Is every copy of software installed across your organization properly licensed? Very few can answer this question with any level of certainty. According to a 2016 survey conducted by BSA and IDC, 39 percent of all installed software was not properly licensed. Even in highly regulated industries, software license noncompliance was alarmingly high. For example, [...]
Faced with increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats, most enterprise organizations have established a senior executive role tasked with creating and steering a comprehensive security framework. There is growing evidence that the chief information security officer (CISO) role could also benefit small to midsized businesses. SMBs have become prime targets for cyberattacks. In the past year, hackers [...]
In the previous post, we discussed why every small business needs a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Improvements in collaboration, productivity and customer service can be gained by using technology to record and manage data from every customer interaction. CRM data can also provide insights that allow organizations to optimize operations, better understand customer behavior, [...]
Most small business leaders recognize that strategic IT investments can help to increase productivity, streamline workflows and enhance the customer experience. Our last post outlined steps you can take to identify IT solutions that can achieve these objectives. Your managed service provider (MSP) is a critical partner in this process, bringing an in-depth understanding of [...]
In a previous post, we discussed the top business issues, IT priorities and challenges in the coming year for small to midsize businesses (SMBs), according to a recent report from Techaisle. The top IT priorities are cloud computing, collaboration, mobility, security for cloud and mobile, and digitization. We’ve also discussed data analytics, enterprise resource planning [...]
According to research from Techaisle, converged infrastructure adoption is on the rise in the small to midsize business (SMB) community. Ten percent of small businesses and 27 percent of midmarket businesses plan to adopt converged infrastructure. Survey respondents cited one or more of the following reasons for moving forward with converged infrastructure: integrated design and [...]
“Big data” is a term that first appeared in the late 1990s and began to pick up steam in the early 2000s – long before growing numbers of mobile devices and Internet-connected objects caused the current spike in data volume. Of course, attempts to quantify the growth rate of data date back at least to [...]
Techaisle just released its annual SMB (small to midsize business) and Midmarket Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges and Business Issues report. The 2017 study examines 15 areas of technology, 20 IT challenges and 20 business issues. There are some major changes when compared with the 2016 SMB report. The top three SMB business issues [...]
Strategic technology investments can help SMBs streamline their operations and enhance the overall quality of their products and services. However, many SMB owners continue to view IT as a cost to be minimized, even avoided. As a result, SMB IT initiatives are often fragmented, disorganized, underfunded and lacking support from upper management. Cloud computing offers [...]
The U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime rules go into effect Dec. 1. Employees who make less than $47,476 per year and work more than 40 hours per week will be eligible for time-and-a-half pay, even if they are salaried employees. This new minimum threshold is more than twice the previous standard of $23,660 and [...]
