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.

You've been managing IT functions in your business on your own, or with some limited help. You're starting to feel like a more cohesive approach to IT could benefit your business. Your current "just fix it when it's broken" method isn't working. Managed IT services let you sleep better, knowing that an experienced business technology team is managing your IT infrastructure and systems. Managed IT services is the administration and oversight of the technology functions and infrastructure within your business by an outsourced, third-party provider, usually called a managed services provider (MSP). The most common managed IT services include: Network monitoring and management. Help desk support. On-site IT service. Remote tech support. IT consulting. Disaster recovery Data backup. Anti-virus and threat detection. Cloud solutions.

You've just finished a long report in Word or a presentation that needs to be put together by tomorrow in PowerPoint, hit save, and… your computer freezes on you. Unsure as to why you restart your computer only to see nothing happen. No logon screen, no report, no presentation, nothing. Whether it be due to the operating system or faulty hardware, you're without a computer. What do you do?

“Why are you so expensive?” This is one of the most asked questions by our existing and prospective clients. So, someone must answer it. Lucky me. We will discuss the difference between tech support and managed IT services and the cost associated with each of them. Here at Innovative, we are a managed IT services provider, but understand that our services aren’t the best fit for every business. As such, we are going to provide you with an honest assessment of the cost of managed IT services and break/fix tech support. The goal of this article is to provide you with the information necessary to understand the cost of managed IT services and break/fix tech support. With this knowledge, you can make the right choice for you and your business.

You spend hundreds or thousands of dollars each year on anti-virus and threat prevention software for all the computers in your organization. As a result, you expect those devices are safe from viruses, ransomware, and other malware. But now you’re missing files, software programs are acting strange, or your entire system is frozen and you’ve received a ransom message. You’re frustrated, and maybe feel a little taken by your anti-virus vendor. Why have you been spending all this money on an anti-virus solution if you still have to deal with the ramifications of a virus or other malware?