Are You Utilizing IT Services to Your Full Advantage?

Are You Utilizing IT Services to Your Full Advantage?

Do you know what an IT provider is really capable of doing for your business and its technology? Chances are, it’s likely more than you think.

Below, we’ll review a few benefits that any IT resource worth their salt is capable of providing to a business like yours, and call it this week’s tip!

Keep Your Technology (and Data) Secure

When was the last time you checked to see if any of your technology had a software update or security patch available?

Studies have shown that neglect to implement these changes has enabled 44 percent of data breaches. Imagine the difference if every business was proactive in the maintenance of their solutions, and applied these improvements as they were released.

Of course, threats also take advantage of your employees to gain access to your systems. An employee that is unaware of how to spot a phishing email is far more likely to get hooked, and these kinds of social engineering attacks are only getting more popular.

One of the most important responsibilities of an IT resource is to ensure that a business is safe from threats of all kinds. Through a combination of cybersecurity solutions and training of your employees, your provider should be able to reduce the amount of threats that darken your business’ door.

Serves a Trusted Outsourced Provider

While you may already have an internal IT resource on your payroll, there’s a fair chance that their workload has grown beyond their capacity. Not only are they responsible for shaping your organization’s IT strategy moving forward, they also are on call to put out any metaphorical fires that may break out during the day-to-day.

With a sufficiently large internal staff, meeting these demands isn’t unduly challenging, but very few organizations have the number of IT support staff members that they really should. This is part of the reason that so many businesses have found success after turning to an external resource as a way to reduce their functional deficit.

The trick is to establish how this resource will provide the greatest value. Should their focus be on maintaining and improving the systems that the business relies on, or would they serve greater purpose as a lifeline for employees who are experiencing technical troubles?

Protect Your Business

Your business could easily come under threat from two fronts.

First, as we mentioned before, there are direct attacks to your business security. Second, there is the chance that circumstance alone could do some severe damage. Whether a weather event puts your business out of commission for a time or one of your crucial service providers (like the power company, for instance) suffers downtime of their own, you could be facing factors outside of your direct control.

In cases like these, it is important to proactively put the solutions in place to insulate yourself against this kind of situation’s ill effects, such as a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution. This will help to ensure that if the worst were to happen, you wouldn’t have to start from square one.

A trusted IT resource can assist in selecting the right solutions for your individual business needs, and WheelHouse IT can be that resource for you. Reach out to us at (877) 771-2384 to learn more ways that an MSP can help your organization thrive and grow.

Why a Proactive Stance is Best for Your Business IT

Why a Proactive Stance is Best for Your Business IT

When it comes to proactive IT, Managed IT services are a great way to make your small business take advantage of a smaller budget while still getting all of the services that are critical to everyday success.

One of the best ways you accomplish this is by using proactive maintenance to ensure unforeseen issues are accounted for. If a managed service provider only solved issues after they appeared, then it wouldn’t be any different from your typical break-fix IT solution. We take proactive measures to save your business in the long run.

What is Proactive Maintenance?

Proactive maintenance happens when an issue is resolved before it needs fixing. Since computers and other network components are extremely complex devices, it helps to have experts working on this technology so that you can focus on day-to-day tasks.

When you don’t have to worry about technology maintenance, your business can focus more on keeping its workers productive, but the primary benefit of it is that you’re basically foreseeing a future in which your technology fails, and you respond before it happens. If you can think of issues before they happen, you can effectively prevent them or respond so quickly that they don’t cause trouble for your organization.

Proactive maintenance can begin as soon as you work out your service level agreement with your MSP. Our technicians are certified and able to offer your organization the best managed services out there–all of which can help your business work more efficiently.

We can automate services for you or provide remote monitoring to ensure that your technology operates as intended, and we can use this knowledge to address potential issues before they cause downtime.

The Cost of Downtime

In order to understand just how much downtime can influence your bottom line, you’ll need to understand just what it affects and how it costs your business. Consider how much money you spend on keeping your employees in the office.

Be sure to include information like utility costs, the amount of money you spend on keeping your business running. Now add all of that together and add it to the amount of potential revenue lost by your employees not being able to work as intended. You might be surprised by this cost.

Since your organization basically eliminates downtime, our services ultimately wind up paying for themselves over time. We can assure you that it’s not uncommon at all for WheelHouse IT’s managed IT services to provide a significant return on investment for your organization.

How Proactive Maintenance Works

Our proactive maintenance system works through a remote monitoring and management tool that we provide for your organization. Our software will sift through your network to find any potential issues that need to be addressed. If any irregularities appear, we handle them before they become a major issue. Here are some of the ways your organization might inadvertently be sinking its own productivity:

  • Operator misuse: When equipment isn’t used properly, it can have a big effect on the hardware issue.
  • Skipped maintenance: When an IT department is overextended, it can look to save time by neglecting some standard maintenance.
  • Unusually heavy utilization: Like humans, when machines are asked to work hard for extended periods of time, they risk breaking down faster.
  • Faulty replacement parts: When parts are swapped out, they may work for a time, but after a while, they cause the system they are working in to prematurely fail.
  • End of lifecycle: While you can extend most equipment with solid maintenance, eventually, like everything else, it fails.

Does your business need a monitoring system to prevent downtime?

The answer is always a resounding “Yes.”

To learn more, reach out to us at (877) 771-2384.

How a Managed Service Provider Can Support Your Internal IT Team

How a Managed Service Provider Can Support Your Internal IT Team

Many businesses already have an internal IT team managing their network. It is not uncommon to wonder what a managed service provider can do for your business.

As this article mentions, disrupting your own business model before it gets digitally disrupted is a daily grind. Not only are you up against nimble web start-ups, but also your own corporate inertia.

Managed services can provide internal IT teams with various types of support that can help increase business productivity and expand your business.

Create Time for Bigger Projects

Chances are your IT team is already overwhelmed with the daily maintenance of your network. They do not have much time to focus on larger projects that could help expand your business. A managed service provider can take over the day-to-day administrative tasks which frees up your IT team to focus on projects that can benefit your business.

Increase Your IT Team’s Skill Set

IT is always changing and it requires many skills to maintain a network. Locating individuals who possess all of the knowledge and skills necessary to support a network, maintain servers, and manage other technologies is difficult. Managed services can support an internal IT team that does well with some tasks but needs expertise for others. This provides your business with a larger skill set to pull from when needed.

Improved Support

Nothing is worse than having network issues when your IT manager is on vacation and is unavailable. A managed service provider can alleviate the stress and worry of network issues when your primary IT person is not available. Most managed service providers offer 24/7 support which is important for keeping your network up and running while providing added peace of mind.

These are just a few of the benefits a managed service provider can offer your business. Outsourcing day-to-day administrative tasks to a managed service provider gives your business the support it needs to grow.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment. Our managed service provider agreement includes IT support and management for businesses of all sizes.

Managed IT Support Can Reduce the Risk of Cyber Theft from Miami Businesses

Managed IT Support Can Reduce the Risk of Cyber Theft from Miami Businesses

Network security breaches have been in the news lately.

Hackers have targeted such large organizations as the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management and the Bank of Bangladesh. While security breaches at large institutions make the news, cyber theft from small businesses quietly takes place in the background.

Many of Miami’s small businesses handle more money through their computers and networks than through their cash registers. Credit card credentials, ACH transactions and emailed wire transfer instructions can all be targets for thieves.

Over the past two years, cyber thieves have stolen nearly $800 million dollars from over 8000 small businesses. Regulation E, the federal rule that requires banks to reimburse consumers for unauthorized transactions, does not apply to small business accounts; individual businesses have lost over a million dollars to cyber theft and not been reimbursed.

Managed IT support for Miami businesses can help to reduce your risk of cyber theft. Instead of reacting to an incident after it occurs, your managed IT support vendor can examine and secure your network to reduce the risk of a breach. They can conduct a survey of your network to identify systems that need to be patched, and can look for systems with default passwords that a hacker might be able to guess.

Developing a patch management plan and eliminating systems with default passwords can reduce the risk of a network breach.

Cyber theft is a serious issue for Miami businesses. Companies that import or export goods are especially vulnerable as they often send wire transfers. A fraudulent wire transfer is very difficult to cancel or recall.

For more information about computer and network security, please contact us.

How Managed Security Services Can Benefit a Business

How Managed Security Services Can Benefit a Business

Having a quality and reliable network is a requirement in order for any business to be successful today. Managed security services can help.

For those organizations that have a network established, making sure that it is properly secured is very important as it will help to protect company and customer data.

For those that are looking to improve the security of their network and IT systems, hiring a managed security services provider would be very beneficial. A managed IT security services provider can provide your organization with a range of services to help protect your data.

Establishment of Security System

When you hire a managed IT security services provider, the first thing that the company will do is help you to establish a new security system. The security services provider will be able to enhance your existing network to ensure it is as secure as possible.

This part of the process will include establishing a multi-layered security service, creating a variety of access controls, and creating a system that will be very difficult for an unauthorized individual to access.

This will greatly enhance the overall protection that you have in place, which will reduce the risks of being hacked by an outside threat.

Monitoring

Beyond establishing a new security system on your network, a managed IT security service will also help by monitoring your network.

The company will be able to complete 24/7 real-time monitoring to identify who is accessing your network or if any suspicious activity is taking place.

The organization will also be able to continue to update your security systems in place based on changes in technology and outside hacking threats.

If you are interested in improving the security of your network, you should contact us to learn more about the products and services we provide as well as how we can help your organization.