An IT Support Blog from London

As one of the most groundbreaking technologies of our time, cloud computing has revolutionised the way people do business. The cloud’s many characteristics have allowed organisations to change the way they approach and provision IT infrastructure. But these benefits—flexibility, scalability, agility, and cost-effectiveness, among others, can only be realised if companies are able to recognise what the cloud offers and leverage these features.

In order to maximise the cloud’s features, businesses now turn to managed IT services for guidance. So just as enterprises have evolved because of cloud services, so have managed services providers (MSPs). In this blog post, we look into the ways that organisations have come to rely on cloud services, understand how the cloud is evolving, and explore the role of IT managed services in maximising opportunities provided by the cloud.

No one can argue that IT support is a fundamental part of any organisation. After all, customer support for both internal and external users facilitates efficient delivery of IT services and helps build strong client relationships. Like any other department in the enterprise however, IT support services are also susceptible to cyber attacks.

If you want to prevent your help desk from falling victim to ever-advancing cyber threats, it’s best to secure your IT support service. In this blog post, we discuss seven vital security measures that are integral to strong IT support. Before that though, it’s important to understand.

If you're a small or medium-sized business looking to scale your operations and improve organisational efficiency, IT managed services can help jump-start the process. They provide an end-to-end system of delivering, managing, and optimising technology solutions tailored to meet your specific needs. This range of invaluable IT services has propelled the growth of MSPs, as organisations come to rely on them more.

In this blog post, we'll go through seven best practices to enhance efficiency in your operations—from embracing a proactive stance to fostering an environment of continuous improvement. We will also discuss how you can get the most out of incorporating IT managed services into your enterprise’s overall strategies.

According to Gartner predictions, 45% of organisations will fall victim to a software supply chain attack by 2025—three times as many as that of 2021. And that’s not even counting other types of cyber threats such as levelled-up social engineering/phishing schemes, ransomware, and even nation-state attacks for certain industries. Truly, the value of reliable cyber security in every enterprise can not be emphasised enough.

Most companies are well aware of which aspects of their business operations they should fortify. The key areas most susceptible to malware and other cyber attacks in an organisation are:

Cloud technology remains the go-to strategy for businesses looking to save on upfront costs, gain operational efficiencies, and improve scalability. In fact, the Flexera 2023 State of Cloud Report reveals that companies are refining their cloud approaches to maximise cloud use.

A greater number of enterprises are embracing hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies, and public cloud adoption is rapidly increasing as well. Despite these developments however, there remain several challenges to cloud adoption including security/privacy, lack of qualified cloud experts, compliance, and other setbacks to cloud migration.

In this post, we discuss what cloud migration is, the possible challenges that come with it, and how IT managed services can assist enterprises in their cloud journey.

Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, and along with it, innovative solutions in the business world. For enterprises, keeping up with technological developments also means ensuring that your organisation’s hardware, software, and computer networks are working efficiently. But this is easier said than done for smaller businesses with limited IT budgets.

The reality is that maintaining and managing IT infrastructure can be a complex and time-consuming task that usually requires specialised skills and expertise. IT talent, however, is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire and retain in today’s technology-driven business environment. For this reason, many organisations are seeing outsourced IT support as a cost-effective and efficient option to meet their technical support needs.

In this post, we take an in-depth look at outsourced IT support—what it is, what types there are, and what benefits you can gain from IT outsourcing.

There’s been a lot of technological advancement going on in the past decade or so, and it’s all organisations could do to keep pace. But it’s essential that they do. After all, leveraging new technologies and tools while ensuring that their IT infrastructure is equipped for such demand is key to having enterprises operate efficiently, maximising profits, and remaining competitive in their field.

Managing all these however, can easily get overwhelming for small and mid-sized businesses who don’t have a full-time IT staff on board. This is where IT managed services providers have proven to be invaluable. Managed services providers (MSPs) take on the crucial tasks of monitoring and maintaining IT systems—networks, servers, workstations, etc.; installing and updating software; hardware maintenance, security and compliance management, managed IT support, and more. And just as technology is evolving, so are the services of MSPs.

In this post, we'll explore some of the latest trends in IT managed services, including how emerging technologies like AI and automation are being utilised, the growing importance of cybersecurity, and the rise of cloud-based services.

Bill Gates once famously said, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest sources of learning.” Well, in this day and age when technology rules, less-than-satisfied customers can also be a strong impetus for innovation.

When it comes to innovating and making groundbreaking changes across most industries, artificial intelligence (AI) has been leading the pack over the past decade. Machine learning algorithms are being widely used in manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, agriculture, and yes, AI is even highly-leveraged in emergencies and rescue missions.

All that said, customer support for enterprises should be a cinch for artificial intelligence and its subfields, right? No lie there. Already, the Conversational AI Market is anticipated to surge to $40.5 billion by 2032; a 17% increase from the $8.33 billion volume in 2022. This isn’t all that surprising considering how chatbots, virtual agents, and other AI business support applications in general, have totally changed the game in enhancing the customer experience.

No organisation today can function without technology. Gone is the traditional office environment and with it, the tons of paperwork, adding machines, airmail envelopes, and the trusty old landline. Even in-person meetings and physical reporting for work have become optional. What has become indispensable in the modern workplace instead, is the assortment of IT devices—servers, desktops, laptops, connectivity devices, smartphones, etc., as well as IT services and applications for every business process.

An enterprise’s IT hardware and software components however are only as good as their capacity to function effectively, and the users’ collective ability to utilise them. Consider the potential loss of opportunity for instance, if an ecommerce website experienced downtime for even a few hours. Or think about the employees’ wasted time if they are unable to use their PCs or access their work applications due to some technical issue. This is where the value of IT support is most apparent.

With cybersecurity, you really don’t know what to prepare for. Organisations think they’ve got everything covered, then something comes completely out of left field. No wonder the ongoing battle in the online security field is sometimes referred to as a cat and mouse game—the black hat malicious actors are busy discovering vulnerabilities in IT systems, and the white hat defenders are scrambling to counter the threats.