3 Tips for Choosing the Right Office Technology

office technology

Technology has become an essential resource for businesses nowadays. It helps your company stay organized and run more efficiently. However, with ever-changing technological advancements, it can be very difficult to identify what technology your business needs, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Today, let’s discuss three tips that can help you implement the right technology for your business.

1. Assess and Identify

The first step to identifying what technology you need is analyzing what your business is already using. What technology do you currently have implemented and how is it helping your company achieve its goals? Conducting a full-scale technological assessment allows you to better conclude what areas you already have covered, and where the holes lie in your technology resources. 

Since operations is a multi-faceted issue, be sure to assess the tech in every department including HR, database management, and communications. The better you understand your business, the better you can determine how technology could improve it.

2. Chose Reliable and Scalable Technology

Technology investment usually comes at a cost, so it’s crucial to find reliable and scalable tech. The goal is to replace your technology as infrequently as possible, so you need to prioritize devices that will help you both today and further down the line.

If you’re unsure about technology investments, you can lease equipment to test it before making a permanent decision. Cloud hosting is also a great choice for business computing. It is designed to eliminate upfront costs, so it turns your investment into operational expenses, allowing you to scale your computing needs easier than purchasing your own IT and hosting in-house.

3. Necessity Over Vanity

There are tons of cool new technologies being released every day, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting what’s exciting and trendy. However, this typically leads to a less efficient tech setup and greater costs in your investment.

It’s important to always put your business’s and employees’ needs first. What your company needs is not always synonymous with what you want or think is fun. Favoring your business’s needs and goals with reliable technology will render much better results and keep your costs as low as possible.

At 4 Corner IT, our expert IT consultants can help you find an investment strategy that works best for your business. Our experience gives us insight into what businesses just like yours need, and how to get it installed quickly. Give us a call today at 954-474-2204 to learn more.

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Tip of the Week: Maintaining Software that Fits Your Business

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Businesses use different types of software to fulfill various tasks and functions throughout the workday. However, there are practices you can implement today that can help you with maintaining software solutions. Here are three ways your organization can take better care of its software infrastructure, regardless of industry or business size. 

Be Wary of Shadow IT 

If you don’t provide employees with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively, they may find tools themselves. This can lead to unregulated software on your infrastructure that is not monitored or maintained by your business. Otherwise known as “shadow IT.” The easiest way to prevent shadow IT from becoming a thing for your business is to make sure your staff have access to all of the solutions they need right from the get-go. This might mean providing them with an entire productivity suite or specialized software based on their role within your organization. 

Appropriately Manage Subscriptions 

In today’s age of “as a service” offerings, it’s easy to purchase a solution for one project. Then forget to cancel it when the project is done and over with. These additional subscriptions that are entirely unnecessary can add up if you aren’t paying attention. We recommend that you perform an audit regularly. This will ensure that you aren’t paying for services that are not being used on a regular basis. 

Maintaining Software Patches and Security Updates 

Software developers frequently have to issue patches and security updates to their creations to offset the progress made by hackers or to cover up oversights during the initial development cycle. It’s your responsibility to make sure any patches or updates are applied in a timely manner; failing to do so could put your business at risk of security issues down the road.  

One way many businesses have managed to successfully keep tabs on their software infrastructure is to implement Software-as-a-Service offerings for the majority of their operations. SaaS helps businesses by providing them with an affordable and scalable infrastructure for their software needs, including an easy way to manage licenses and subscriptions. We also recommend you implement a software management platform that gives you the ability to see, at a glance, all of the applications in use on your infrastructure at any given moment. 

4 Corner IT can help your organization implement any SaaS offering or software management platform. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at 954-474-2204. 

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In-House or Remote, Automated Tools Bring Value

automated tools

Automation, as a concept, is a valuable capability. Whether an employee works remotely or is in the office for regular operations. Indeed, many businesses are now encouraging their team members to do both. Let’s review how a hybrid workplace can have a positive experience with automation in place… and why it’s essential for security’s sake.

What Can Be Accomplished Through Automation?

There are many business processes that automation can make more efficient. Simply by removing the limitations inherent in human involvement (not to mention that the human worker can spend their time on other tasks).

For example, data can be processed much more quickly than an employee could ever do manually. Thus, making automation an excellent asset for that reason alone. Of course, this is far from the only advantage that automation can provide to your hybrid workforce. Another primary reason to use automated solutions is for the sake of your security.

Automated Security Brings Benefits to Remote and In-House Team Members

Automatic Security Helps Fight Automated Attacks

Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire. Modern cybercriminals have embraced automation and other artificially intelligent threat vectors. To stop these attacks effectively, systems that can independently evaluate and mitigate potential threats will be critical.

Automated Tools Provide a Bird’s-Eye-View of Your Defenses

In addition to taking the majority of the workload off your team members where handling threats are involved, an automated security system can help by providing critical insights. By observing any devices used to access company resources, your business can use these tools to evaluate where the most significant vulnerabilities lie. This way, you’re given insights into how your security needs to improve.

Automated Tools Can Save Your Team a Lot of Time

Regardless of how you’ve decided to use automation in your company, your team will have less on their plates to distract them from their actual responsibilities. As a result, more time can be dedicated to producing revenues and other, more desirable outcomes.

We can help you manage your operations in such a way that automation serves you to your most significant advantage, as well as putting numerous other benefits into place. Give us a call at (954) 474-2204 to learn more.

Blockchain Technology Does Have Some Practical Uses

adobestock Blockchain Technology

The blockchain is one of the more recent new technologies that businesses have been considering for their offices. Blockchain technology could have been implemented to solve a host of different problems. However, the world simply was not ready for it. Is it ready now? Perhaps—let’s take a look at three applications for the blockchain in today’s business world.

What Is Blockchain?

Blockchain technology is essentially a distributed database that stores data. Most databases are centralized, but with blockchain technology, each piece of information is stored on a block. This block is officially known as a node. These nodes are created whenever data is added to the chain, and all nodes are connected to other nodes. This chain of data is not governed by one person, but is spread out and duplicated. This is so every entity represented on the blockchain has a complete record of it. Each node is also encrypted, meaning that it cannot be edited. If the information needs to be altered, then a new node must be created.

The first technology to use the blockchain was the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, but it’s used for many other purposes these days. Here are three of them:

Improving Banking

Blockchain technology is perfect for financial transactions. Considering how everyone with a checking account understands how much of a pain keeping an updated ledger is, you might be relieved to know that blockchain technology makes it easier to manage. Each transaction gets its own node. Additionally, since it is a distributed system, it can work for multiple users at a time to create smart contracts. Basically, when two entities enter into an agreement with stipulations, blockchain can enable a payment when the conditions are met, essentially automating the flow of capital.

Improving Supply Chains

The COVID-19 pandemic has created countless problems for the supply chain, but blockchain technology is making it easier than ever to manage effectively. The distributed nature of a blockchain can work through multiple points on the supply chain, and as such, it is a great tool for procurement and distribution. If companies know where each product or component they need is at any given time, then transparency is improved as a whole.

Improving Healthcare

Many users thought that using the blockchain would be ideal for a healthcare system, and companies are trying to leverage it for problem-solving. There are businesses out there creating applications that can improve patient, care provider, and insurance information, all while giving patients better control over their medical information. Security is, of course, a major concern when personal information like this is concerned, so blockchain could prove to be a major boon for the healthcare industry.

Blockchain can be a great and exciting new tool, but we want to hear your thoughts on it. Do you think there is a way for your business to leverage it? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to our blog.

Applying Life Lessons to Improve Your IT

Update System Upgrade Software version technology concept on virtual screen.

Sometimes it can be challenging to manage your IT solutions, but much of the advice that applies to technology is just general advice for living a good life. Let’s take a deeper dive into these ideas and see if we can use specific life lessons in a business IT setting when it comes time to improve your IT.

Prepare for the Unexpected

Your IT infrastructure will present you with unexpected circumstances, so the best you can do is not let them catch you unawares. Your servers could fail someday, or a hacker could infiltrate your network and put your data at risk. You might even experience structural damage to your building, rendering it inoperable.

But believe it or not, you can prepare for these kinds of events. You need to understand that the unexpected can happen anytime, so you must implement preventative measures and plans to handle them when they do surface.

Don’t Skimp on Quality

There are certain parts of running a business that you can get away with spending a little less on, like the office K-Cups or generic brand snacks, but IT is certainly not one of these things. The lower the quality goods you purchase for your business, the more you are likely to spend in the long term finding the appropriate solution. You might even wind up paying more to replace hardware or purchasing new solutions entirely.

You should prepare to plan your expenses around the kind of business you want to run. This means implementing only what works best for you and not the accepted norm. Neither company is the same, so their IT shouldn’t be, either.

You Don’t Have to Know Everything

Just like life often is, implementing your IT solutions can be a long and confusing ordeal, one that is full of inaction and incorrect choices. While you might have a broad idea of what your IT infrastructure should look like, it can be hard to make the correct choices. This is fine and expected for someone who might not be an IT professional. Nobody knows everything, and you can’t expect yourself to.

There will always be parts of running a business where there is an apparent knowledge deficit, so make sure that you rely on experts in these fields whenever possible. You might choose to rely on an IT provider to improve your IT in your office, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Better to get it done right the first time!

To learn more about the services we offer and how we can help improve your IT, give 4 Corner IT a call at (954) 474-2204.