An IT Support Blog from London

Microsoft 365, which encapsulates Office 365, is incredibly popular – and one of its most commonly used components is Exchange Online and Outlook – Microsoft’s online email server and desktop and mobile email client, respectively.

When it comes to email, security is a big concern – with one particular email security topic increasingly making the headlines. We’re talking about phishing, a frustratingly effective e-mail attack that’s experienced by 86% of businesses, according to the 2020 UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey.

In this article, we will outline what a phishing attack is – and explain how Microsoft 365 and its component email services can help protect your company against phishing attacks.

Business continuity matters. It matters for profits, for client satisfaction – and for keeping you in business in the long run. Business continuity planning is an important element in ensuring continuing operations. Partnering with the right technology firm is key given how critical technology is to business operations.

In this article we will take a look at the contribution that your IT partner can make to ensuring business continuity and outline why, when looking for IT support London companies need to seek a partner that does much more than deliver technical support – why you need a partner that helps you to deliver business continuity too.

Managed services is a sector that’s growing rapidly – according to a MarketsAndMarkets metric, managed services will grow from a global value of USD 223bn in 2020 to USD 329bn to 2025. This is clearly outsize growth, which indicates the growing popularity of outsourcing IT – for businesses large and small.

But why is managed IT embraced by so many companies around the world – and at such a scale? In this article we will look at some of the various benefits of managed IT services, showing why, when seeking IT support London companies often choose managed services.

We also cover some of the things you should watch out for when hiring managed IT services and point to a possible compromise that may fit companies that have unique IT requirements: augmenting in-house IT with managed services.

Organisations wouldn’t change their IT support provider if they can help it, thinking that putting up with the subpar quality of service is better than being left in chaos with the absence of tech support. After all, finding out that your managed services provider (MSP) is not as dependable as their service level agreement (SLA) would have you believe is something that you would rather not act on because changing providers could mean significant business disruption.

Still, staying in a disadvantageous partnership with an unprofessional service provider will do your business more harm than good in the long run. Whether it’s your MSP’s lack of concern for cybersecurity, slow response to reported issues, unwillingness or inability to adapt to your changing needs as a company — and everything else in between, these incompetencies are costing your business time, money, and opportunities.

But what shortcomings should you consider as ultimate deal breakers in IT support London or elsewhere? If you’re not quite sure whether it’s still worth waiting for your service provider to improve their service, here are 5 signs that will tell you that yes, your business deserves better quality IT support.

Used IT equipment must be disposed of responsibly. When we say that, we refer not just to the environmental footprint of used IT equipment – we also refer to data security. Your IT asset disposal (ITAD) process or IT support vendor must also include fully wiping data on the IT kit that you are disposing.

Correct IT asset disposal is essential if you want to prevent information security risks. That said, you can also enjoy some returns on your used IT if you dispose of it correctly – particularly where companies are undergoing large shifts in IT and there is a significant volume of equipment involved.

A good percentage of companies in London and across the globe are already implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. This move has not only significantly lowered organisations’ investment in corporate devices but has also proven to be very convenient at this time when the current health crisis is propelling the rise of remote working arrangements.

It’s best to keep in mind, however, that the implementation of BYOD environments has their own set of pain points that should be seriously evaluated and addressed. To find the solution for these issues, the services of an IT support professional are vital.

Corporate workloads are increasingly handled in the cloud, but many companies still operate a large number of servers to deal with legacy applications – or to support applications that they prefer to run on-premise. Even where applications are run in the cloud it may well be that your company is responsible for server support and maintenance where applications are custom in nature.

In this article, we outline why it is critical to ensure that your company takes the necessary care to support and maintain its servers – whether on-premise, or in the cloud. We also point to how an IT support company can help your organization to run safe, secure, and optimised servers.

Readers of this blog will be intimately familiar with the way technology delivery has changed over the years. Locally-hosted server racks are history. Instead, companies rely on cloud vendors large and small to deliver essential business services via web apps – or software as a service (SaaS).

Web apps, however, bring a whole new challenge to cyber security solutions. In this article, we outline why web app security matters and what your company can do to ensure that the web apps it uses remain secure.

Growing businesses need IT support even more than established companies – after all, setting the right IT in place during a period of growth will help support growth and ensures that your business does not end up held back by creaky tech infrastructure.

But not all IT support companies are equally good at providing tech support to growth-hungry companies. In this article, we outline a few key points growing businesses should look out for when choosing an IT support partner.

Much as companies would like to use their devices and equipment for decades, sadly there’s an end for everything. Well not all perhaps, but at least for the programs and applications that are installed in workstations of organisations, the end may come sooner than anticipated. And enterprises must be prepared for this.