MANAGED IT
When it comes to outsourced network services, most business IT service solutions come in two categories, “break/fix services” or managed services.
So what’s the difference?
Break/fix IT service
This kind of service for your IT infrastructure is like what a plumber is to your house’s plumbing. You’ve got a leak. You call a plumber to fix it. He arrives to your home, stops the leak, may or may not help you clean up the mess, hands you a bill and leaves, not to be seen again until one of your employees flushes a toothbrush down the commode causing it to clog … or whatever plumbing issue may arise.
Such is true for break/fix IT services. Just like with the plumber, with a break/fix IT service provider, you only call them when your server’s gone down or you’re network has been infected with a virus, or whatever the issue is. The provider then shows up, ousts the virus, may or may not help you get your lost data back, hands you a bill and you don’t see him again until yet another network user opens a malware-loaded email attachment.
With both the plumber and the break/fix service, you know they’ve been around because (1) you’ve had a catastrophe they had to come and fix and (2) they give you a sizeable bill for their services.
Managed IT services
This kind of solution you could liken to your lawn or landscaping guy. This guy regularly comes around, every week or so, and cuts the grass, trims the bushes, sprays the weeds, puts down grub and weed killer, and based on the season, fertilizes the grass, prunes the trees, puts down pre-emergent weed preventer and swaps out flowers for each season, making sure your business’s landscaping looks happy year round. If a shrubbery does die, he replaces it. If a storm strikes and downs a large branch, he cleans up the mess. Now, for this service you likely pay a monthly or some kind of regular fee, but you also see a constantly green, happy lawn.
It’s much the same with managed network services. But a little better too. Instead of making regular visits to your IT infrastructure, your managed IT services provider is constantly monitoring your network, continually tweaking it to maximize its performance, weeding out virus infiltration attempts, blocking data breaches and so on. Your provider sees potential problems before or exactly as issues develop and immediately works to contain and remedy them before you know they are there. If your servers drop or your network goes down, your provider (depending on your service) could have your data backed up and swap you to a virtual network so you can continue with your work with little to no downtime … and virtually no mess.
With both the lawn guy and with a managed IT services solution, you may or may not have seen them, but you know they’ve been around because everything looks good, healthy and happy.
Summary
While simplistic, hopefully these illustrations give you an idea of the difference between break/fix and managed network services.
If your business is not heavily network dependent, you might be okay with break/fix solution as chances are, there’s not much to break — and if it does break, it will hardly affect your business or cause downtime. In this case, it would be okay to have a more reactive solution.
If your company though is at all reliant on its data and network infrastructure, you might seriously consider a proactive IT services solution because the very life of your business may very well depend on it. A reactive, break/fix solution may not be a solution and could spell the end of your company. That being the case, you want to stay ahead of the threats and eliminate the possibility of lethal downtimes.
Unlike the break/fix solution, you’ll likely have to pay a regular, fixed fee. But also unlike break/fix, you won’t ever have to bear the burden of cleaning up and repairing the damage left after a catastrophic leak, so to speak. You’ll just have a happy, healthy network and your business will be safe.
If you want to learn more about protecting your business and managed network services, contact us!
MANAGED IT
There are lots of articles out there about how to identify toxic coworkers and how to deal with such individuals, but what about office technology? Can’t it be toxic too?
Yes, it can. Just like how toxic individuals in the workplace can bring down office morale, reduce productivity, increase workplace stress and essentially poison the atmosphere of a workplace, so can malfunctioning or non-functioning technology.
This is why you want to identify toxic technology before it becomes a real problem.
Here is how to tell if one or more of your office technology devices is toxic.
Your technology seems to purposely ignore you
Consistently, when you ask it do something, to print a report for example, and you politely push all the right buttons, and even give it a fresh stack paper, but what do you get? The silent treatment. The copier ignores you and acts as if you never asked it to do anything at all.
You check to see if it is plugged in and powered on. It is. It’s just being a jerk, as usual. Life is too short to deal with bad technology. It’s time to do something about it.
For your technology, every day is a bad day
Devices, much like people, have their off days … and that’s okay. But when every day is their off day, you’ve got a problem. If on a regular basis you and your coworkers request it to do simple tasks like make copies, and all you get is cursing (judging by all if the beeping), flashing lights and error messages, even after many meetings with the Technician, it might be time to replace said device.
Your technology tries to take over another device’s job
Sure, you probably don’t mind when a coworker with experience and skills in your work gives you a hand. But it’s beyond frustrating when someone with little to no knowledge or experience of what you do tries to do your work for you, especially when they can’t even do their own jobs well.
The same is true for a copier, for example. It’s supposed to make copies, right? Nope. It’s not a copier. It’s a shredder — and a trash compacter — all in one. But of course, it doesn’t even do that well. It takes papers, runs them through and crumples them up and tears them into many folded and accordianed pieces.
Such machines make people angry. Worklife can be stressful enough without technology making it worse.
?
Your technology is painfully slow
You’ve got 20 copies of a 10-page report to print and you need it before the board meeting. You hit “print” on your computer and eventually you hear the printer in the distance hum, sputter and whirr, followed by a symphony of electronic noises, and finally the sound of the ink jet head sludging back and forth, grudgingly laying down the ink in long, slow motions, producing something like two pages a minute.
You get to wondering why this thing is called an “ink jet” as there is nothing jet-like about this thing! It’s more like an ink sloth than anything.
It’s time to replace this jet with newer, faster, cheaper technology that will get you your reports in a minute or two — not in half an hour.
It joins or maybe even organizes office strikes
You come in to the office on Monday (well, it seems to happen mostly on Mondays) and your computer, printer, document scanner, your server and … well, your whole network, seem to go on the fritz. And it happens all. The. Time. Coincidence? It’s probably not. One or all of your technology is in on it and probably needs the boot, not another reboot.
Your technology plays favorites
You plop into your desk chair, pop your laptop, click open your browser to check your webmail … only to discover no webpages are developing. You check your WiFi connection and discover that though you’ve connected to this network hundreds of times before, it is rejecting you, again.
Judging by the sound of a YouTube compilation of horrendous pre-game “Star Spangled Banner” solos playing from your neighbor’s cubicle, punctuated by his occasional laughter … well, the Wifi is clearly working for him.
That’s annoying … and we’re not even talking about the horridly off notes streaming from your coworker’s desk. It might be time to get someone to take a look at that and get your WiFi to share the love … equally.
Well, those are a handful of signs, most of them written in jest with some truth. Hopefully, you got a laugh or two.
But think about it. If your network is constantly going down, your copier consistently out of order, your scan-to-email not functioning, or some other technological gliches are happening on a consistent basis, something is wrong and it’s affecting the people that use them.
In some cases, the problems are user-based and can be fixed with training. Sometimes it’s just a setting that needs changing. It may be due to a bad network infrastructure. Many times though, the toxic technology is clearly old technology that needs to be replaced.
The point is, your company’s greatest value is your people. Technology is meant to empower them. If the technology is not doing that, it’s likely toxic and taking away from your greatest commodity — your people.
MANAGED IT
Congratulations! You’ve set up your business’s network with a BDR (Back-up and disaster recovery) system. Now you have a copy of your data off-premises, protecting you from whatever may befall your network, be it viruses, fire, flooding or whatnot.
You’re safe now, right?
Ask yourself: After I get my files back, can I resume business?
Well, your files are safe and that’s important. But here’s the question: What are you going to do with those files once you retrieve them? Are your servers operable allowing you to go right back to work or were they swamped and need replacing? What about the software to process those files? Can you use it or did the ransomware virus lock it up too?
The point is, while you did the right thing by implementing a BDR system, allowing you access to all of your files, ultimately you need those files to conduct business, but if your network is fried or your software is inaccessible, your business is still down — until you get those issues resolved. Replacing servers and getting new software licenses costs money and time, which we know are the same thing. The more downtime you suffer, the more money you lose.
Ask Your Technology Provider About Business Continuity
So how do you solve this? How can you ensure you get your files back and that you can resume business with little downtime? Along with your BDR system, look into what your technology partner offers in the way of business continuity in case tragedy should strike your business.
With a business continuity plan, your technology partner should be able to provide you with access to its servers through virtualization technology. Basically, with such a plan, instead of you having to scramble to get bring your hardware and software back online to resume business, your technology partner could provide you with virtual access to all of your files, software and server space to continue business regardless of location or circumstance, with very little downtime.
Such a continuity plan will have your business back up and running as quickly as possible, minimizing loss due to the disaster and dramatically increasing your chances for survival.
Summary
To sum it up, yes, do definitely invest in BDR, but also ask about business continuity, because for a truly worry-free disaster plan, depending on your business, you may need to have both to make sure you can get back on your feet and running in as short a time as possible.
If you want to learn more about protecting your business, network security and monitoring, BDR or other network services, contact us!
MANAGED IT
So you want to know what makes VoIP business phone service so much better than legacy business phone systems? Well, the “bennies” are many, but here are perhaps the four biggest advantages a VoIP telephone system has over a traditional system.
Cost-effectiveness
VoIP is often just plain cheaper than your typical legacy business phone system. This is largely because the VoIP system runs only on one network, a computer network, whereas a legacy system requires two networks, both a phone-exclusive network and a computer network to operate. As a VoIP system has only one home, your business’s computer network, it requires less for service and maintenance fees — meaning less outlay for you.
Flexibility
Unlike an analog business phone system, VoIP grows as you grow. With traditional phone systems, if your company adds a new office, you must purchase a new phone system for that location. Not so with VoIP. As VoIP is network-based, it expands with your network. If your business plants a new location in Wichita, Kan. for example, as long as that office is on the same network as your office, you can use the same VoIP phone system. This in turn keeps your hardware, installation and service costs down and consolidated.
Mobility
VoIP allows you to use your business phone from anywhere — from your car, your home, from the other side of world — as long as you have internet access. As VoIP is “voice over internet protocol,” it is internet-based giving you a super long tether. Not only that, but the VoIP app on your smartphone provides to the person you are calling your company’s caller ID information. So while you are relaxed in your swim trunks taking in the view from the beaches of Belize (see picture above) and calling Mr. Smith, CEO of ACME Inc., for all he knows, you’re calling, suit-and-tied up, from your office in Kansas City.
Multi-usability
Speaking of mobile apps and of traveling, your VoIP service can be much more than just a phone service. You can expand it to make it meet your business messaging, video chat or web conferencing needs. With your VoIP service’s mobile app, your VoIP phone system can be the Swiss Army knife you can bring onboard the plane to Belize.
Hopefully, while this list of benefits is not a comprehensive one, it is enough to help you understand some advantages in opting for a VoIP business telephone solution over a legacy phone system.
MANAGED IT
Want to know which IT service providers in Oklahoma are among the best? Well, according to the results of a recent survey, R.K. Black is among the top three.
The Journal Record on Friday released its first issue of Reader Rankings, a list of businesses and organizations chosen by The Journal Record readers across a wide variety of categories including construction and design, entertainment, finance/accounting and other areas of business as being the best in their fields.
R.K. Black, an Oklahoma City-based office technology provider with locations throughout Oklahoma and Kansas and serving clients throughout both states and the nation, The Journal Record’s readers identified as among the top three in the “Best IT Outsourcing” provider.
The results are based on an online ballot the newspaper opened from May 10 — June 10, garnering 1,500 responses. These responses were then totaled to come up with the list of award-winning businesses.
R.K. Black would like to thank those individuals who casted their ballots in favor of its managed network services team.
MANAGED IT
Traditional wisdom says to not reinvent the wheel. While that’s good advice, it doesn’t mean the wheel can’t be utilized in ways unimagined by the inventor.
Since that October day in 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson talked by telephone to each other with two miles of wire between them, a whole lot has changed in the way of telephony, the technology graduating from being wire-based, to wireless, to most recently being internet-based with VoIP telephone technology.
VoIP: What it is. How it works.
VoIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, or said in plain English — phone service through the internet. What makes VoIP phone service different is as opposed to landline or cellular-based phone technology, which sends your voice exclusively through phone utilities, is VoIP technology turns your speech into data which then travels through your local network or through the internet to the person of your choosing — just like an email.
So What Makes VoIP So Great?
Being data and internet based, VoIP technology is typically cheaper than traditional phone service as it uses a single network to carry voice and data, and is far more functional as calls can be placed via a landline phone, mobile device or even computer, as long as there is internet.
The Breakdown of Why VoIP is Better Than Traditional
Saves money. Instead of running two different networks (your phone system and your computer network), you can only have one. Your phone system will run on the same network as the rest of your technology. It’s a consolidation of services, which means less money spent due to service and maintenance costs.
Expands more easily. Ever thought about adding a new office location? Unlike analog systems that require you to purchase and maintain a phone system in each location, a VoIP based system only requires one — once again allowing for consolidation of hardware and less capital expenditures for your business.
Gives mobility. With VoIP, no longer are you tied to your desk to make a business call. Your phone system is with you whenever you have internet connectivity, through either your laptop or mobile device. With a headset or pair of headphones, your laptop is now a fully-functioning work desk. An app on your cell phone provides your business’s caller ID information to the recipient, providing true business communication mobility.
Is more than just a phone system. You can expand your VoIP service to turn it into more of a collaboration platform by which you can instant message, video chat or web conference.
With VoIP technology being cheaper, more functional and more flexible, it’s no wonder more and more businesses are moving away from traditional phone technology to this new internet-based phone solution.
About R.K. Black, Inc.
R.K. Black, Inc. is an Oklahoma City-based, family-owned leading provider of office technology solutions to businesses in Oklahoma and Kansas. We specialize in everything business technology from copier, fax, printer and scanner technology to document management, onsite paper shredding services, VoIP phone systems and managed IT support to video surveillance solutions.
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