Business Technology

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is Microsoft’s suite of cloud services. Depending on the license tier you choose, it can include the Microsoft Office suite of products, hosted email, cloud based active directory, mobile device management, and many other great cloud services to keep your business secure. As a managed service provider and Microsoft Partner, we are huge fans of Microsoft 365 at Innovative, and we love sharing our favorite features with our customers. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how users can recover deleted data from Microsoft 365, or how they can undo changes that another user may have made to their documents. In this video, I answer those questions by showing you how to use the two Recycle Bins in Microsoft 365, and how to access previous versions of your Microsoft Office documents. I also touch on some of the limitations of Microsoft 365 data retention and recovery features, and why we recommend third-party SaaS backup solutions to protect your cloud data from a thing called ransomcloud, or rasomware in the cloud.

Cloud applications are not immune to cyberattacks. As companies move away from storing data locally, attackers are shifting focus to cloud solutions right along with them.

If your business has more than 20 employees and is in Frederick or Hagerstown, Maryland, Kris Miner has likely knocked on your door (or gave you a call, sent you an email, or all of the above…). Kris leaves no stone unturned in his search for new Innovative customers. You may have brushed him off the last time he asked how you’re handing technology systems or if you’re happy with the support from your current IT company. Because let’s face it, we all think of the Wolf of Wall Street (and not in that Leonardo DiCaprio is dreamy kind of way) when we think about sales guys. 

The five areas to consider when choosing a managed service provider (MSP) are: Customer service. Product and service offerings. Organization and culture. Security practices. Account management. When your business outgrows the DIY approach to IT, you may consider outsourcing IT functions to a managed service provider (MSP). Or, maybe you've been working with an IT vendor who is no longer meeting your needs and you're ready to make a change. Once you've decided that managed IT services are the right option for managing your IT, how do you choose the best MSP partner? In this article, we'll walk through the five areas to consider when evaluating a potential managed service partner for your business. As a managed service provider, Innovative gets a lot of questions from businesses choosing an MSP. While we certainly follow MSP best practices, we're not the perfect fit for every business. For the remainder of this article, we'll remove ourselves from the equation and present an unbiased outline of how to evaluate a managed service provider.

Technology is one of the most vital forces in the business world. From your email and phone system to your payroll processing and invoicing, your business runs on many IT systems. Learning to accept new technology into your business is a must to keep your systems up to date and stay competitive. But just like anything else, we often fear the change of technology or the "unknown."  Just hearing the word "change" is enough to make anyone cringe. Learning new habits can be daunting or exhausting. Why add anything else to our already busy lives? If something is working, why change it?

As a business owner, you have a lot on your mind as we all progress through the COVID-19 situation.  Your workforce is probably broken up in ways you have never experienced before, and the way everyone is connecting to your resources may be less than ideal from a security perspective. This situation makes a comprehensive security awareness program more important than ever. A security awareness program promotes ownership of all employees over the safety of an organization's data and information systems. It also gives them skills to prevent and minimize data breaches and security incidents at the individual level. A comprehensive security awareness program includes three elements: Testing – Find out where your most significant security gaps lie. Training – Teach end-users how to identify and respond to suspicious emails. Reporting – Track improvements over time and identify areas for focus for the next round of testing and training. We are all doing what we have to do to survive this global pandemic, and security is taking a back seat for now.  The problem is that now, more than ever, security needs to be a primary focus.  Cyber-attacks are rising because criminals know that some of the typical defenses that businesses have in place are down or moved at the moment. In fact, FBI has reported a 400% increase in cyber-attacks during the pandemic. 

As a business owner, you embrace new technologies that: Help your business grow. Keep your employees happy and motivated. Complete work better, faster, and cheaper. All facets of our personal and business lives are becoming more digital. More tools and technologies are available than ever before, many of which help achieve the business goals above. They automate processes, provide data to inform better decisions, and support employees doing their best work. We get instant answers from our personal assistants, automate our home or business temperature, and order products by simply asking for them out loud. All this technology keeps personal data about us, our habits, and our businesses. that information secure is paramount.

Your business will need IT help at some point. You’ll likely find yourself researching different IT support companies to find the best provider to support your devices and network.

It’s overwhelming when you need to replace one of the computers in your business. With the average computer needing replaced every three to five years, you’re likely looking at different specs and maybe even a new operating system than the one you’re replacing. This can be confusing on your end, and frustrating for the employee who’s been using the same computer for years. In this article, we’ll walk through how to choose the best computer for your business. Since the choices in computer models are infinite, we’ll focus on the to most popular business computer brands on the market, Dell and HP.  

Are you or your staff practicing social distancing and working remotely in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak? We're all doing as much as we can to stay safe, which has meant making some quick decisions and quickly transitioning employees to work-from-home arrangements. Microsoft Teams is an incredibly powerful tool to continue collaboration and virtual face-to-face communication while your team works from the safety of their homes. If you're already using Microsoft Office 365, you may already have access to Teams and are maybe already using some of the features. Here is a brief video tutorial of some of the features we've found most useful as we at Innovative practice as much social distancing as possible.