ATECH MSP Blog

In business today, productivity is one of the most focused-upon metrics out there. One of the most effective ways for businesses to optimize their productivity is by taking advantage of some of the value that managed services provide. To kick off our blog series on how managed services can be a valuable addition to any business, we’re looking at how being proactive can protect this productivity.

Know it or not, your business takes in and creates a lot of data. Most of this data, like most items and information, isn’t worth much. Some of it, however, is crucial to your business’ ability to operate. If a situation comes along where you are faced with the prospect of losing your data, it will be much better to have a backup plan in place than not.

Today, keeping your network and computing infrastructure free from threats is the best way to control the security of your organization’s data. Any business that actively confronts their risks realizes early on that cybercrime has become a major problem that their business has to be kept insulated from. Unfortunately for many organizations, no matter how much your business spends on network security, all it takes is one misstep by someone who has access to your organization’s sensitive information to cause a major problem.

It feels like every week we learn about another big business or bank or municipality getting hacked, and the data of their customers getting stolen.

Big organizations are losing millions of dollars, forcing their hand to run damage control to millions of customers and deal with crushingly bad press. Beyond feeling a little numb to these cyberattacks (more on this in a moment), many small business owners might be feeling pretty lucky they don’t need to deal with these types of threats. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

There are many obstacles that any business owner needs to avoid in order to keep themselves from backsliding like Sisyphus did in Greek myth. Some of these obstacles may not be the first that come to mind, either. Here, we’ll review six mistakes that a business owner can make that can prevent them from reaching their goals. 

If you need to get your current IT infrastructure under control, you don’t want to deal with amateurs. You want to resolve your issues and quicken your response times, as well as grow and upgrade your infrastructure in a way that makes more profits and enhances productivity. To find out if you need an upgrade to your current IT systems, ask yourself the following questions.

There are a lot of words that a business owner doesn’t like to hear. One of the worst? Downtime. While this word may seem essentially harmless at first glance, it signifies a much larger range of issues. Here, we’ll examine how to calculate the impact of a downtime event.

Productivity is a core component of any business endeavor, but unfortunately it is often difficult to stay productive with the immense amount of distractions that intercede. In order for anyone to maintain productivity, they need tools aligned with the tasks they are presented. For the modern business, management software has connected most of a business’ core processes to streamline workflows for most people. The use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms keep people in the groove longer, while also providing management metrics designed to give them an idea about how their business is functioning.

In the previous parts of this computer buying guide, we discussed how to determine the specifications for your desired PC, including CPU, RAM, storage, and display options. In this final part, we’ll cover some ideas that didn’t quite fit into the previous parts.

Ransomware is a contender for the favorite method of attack for hackers. If you think about it, ransomware presents a no-loss situation. Either the victim pays the ransom and the hackers laugh all the way to the bank, or they move on to the next target and give them the same ultimatum.

When you consider your business’ strengths, you might feel the need to focus on quantifiable aspects that can be defined with numbers. There are some competitive advantages to this, but it’s especially important to keep in mind that perhaps the most important quantifiable strength you have is your ability to sustain a positive company culture.

In today’s highly competitive business environment, any advantage that you can claim will be useful to you. One big advantage you should seek to have is a trusted and reliable resource you can turn to so they can help you manage your IT solutions, consulting you on your business’ future in terms of its technology.

With data starting to be treated more like a commodity, companies are spending more time and money attempting to secure the data they have. Some organizations aren’t successful. In 2018 over 446.5 million records were exposed, even as data breaches dropped by 23 percent to 1,244. Today we take a look at some of the most noteworthy data breaches that have happened in the first four months of 2019.

Technology isn’t always a simple thing for small businesses, and in a world where every implementation either hampers or benefits your bottom line, there is a lot at stake. Implementing a better way of managing your IT will come with a considerable improvement to your organization’s operations. With the right method of management, you can optimize efficiency and productivity, but not before asking yourself these questions.

One industry that is particularly well-known for its technology troubles is healthcare. It has the unique issue of trying to make the jump to digital after having been a strictly paper-based industry for a long time. Electronic Health Records, or EHR, have provided this opportunity to providers that want to update their practices to match those of 2019.

For the business owner, it can sometimes be a struggle to find the right talent to fit in with your existing staff. Today, more individuals are forgoing the stability of a full-time job and contracting their expertise out as a service. With the amount of freelancers growing by the day, we’ll take a peek at the Gig Economy (as it’s called) and how it has become the new normal.

March is Women’s History Month. Historically, there have been many industries where women haven’t traditionally played a role. Fortunately, roles are changing, and with the use of technology today’s workforce has become more inclusive and dynamic.

There is an inherent value in approaching experts regarding any services you need, whether it’s building maintenance or your technology. It really helps to have IT professionals to turn to for any and all questions or concerns you might have regarding your computers, servers, and any other technological asset your organization might need to succeed.

The smartphone has changed the world as much as any physical product over the past decade-plus. Today, people have near-ubiquitous access to the riches of the Internet. They can communicate in a multitude of ways. They have applications that can help them live the life they find most fulfilling.

If there’s a single concept that modern businesses are being built around, that concept would have to be collaboration. Group effort and communication are increasingly central to the workflows of today - but there is more to collaboration than just these features. Here, we’ll review what the term collaboration really means, and how it can be leveraged in all its forms.