An IT Support Blog from London

Read the latest IT news, tips and insights from IT Support pros at HTL Support

IT Support Maturity Model: What’s the Right Level for Your Business?

IT Support maturity model: What’s the right level for your business

Mapping IT Support services to a maturity model

If we apply maturity modelling to the IT Support function, we are able to produce an effective mapping that overlays the five levels of a traditional maturity model with five different service levels of support.

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3 Things IT Managers Do Better When Support Is Outsourced to a Specialist Msp

IT managers do better when support is outsourced

Throwing off conventional thinking to re-imagine the IT manager role

In conventional patterns of thinking about jobs within businesses of 10 - 100 people, the role of IT manager is seen as the go-to person for anything related to technology.

Across an infrastructure demanding provision of business technology tools to a workforce of varying degrees of technological competence, this might include anything from a broken mouse to troubleshooting software server problems.

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Tackling the Security Risk Posed by ‘Shadow IT’

Shadow IT: Questionable practice in a business context

Shadow IT: Questionable practice in a business context

The vast majority of computer users routinely use cloud services of some description. Whether it’s a Gmail account or a file transfer service, almost all of us use free cloud-based tools. This might be OK for personal use, however, in a business context, such an approach is highly questionable. Why?

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3 Ways Great IT Support Facilitates Fast Growth

IT Support provides effective service for businesses

Fast growth: A nice problem

Whatever the core business activity of a firm, fast growth is a nice problem to have. Although the doomsayers warn of the problems of rapid uncontrolled growth, such as resourcing gaps and overstretching with too many commitments, these are challenges that should be well within the capability of a company governed with good management practice.

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4430 Hits

Two Factor Authentication: It Just Works!

Serviced Cloud 2 Factor Authentication

The problem with simple passwords

The issue of passwords is something of an evergreen problem for technology users. People often choose obvious, simple passwords that are easy to remember. Research has shown that a group of 10,000 words are used by 98.8% of people as passwords. This means that a hacker with software written for the purpose could automate the process of trying every one of these, something known as a ‘brute force’ attack, and would be certain of being able to hack into almost 99 out of every 100 accounts.

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5 Tell-tale Signs It’s Time to Outsource IT Support

Reasons for small and medium-sized business to outsource IT Support

If the writing isn’t quite on the wall the signs may well be there!

In many firms, IT is a tricky area. It’s complex, costly and impossible to ignore. It needs continual vigilance and good oversight to make sure it functions well. One of the biggest headaches is support.

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Why It’s Time to Sack Your Large IT Support Supplier

The problem with big companies for consumers

The problem with big companies for consumers

We’ve all been there, particularly when dealing with personal consumer affairs. We are unhappy with the service we receive from a great big company that we deal with, like a telecoms provider, an energy supplier or an e-commerce giant. We try to get the company to rectify the situation, we may often find that we are still not satisfied that the outcome is fair.

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‘Support’ Is More Important than ‘IT’ in IT Support

'Support' is more important than 'IT' in IT Support

Greater emphasis on Support rather than IT skills

That’s a slightly provocative title for this blog. After all, there are two elements here. ‘IT’ refers to the technical bit, the ‘hard’ skills, while ‘Support’ speaks to the ‘soft’ skills of dealing with people, the context of any problem and managing it through to resolution.

For any given problem to be resolved within an acceptable time-frame requires the support person to be able to deliver on both counts equally well.

So why do we make the assertion that there is a greater emphasis on Support skills rather than IT skills?

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5406 Hits

Can You Run Your Business from a Tablet?

IT Support for businesses in London

Tablets conquer the world in less than 7 years

Today’s tablets are powerful, flexible and handy computing devices. It’s hard to think that the first tablet to gain popular mainstream acceptance, the original Apple iPad, only debuted on April 3rd 2010.

Since then the market has exploded with devices from the big hardware manufacturers as well as those from hundreds of new market entrant brands. There are a lot of size options and the smallest 3/4G capable ones blur the line between the phone and the tablet – quite literally where does the tablet end and the smartphone begin?

Tablet computers are ubiquitous and seem to have conquered practically all markets. But can you run a business from one?

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5427 Hits

The Perils of IT Support from a One-man Band

IT Support for IT Problems

IT staffing ratio - how do the numbers stack up?

In a company of perhaps 20 people or so, many will have taken the view that staff numbers mean there is enough work to recruit an IT manager. However, what do you do before you reach this size?

Many small companies choose to engage external consultants to provide hands-on support. Often these are solo operators, one-man bands. While they may be competent and well-intentioned, there are a number of inherent problems which may prevent them from responding with the appropriate service levels you need to run your business.

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