Today, boxing is a questionable sport. To many, the risk of serious injury and death to its participants simply makes it unacceptable. To some, it seems anachronistic and it does perhaps belong to a different time because it harks back to the gladiatorial spectacles of an older human civilisation.
IT security is a topic of conversation that is likely to be a cause for concern for companies of all sizes. There is a perception that larger businesses have superior security, but this isn’t always true. Just ask telecoms giant TalkTalk who were hacked in 2015 and had significant amounts of data stolen, leading to some customers falling victim to fraud.
This shows that it isn’t necessarily size that determines the vulnerability of a company to an IT security breach. It’s the perceived risk, the culture of the business and the security measures that are in place. Big businesses may be at least as vulnerable as their mid-market and SMB counterparts when they don’t have the right safeguards in place.
Not so very long ago most businesses relied on tape-based backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) processes. For many, this was highly unsatisfactory, and their overall perceptions of tape backups were shaped by problems such as:
Today’s backup technologies have revolutionised speed and reliability and transformed disaster recovery, and now businesses can be returned to full operational capability in as little as 20 minutes when using good backup and DR solutions.
The difficult few years that followed the credit crunch meant the recruitment sector had to endure some tough times. Reduced hiring and increased candidate numbers as headcount were trimmed made the sector one of the first to be hit. When it’s a buyer’s market, clients bargain hard and squeeze margins. But that’s business and you know you would if things were the other way round!
The recession drove many recruiters to re-evaluate their systems and processes. Cloud and online technologies offered the opportunity to cut costs, improve efficiency and gain competitive advantage. Specialised line-of-business applications for the recruitment sector, often integrating software automation functionality, transformed the back and front office for many.
When it comes to new infrastructure, capital investment has long been seen as an immovable object. Whether it is transport, utilities or IT, taking a conventional approach to infrastructure requires CAPEX. This brings with it the often tricky question of financing.
Recent years have seen the phenomenal growth of cloud computing. The cloud really took off when the credit crunch strangled the supply of capital. This led those that needed to replace obsolete and legacy IT systems to turn to innovative cloud solutions which require little or no capital funding. The business model includes payment by monthly subscription, effectively shifting IT from the CAPEX to the OPEX budget.
Relocations, in any aspect of life, are a stressful undertaking, and even with careful preparation and planning, they cost time, money, and energy. When it comes to moving offices, a lot has to be taken into consideration; furniture needs to be moved or replaced, important documents and files are to be shifted securely and valuable assets have to be relocated without being damaged, all whilst keeping the business up and running and enabling employees to continue working as best as possible.
One major headache for businesses is removing their existing IT infrastructure including PCs and servers and rebuilding it at the new location as quickly as possible in order to not disrupt ongoing business too much. Many companies merely shift their old system from one office to the other when in fact they could not only move offices but also move their IT to the cloud, resulting in various business benefits and a smoother, easier relocation.
Hosted telephony solutions offer the ability to eliminate a major inefficiency for many businesses – BT telephone and ISDN lines. Often these simply duplicate the connectivity that can be provided equally well via business-class broadband connections.
The budget that is released by decommissioning telephone lines or ISDNs can be used to upgrade and introduce greater resilience to business broadband while delivering an overall lower cost for data and voice connectivity.
The cloud and managed services space have mushroomed in recent years. Some of the main reasons the cloud has boomed include:
Hosted desktop is one of the most interesting cloud-based services on offer to businesses that want to obtain better value. However, many are uncertain about what Hosted Desktop provides.
Essentially Hosted Desktop lets the business eliminate servers, their software and related hardware, and management requirements such as storage, backup and antivirus. You can read more about hosted desktop by following the links to other information on this website at the bottom of this post.
Service providers of technology solutions are a necessity for today’s businesses. Even if an organisation has technical expertise in-house, it’s impossible to operate without service provision from an external company. It may be internet connectivity; offsite data backup; or cloud applications; but it simply isn’t feasible for an organisation to be self-sufficient and operate in complete isolation.