SMART Blog

We won't deny that we push the benefits of cloud pretty hard, but we aren't afraid to consider the possibility that the cloud may not be the best fit for your needs. If this is truly the case, it may just be that an onsite approach will work best for your needs.

IT is meant to help, not hinder, your business operations. This is the cornerstone of the way that most organizations need to think about technology maintenance. Unfortunately, some organizations either don’t have dedicated IT support, or waste valuable time and resources working with break-fix providers who don’t have their business’s best interests in mind. To keep your organization from falling victim to these practices, you should consider managed IT for your technology maintenance.

Microsoft Outlook can be a fantastic way to communicate, but only if you know how best to use it. When you’re using it to reach out to clients or vendors, you need to consider the best practices and shortcuts you can use to make the most of it. We’ll discuss some of the best ways that you can use Microsoft Outlook to help your business function better as a whole.

If you’re like most small businesses, chances are that you have one or two servers in your office that are dedicated to storing and distributing data on your in-house network. Without these machines, you would be in a rough spot. Users wouldn’t be able to access data and your operations would suffer. But what if we told you that there is an easier way to manage data and increase user accessibility that doesn’t include managing server hardware?

Managing a business is a tedious endeavor where time is a precious commodity. Therefore, it’s the goal of every business owner to dedicate as much of their time as possible to leading profit-making initiatives, which, let’s face it, can’t happen if you’re busy troubleshooting computer and network problems.

With the surge in the number of small and medium businesses that have fallen prey to malware and cyber criminals, there is a lot of focus of what an organization can do to prevent being a victim and how the company should handle themselves after an attack. There is another key factor to preventing cyber criminals from penetrating into your network: your employees.

When people talk about a business’ efficiency, it’s typically referring to the ability for the organization to bring a product or service to market quickly with a small amount of wasted resources. The prevailing theory is that an efficiently-run business costs less, makes more, and grows faster than one that is inefficient. With the way business is headed--that is, with smaller profit margins than ever before--boosting efficiency has become a core business strategy. In fact, in today’s technology-driven marketplace, there are many that would argue that the efficient business is the only good business.

Hackers put a lot of thought and effort into coming up with new ways to fool the unsuspecting consumer, especially during the holiday season. Here are some recent scams you should watch for.

How does your SMB backup its data? Have you put much thought into keeping your data backup up and stored off-site? Have you even invested in data backup? If not, then you should consider your data backup options.

Mobile devices have a prevalent place in the modern office. In fact, a recent study by Gartner found that 80 percent of all employees bring their personal mobile device with them to work. This Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend comes with a host of benefits, like improved productivity and employee morale, but it increases the risk of a corporate data breach if not properly managed. How should a concerned business owner respond to this trend?

Have you ever received Facebook requests from people you don’t know? While it might be tempting to give them the benefit of the doubt -- after all, maybe they know a friend of yours -- it’s best to keep strangers off of your page when you can. In order to give your page the flexibility to accept friend requests from people you may know and protect it from strangers, you can implement a “follow” feature, and limit who can send you friend requests.

Those in the business sector in charge of making decisions can often break down the choices they face as follows: benefit the short term vs the long term. If you’ve got experience with decision making, then you realize that planning for the long term works out better for all parties involved, including your bottom line. This is especially the case when it comes to big decisions involving technology.

It doesn’t matter which industry your organization is in. Your business will always be susceptible to threats in some way, shape, or form. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your business understands how to protect itself from these threats, before it’s too late. We’ll help you learn more about the various issues that you need to watch out for, and what you can do to stop them.

How much do you think a criminal would pay for your company’s sensitive data that’s been stolen by hackers? As it turns out, your data may not be worth as much as you may think, and that’s a bad thing for you and your business.

Here’s something that you might not have noticed about opening Windows applications on your desktop; by default, they will generally open in a smaller window, giving you the ability to customize their size as you see fit. If you want a full size Window, it’s as easy as clicking on the maximize button in the top-right corner, but what if you didn’t want to go through this every time you open the app? There’s a solution for this, and we’ll help you find it.

How does your business maintain its critical technology assets? Organizations with limited budgets and workforces often resort to forsaking technology support entirely, only getting the help they need when something goes wrong. This is called break-fix IT, and it can become a major detriment to your organization in the long run if left unchecked. Thankfully, there’s a simple solution, and it doesn’t involve hiring in-house technicians or breaking your budget.

Here’s a question: on a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that your employees are acting in the best interests of your organization’s network security? How confident are you that you’re setting a good example when it comes to handling your business’ security? Unfortunately, any confidence you have on this matter may be misplaced.

Cloud computing offers businesses an economical way to obtain the software and services they need. Yet, there comes a point when having too much of a good thing becomes wasteful, no matter how affordable the service may be. If a business owner isn’t careful about how they utilize the cloud, then they can unknowingly find themselves experiencing “cloud waste.”

As an agency owner, you’ve surely thought about what the future holds for your organization. However, one of the areas that is often overlooked is how you will respond in the event of a data disaster. How can your business bounce back from such a catastrophic event? One of the first steps is understanding your data backup and disaster recovery process, as well as how you can improve your current setup.

The cloud has taken the computing world by storm. You’d be hard-pressed to find a technology that didn’t tie back to the cloud in some way. This is especially true when you consider the needs of the SMB, and how the cloud can provide for those needs.