, and other popular platforms

Think Outside the Office

Successful businesses in 2021 may find that reducing or eliminating office space is now a cost-efficient option. While changes to your operation will present challenges, the new remote office environment can also offer new opportunities. Here are some of the benefits:

  • An expanded talent pool for new hires who may not need to live in your area
  • Greater flexibility for employees to complete projects and collaborate from anywhere
  • Face-to-face sales and customer service
  • Expanded training and outreach opportunities including webinars and online conferences

Protect Your Digital Spaces

COVID wasn’t the only plague infecting our world in 2020. The largest information breach in history took place as well, compromising many government agencies and corporations. Your online data and privacy are too important—especially in the new digital office environment—to leave vulnerable to attack. Every virtual office needs to address the following:

  • Password protocols and multifactor authentication
  • Firewalls, antivirus, and antimalware
  • Using virtual private networks (VPNs) when sharing information online
  • Phishing scam avoidance
  • Security updates and maintenance
  • Data backup and recovery

Simpleworks—Your IT Partner for the New Digital Workspace

Simpleworks IT in Colorado Springs is a leading managed IT services provider. We offer an array of services and packages for small- to medium-sized businesses who want the benefits of an in-house IT team without the overhead. The transition to digital office space has been challenging for many businesses, but you aren’t alone. Get in touch with Simpleworks today and learn more about how we can help your business thrive in 2021.

 

 

Losing Your IT Person: Turning a Loss into an Opportunity

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“My IT person just quit! What should I do now!?”

If you haven’t said these words yet, just wait – it’s a matter of time.

For small businesses and organizations, finding and retaining IT talent is a huge expense and time commitment. The technology industry is a highly competitive career field and talented IT professionals want to be continually challenged and educated. If your business is relying on one or two IT professionals to keep your tech working, you will encounter the loss of a trusted employee.

What’s most important is that you realize this is really an opportunity for your business, not a loss. Yes, it’s true that you’re being forced to reevaluate your IT department. And, most likely, you didn’t put this into the budget. But, in business, unexpectant things happen. As a business owner, now is your chance to survey your company’s current and future IT environment, align it with your business plan and engage the right people to help you plan, deploy and support it.

3 Critical Services to Look for in a New IT Provider

When your IT person leaves or must be replaced, you lose more than just someone who can fix your workstations. You lose the institutional knowledge that person holds of your network. More important, you lose a trusted resource.

If you are using the loss of your IT member as an opportunity to position yourself for growth, what should you look for in a new IT partnership?

  1. An IT person or provider who will be able to map out your IT infrastructure and report to you what’s being done correctly and what needs improvement. Essentially, your new IT provider needs to be able to quickly understand your current technology and what needs to be done with it to position your company for growth.
  2. Someone who can make the transition smooth. Moving from one provider to another can be bumpy. But the right IT provider will make it simple by collaborating with your departing person or provider to seamlessly transfer control and knowledge of your network.
  3. A provider who will lead you to the right solutions for your company – no more and no less. Rather than going without needed technology or encumbering yourself with technology you don’t need, partnering with a managed service provider with knowledge of your industry will give you the resources you need to get your IT investment just right for your business.

These critical services are crucial to be an effective IT provider and should be expected of any managed service provider (MSP) you engage.

How IT Can Grow Your Business

Businesses of all sizes need well-planned and -maintained technology solutions. That’s what we provide our clients.

Upon engaging with a new client, we immediately assess the business’ current IT, note areas of success and improvement, and present leadership with a report on their IT’s standing. During this process, we work with your current IT person or provider to make the transition simple. We then work with company leadership to align IT with their business strategy. Using our knowledge of industry standards and best practices, we offer technology solutions customized to the business’ needs – no more and no less – that position the business for growth.

Simplifying Your IT with Simpleworks

Our mission is to make business technology simple. We simplify your IT. It’s right there in our name. Your technology simply works when you partner with us. We view partnerships as long-term relationships with our clients. We’re invested in their success because it’s our success.

We aim to serve our clients as a trusted partner and resource for all their information technology needs. If you’d like to learn more about how we can become your trusted IT team, contact us online or by phone at 719-476-0444.

Breaking Up with Your IT Provider? How to Find ‘The One’

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We don’t often think of it this way, but our technology providers are rather intimate with our businesses. Indeed, technology touches almost every area of our businesses – from allowing us to check our work email from our phones to securing our most confidential information. Our IT, and, thus, our IT providers, have access to the most important areas of our businesses. That means you need to be able to trust your IT provider and depend on them to be there for you when you need them most. It’s not altogether different from getting married.

However, like most relationships, it can take a while to find the right one before settling down for a future together.

6 Signs Your IT Provider May Be Wrong for You

Your IT provider will send signals about the value and future they place in your business relationship. Some will be subtle and some not so subtle:

  1. Recurrent downtime
  2. Never seeming to be able to solve the root cause of issues
  3. Leaving you on hold for support
  4. Nickel-and-diming you for every service
  5. Not helping you align your IT with your business goals
  6. Never calling to check on your IT and your needs

Don’t let your feelings get hurt. They probably treat all their clients the same way. It’s not you; it’s them.

At the same time, you don’t want to become complacent. If you’re not getting the service and proactive IT planning that your business needs to grow, it’s time to move on.

Finding the Right IT Provider for Your Business

The first thing to realize when searching for a new IT provider is that you get what you pay for. If you aren’t willing to invest in your technology, you’ll keep falling for poorly performing IT providers. Remember: the time you spend struggling with inadequate IT is time you could be spending improving your business and readying it for growth.

Once you’ve committed to investing in your technology to help your business grow, don’t fall for the first managed service provider (MSP) you meet. Do your due diligence first. Here are a few key things to consider as you search for a long-term IT partnership:

  • Talk to your peers about their experiences with IT providers. Industry peers are often great resources for insight into how an MSP performs on a daily basis. They can also help you identify MSPs you might want to begin talking to. Don’t take their word for it, though. Trust, but verify.
  • Identify your business’ needs and goals. The only way to effectively align your technology with your business plan is to review and plan ahead for the technology you’ll need. For instance, if you’re planning to hire new employees, you’ll need to also plan for more laptops, more storage, more licensesand other technical considerations.
  • Communicate your needs to prospective IT providers. Does the provider clearly understand your business goals and explain how their technology solutions will help you achieve them?
  • Look for industry-experienced MSPs. IT providers with experience in your industry, especially if you’re in a regulated industry, gives you a leg-up as they already know the requirements you must meet to comply with laws and regulations.
  • Can the provider secure your network and most confidential data? Whether it’s intellectual property or personally identifiable information, hackers are interested in the data that companies store. Your potential IT provider should be able to clearly explain how their solutions protect your business from cyberattacks.
  • Reliable, tested disaster response and backups. Any MSP you seriously consider should have experience developing disaster response plans and ensuring your backups are tested on a regular basis and working. Your backups are your last resort in the event of a disaster or cyberattack.
  • Experienced and expert staff. Does the IT provider have a strong, talented technical team with industry experience, certifications and quality toolsets for managing, tweaking, adjusting and proactively monitoring your IT environment? It should.
  • Verify. As we noted above, you should verify the information you gather by contacting the provider’s other clients and references to get a better picture of how they work.
  • Reporting and metrics. Make sure the IT provider can provide you with regular reports on their metrics for success in serving your business. An honest self-appraisal indicates an honest provider.

Comparing IT Providers – It’s Not Always Apples to Apples.

By starting your IT provider search with the questions above, the answers will help you narrow the field to those providers that better match your business. At Simpleworks, we’ve simplified managed IT from start to finish.

Our new Simple Technology Solution takes the mystery out of IT contracts:

– No hidden fees.

– What you see is what you get.

– Your IT investment is predictable.

– Our program automatically scales with your business’ needs.

Ready for a Simple Technology Solution?

When you partner with us, we completely handle the transition and employee training. We also coordinate with your former or current IT provider, so you don’t have to do anything.

If you’d like to learn more about simplifying your IT, contact us here or call us at 719-476-0444.