Directive Blogs

All businesses require at least some type of software in order to perform as expected. It’s how organizations acquire this software that has a considerable impact on cost. For some, software can be a budget-breaking nightmare, but others have found a much more convenient way of acquiring this software: as a service.

The holidays are a time when everyone questions whether they will be able to spend their time at home with their families, or be stuck at the office trying to beat a nasty deadline. The increase in mobile technology hasn’t made getting away from work any easier, but it has made it easier to work away from the office. Since this constant How can you achieve a precious work/life balance for your workplace duties?

IT maintenance is something of a sensitive topic for some organizations. While most understand that it needs to be done, they often don’t have the resources to make it happen, either due to a limited budget or timeframe. How does your business handle IT maintenance? If your organization is having troubles managing its annual technology budget, or if you are consistently experiencing profit-sapping downtime, consider managed IT services the answer to your problems.

For the last several years, we have annually asked the members of our team what they were grateful for. It doesn’t have to be a major thing, just some way that technology has improved our everyday lives. After a few silly answers, like memory foam (which is great) and forks (also important technology), they ended up coming up a few great technologies that they are thankful for. Here’s a few stand out items that we wanted to highlight:

Hackers always love the holiday season. Lots of people are spending lots of money (both online and in-store) for the perfect gifts for their loved ones. When there are so many people making purchases all over the world, there are countless opportunities to steal information. Data such as credit card numbers and personally identifiable information can be taken and used to make people’s lives pretty miserable, during what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

In terms of identity theft, data loss and good ol’ fashioned pickpocketing, the holiday season is one of the riskiest times to travel. When it comes to protecting your personal information, thieves and cybercriminals are counting on you to be distracted and make careless mistakes. In 2016, the number of fraud attempts went up by 31% during the holiday season. In addition, credit cards, mobile devices, and open Wi-Fi are common targets throughout the holidays.

The cloud has been a major game-changer for business technology, but perhaps its most important contribution has been to the backup and disaster recovery process. Businesses no longer have to suffer due to unforeseen circumstances such as hardware failure or hacking attacks. Instead, a cloud-based backup and disaster recovery solution, also known as BDR, can provide a considerable failsafe for your organization.

Digital payment options have become commonplace in today’s society. In fact, ever since people could purchase goods and services off of the Internet, some of the world’s most successful companies are a result of digital payment. It was a natural progression then, as the mobile device boom came, that mobile payment would take the place of cash and/or cards and bring these digital payment options beyond the Internet, and into our retail stores. This simply hasn’t happened and here are four reasons why.

 Fall is always a great time for cooking, especially in Upstate, NY. Today was a perfect cool day to open up the oven and try a new fall dish. So, for today’s Crock-Pot Thursday we tried; Philly Cheese Steak Bake, Tangy Broccoli Salad, Lemon Butter Roasted Asparagus, and finished off with Lemon Bar Cupcakes. Yum is an understatement. Want to try this meal out for yourself? Check out the recipes below!

Telephone solutions have long been a major pain point for businesses. Smaller organizations attempt to get the most bang for their buck, especially for something as important as communications, but it’s not always so simple. How can you get the greatest return on investment from your business’ telephone solution? You can start by implementing Voice over Internet Protocol.

Most businesses rely on software solutions in order to stay productive throughout the work day. Whether it’s a word processor, a spreadsheet builder, or simple data storage in the cloud, software is deeply ingrained in the modern business world. Shouldn’t your organization be taking advantage of it to its full extent? You can start by implementing Software as a Service.

For the majority of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), finding the right technology solution is the key to growth. According to a recent study, businesses with 250 employees or less whose primary goal for 2018 is growth cited IT systems and technology applications as their top strategy for facilitating growth. However, in order for technology to provide the most ample amount of growth for your business, they must be the right selection for your individual needs. By working with an MSP, you’ll have a team of business technology solutions experts as your disposal, at a fraction of the cost of hiring an internal IT department to find and implement the IT required to accomplish your desired growth.

Would you be surprised if we told you that cybercrime is one of the biggest threats to the success of your organization? Unfortunately, there’s no escaping the fact that your business will be under fire from all sides by security threats. One of the most notorious methods includes phishing--email scams that are designed to harvest credentials and other information from unsuspecting users.

If you’ve ever managed a major IT project, you’re probably well acquainted with Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Every project is going to have some rough patches. The key to overcoming these challenges lays not with the execution of the plan, but with the preparation. Here are four things to consider when you’re planning your next long-term IT project.

A recent surge of hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, and floods have crippled major cities and devastated entire regions all over the world. In the aftermath of these events, business owners are faced with a few glaring truths - one of which is the undeniable vulnerability of their business’ future in the event of a disaster. Most of the major news outlets are reporting this figure: according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 40% of small businesses never recover from a disaster. Despite all the literature and precautionary tales surrounding these catastrophic events, there are still an overwhelming amount of businesses that choose not to prepare for a disaster until it's too late.

We’ve all seen and heard about companies and government departments that have experienced major security and data loss events. Once the event is made public, there is a media frenzy of coverage disclosing answers to questions like: Were your records compromised? How can you protect nonpublic information in the future? What should you do if you are a victim? However, as the media focus moves to another topic, the breach becomes yesterday’s news - and there is very little coverage of what repercussions and penalties those entities that were breached faced - if any.

“The good old days” usually refer to times long past, where things were more simple. Businesses a few decades ago didn’t have much complex technology in their office, but nowadays organizations have multiple server units and plenty of workstations--all of which need more maintenance than ever before. What’s the best way for your organization to approach IT maintenance?

Today’s business environment is no longer just a drab gray office setting filled with workstations lining the wall. The office is the coffee shop across the street, or the airport lobby while you’re waiting for your plane to arrive. It’s the client’s office while you’re out on a business trip, or the venue for a business conference where you make valuable connections and exchange contact information. The office has gone mobile, and your business needs to adapt to this change.

The variety of malware known as ransomware exploded in popularity in 2016, encrypting victims’ files and demanding cryptocurrency payments to restore the data to the estimated tune of $1 billion. This may seem to suggest that large corporations and companies are the primary targets of these cyber criminals--and for some, they are.

You might have only recently heard about outsourced IT services, but you might be surprised to hear that they have been around for far longer than you previously thought. Even before managed IT, however, business owners and individuals alike were using the outsourced services of others to simplify operations and day-to-day tasks related to their technology management.