What is ChatGPT and how can businesses effectively use it?

What is ChatGPT and how can businesses effectively use it?

When artificial intelligence (AI) and research company OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, nobody could have predicted the disruption it would cause. Within the first five days, more than one million users logged in, and within two months, ChatGPT reached 100 million users, making it the fastest-growing online platform in history

 

ChatGPT’s influence is already being felt across all industries, including Utah’s educational institutions, and businesses are also eager to explore how ChatGPT can improve their workflow. If you don’t want your business to be left behind, here’s what you need to know about this new technology.

 

What is ChatGPT and how does it work?

ChatGPT is a powerful program for communication. Designed to understand and respond to human language, its responses mimic how humans interact. Using ChatGPT feels like chatting with a knowledgeable and friendly human: ask questions, and it will provide relevant and coherent answers.

 

At its core, ChatGPT is designed to understand and generate human-like text based on the input it receives. It works through a two-step process: pre-training and fine-tuning. During pre-training, ChatGPT learns from a massive amount of text data available on the internet. This data includes websites, articles, books, and various other sources that cover a wide range of topics and writing styles. Through analysis, ChatGPT learns the intricate patterns, grammar, syntax, and semantics from this data, enabling it to generate coherent and contextually relevant responses. 

 

After pre-training, the model undergoes a fine-tuning process. During this phase, it is trained on specific tasks and data sets curated by human reviewers. These reviewers follow guidelines provided by OpenAI to make the model more accurate, safe, and useful. Fine-tuning allows ChatGPT to specialize in various applications, such as translating language, providing writing assistance, and answering questions.

 

Does ChatGPT have limitations?

Even though it has access to a vast amount of internet data, ChatGPT’s database is limited up to 2021 as of this writing. Therefore, it cannot provide answers or information beyond that year. Moreover, if a user asks an ambiguous question, ChatGPT will not request clarifications but instead attempt to guess the intended meaning, leading to unintended answers.

 

Furthermore, ChatGPT isn’t perfect and can generate incorrect or inaccurate responses, especially if there is misinformation about a particular topic. Although its answers may sound accurate, it’s still crucial to double-check the information, especially if you’re dealing with esoteric topics or updates beyond 2021.

 

How can I use ChatGPT in my business?

Despite its limitations, ChatGPT remains highly useful for businesses looking to leverage AI to stay competitive. Here are several ways you can use ChatGPT to level up your business:

 

  1. Automate your customer service: Customer service is now commonly handled by bots. Use ChatGPT as your smarter, friendlier, and faster customer service representative. It can handle inquiries, tailor conversations for different customers, answer FAQs, and scale up to handle increased customer demand.
  2. Create content for your business: ChatGPT can generate copy for various purposes, such as blogs, social media posts, print ads, and video scripts. However, users should still double-check the output for accuracy, factualness, and relevance.
  3. Assist in research and analysis: Utilize ChatGPT to research market trends, competitors’ services, and other crucial business information. But remember to cross-verify its output to ensure accuracy and timeliness.
  4. Translate copy to other languages: Easily translate your business materials to target global markets without language barriers.
  5. Generate reports and summaries: Accelerate the report and summary creation process, and provide valuable insights for business owners faster than traditional methods.

 

Embracing AI early allows companies to adapt better to the changing landscapes of business and technology. By incorporating ChatGPT into your business’s system, you can improve efficiency, enhance customer experiences, save costs, and make data-driven decisions.

 

If you want to use ChatGPT for your business but are unsure how to proceed, don’t worry. Our IT experts at NetWize here to guide you in maximizing ChatGPT’s strengths and avoiding its pitfalls. If your business is in Salt Lake City or nearby, feel free to contact us today.

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How can companies optimize a flexible workspace for hybrid workers?

Many of today’s employees have become accustomed to a hybrid work setup, making it essential for organizations to optimize their workspace to meet the needs of their hybrid workforce. Having a flexible office space today is especially crucial; a study reveals that many people prefer to be in a flexible office space 50% of the time and to reduce remote work time to around 45%.

Here’s what you need to know about designing a flexible workspace for hybrid workers and how you can optimize one to meet your team’s needs.

What is a flexible workspace?

A flexible office space is one that gives employees the opportunity to choose and/or customize their workstations. In this kind of workspace, they can opt for whatever setup works best for their needs or preferences, instead of being constrained by a permanent desk assigned to them, like in traditional offices.

But using flexible workspaces isn’t just about convenience. It offers the following advantages to your business too:

  • Better collaboration – A flexible workspace provides hybrid teams with physical spaces where they can meet up and come together every once in a while. Having physical spaces that are conducive to collaboration and teamwork increases productivity, innovation, and team morale.
  • Improved work experience – Working from home can be isolating, so having access to places outside the home where employees can work together with colleagues can make them feel more energetic, motivated, and creative. It also lets them take breaks from their home environment when needed, which helps refresh their minds.
  • Cost savings – Your company saves money on utility costs by making it easier for businesses to scale back on electricity use when certain areas of the workspace aren’t being used.
  • Adaptability – With a flexible workspace, teams don’t have to worry about finding new rental spaces if they need more space temporarily. All they need to do is access existing coworking facilities with minimal effort or cost involved.

Ways to optimize a flexible workspace

Here are some ideas to get you started on optimizing your workplace for hybrid work:

Create flexible workstations

Flexible workstations with features such as ergonomic chairs and standing desks can help employees in many different ways. For instance, ergonomic chairs can improve posture and reduce strain on neck or back muscles, which can help prevent fatigue or physical discomfort. Standing desks provide a change of scenery from a regular desk while also promoting good posture and energy levels.

A flexible workstation can enable employees to effortlessly adjust their desks and chairs to the height they’re most comfortable with OR to the height that’s best suited to their own anatomy.

Choose an open-plan layout

An open-plan layout provides ultimate flexibility — you can rearrange the workspace to suit the size and purpose of your team. Take into account how many people will join your team in the future, as well as the activities they’ll need space for.

Ensure easy accessibility

It’s important to make sure that your flexible office space is easily accessible to employees. With the right setup, they will have a much smoother transition between working in person and remotely.

When it comes to commuting, having easy access points to your office can make a world of difference. Thus, your workspace location should have things like bike lanes, public transport links, or close proximity to car parks to allow your hybrid team members to easily reach the office when they need to.

Within the office, you should make sure that there are no physical barriers between different areas of the workspace. This will enable employees to move freely and easily between different sections of the office.

Use workplace management technology

A workplace management program can help employees maximize the use of on-site spaces. By using one, they can easily discover and book available desks or meeting rooms suited to them with a few taps. They will also be kept in the loop about who’s planning to be at work on certain days, thereby allowing them to decide whether they should be at the office on the same days that their teammates are.

Related reading: Digital skills that are most important for a smooth-running hybrid work setup

By optimizing your flexible workspace, your company can create a workplace culture that maximizes the strengths of your hybrid workforce while simultaneously reducing overhead costs associated with maintaining traditional office environments. If you need help setting up and managing technology for your flexible workspace, contact the IT professionals at NetWize today.

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4 IT Goals Every Business Should Set for 2023


In 2022, many businesses faced a variety of technology-related challenges involving data security, automation (i.e., finding the right automation tools), and keeping a hybrid workforce well supported, to name a few.

As 2023 begins, it’s important to take a proactive approach when managing technology tools to ensure uninterrupted productivity while meeting the unique challenges posed by current market conditions. This involves putting in place an IT strategy that will address the technology challenges of the past year and prepare your business in Salt Lake City for the year ahead.

Here are some IT goals to consider integrating into your strategy this year.

1. Strengthen security protocols

In 2023, businesses should make it one of their IT goals to strengthen their cyber risk protocols to better secure customer and company information. IT threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and businesses need to be proactive with their cybersecurity.

A recent report by Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that global cybercrime damages costs will keep rising exponentially — from $3 trillion in 2015 to $10.5 trillion in 2025. And the current global economic landscape isn’t helping, with inflation and supply chain disruptions taking their toll on businesses. Cybercrime has simply become more expensive for companies due to the rising cost of preventing and remedying attacks.

Worse, many technology companies even had to reduce IT staff or freeze hiring, leaving security teams struggling against limited resources. To adequately protect organizations from threats, it’s crucial to ensure that budgets increase alongside inflation or risk being unable to build up a strong enough defense.

2. Review your backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan

This year, it is essential to inspect your company’s BDR capabilities and make any necessary improvements. Regularly assessing the effectiveness of your BDR plan will help ensure that your organization can cope with a range of issues that may arise, such as natural disasters or other technical difficulties.

The lack of a strong BDR strategy could lead to financial losses due to lost revenue, decreased productivity, and delays in delivery times. Thus, one of your 2023 tech goals should be to implement comprehensive BDR solutions tailored to your specific needs.

It also pays to stay abreast of new backup technologies and data storage trends, which can make data backup more efficient and offer more robust safeguards against cyberthreats.

Related reading: 5 Most crucial components to include in your data backup strategy

3. Increase efficiency with automation

Another worthwhile IT goal is to achieve operational efficiency with automation. Automation has the potential to reduce business costs, increase accuracy, and speed up processes, making it an invaluable asset for any company looking to maximize its operations.

Automation can eliminate the need to manually perform repetitive tasks, enabling organizations to reduce their operating costs. It can also streamline processes so tasks can be completed faster and more accurately. Automation can also improve customer service and engagement with AI-enabled processes, allowing businesses to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries.

4. Link technology with profitability goals

Finally, if you’re purchasing new tech or undertaking a major IT project, remember that technology adoption should always link back to a business goal or need. Research shows that businesses that use tech strategically are likely to earn twice as much revenue per employee compared to those that don’t.

Carefully consider the expenses involved. When formulating the annual IT budget for your business, account for all technology-related costs, including application usage (i.e., how many employees will use a particular software program) and availability of other, less costly tools.

By including these four goals in your overall IT strategy, your business can stay ahead of the competition and position itself for success in the years to come. Get started today by setting some achievable IT goals for your Salt Lake City/Utah business in 2023 with the help of NetWize’s IT professionals. Call us today.

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New year, new IT resolutions: What your business should do to improve its technology

The new year is here, and with it comes the chance for a fresh start. For businesses, it’s the perfect moment to reflect on the past year and set resolutions to help them improve in the coming one. This includes making resolutions for their IT department. Technology evolves rapidly, and it’s vital to keep up so your business can run as efficiently as possible.

As we move into 2023, there are some critical IT resolutions your business should make to ensure a successful year.

Avoid a disastrous 2023 — have a backup and disaster recovery plan

If a natural disaster strikes, you don’t want your business to be without a plan. This is why in 2023, your business should put in place a backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan, if it doesn’t already have one. This means having a backup of all your data, as well as a plan for how you will recover if your system goes down.

It can be daunting to develop a BDR plan, but there are numerous resources that can help you get started. And with managed backup solutions widely available to businesses of all sizes, there’s no reason not to implement a backup solution that can help your business survive natural or human-made disasters in the coming year.

Understand where your business tech is headed by creating an IT roadmap

A technology roadmap is a plan that outlines your enterprise’s IT goals, such as improving workflows and collaboration and strategies for achieving them. Having a roadmap will help you stay on track and keep your IT investments aligned with your business objectives.

The new year is an opportune time to create an IT roadmap because it gives you a chance to reflect on the direction you took in the past year and think about where you want your business to go in the future. It’s also a time when budgets are fresh and it makes sense to start new initiatives.

Prioritize having strong passwords

Creating strong passwords is one of the best ways to defend your online accounts in 2023 and beyond. This is why effective password management should be included in your IT resolutions, and it should cover best practices like using strong passwords, changing them regularly, and using different passwords for different accounts. Password management can be tricky, but there are many password managers available that can ease the process.

Keep your devices up to date

This means keeping all the software and hardware of your devices up to date to help protect them from vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. It also helps ensure that your devices are running at optimum performance. Depending on the type of device, there are a few different ways you can go about updating it. For step-by-step instructions on how to update your device, visit the manufacturer’s website.

Rethink your business phones

Businesses should seriously consider switching to a Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, phone system in 2023 because old systems like landlines have become less reliable and are not as feature-rich. Unlike traditional landlines, for example, VoIP systems can be set up to work with your computer, allowing you to make and receive calls from your desktop or laptop. They can also be set up to work with your cell phone and other mobile gadgets, thereby letting you make and receive calls regardless of your location.

Consider work-life balance or work-life integration

When employees are burned out, they are less productive and more likely to commit errors. This can also be costly for businesses — exhausted employees cost US businesses billions of dollars in health-related lost productivity. On the other hand, work-life balance or work-life integration can lead to happier and more satisfied employees. When employees are happy, they are more engaged and productive, and businesses see better results.

There are many ways for businesses to promote work-life balance or integration. Some companies allow employees to work from home occasionally, while others have flexible hours or policies that allow employees to take time off for personal reasons. Whatever your strategy may be to achieve work-life balance, the key is to provide the resources your employees need to function well, whether they’re working in the office, at home, or doing hybrid work. There are applications, programs, and devices that employees can use that are instrumental to promoting work-life balance or integration.

Having a dependable IT team that can handle all your technical issues can also do wonders for productivity. NetWize offers best-in-class technology solutions to businesses in Salt Lake City and across Utah. Partner with us to see your business soar in 2023. Request a free consultation from us today.

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What business processes should you automate?

Automation is the use of machines, control systems, and information technologies to minimize or eliminate the need for human intervention in tasks that have traditionally been performed by people. It can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of completing crucial business processes, enhancing your company’s productivity and freeing up your employee’s time for more value-added tasks.

Over the years, it has become possible to automate nearly any business process, from customer management to inventory control. Which business process you should automate depends on your company’s specific needs, but the following are a great start:

Managing your sales process

Increasing the number of paying customers is essential to your business’s revenue, but it’s a delicate process. After generating leads, you need to nurture and follow up with them without pushing too hard or bombarding them with too much information. If the sales process isn’t managed correctly, it can result in plenty of wasted resources and a high customer churn rate.

With sales automation software, you can keep track of your leads’ positions and movements in the sales funnel. This allows you to respond accordingly by providing the right information at the ideal time, increasing your chances of successfully closing deals.

For instance, after a potential customer has completed a contact form on your website, the sales automation software can automatically send a prewritten response. This message is a great way to reassure the customer that their message reached your company.

The software can then instruct your sales reps to get in touch with the lead. After the sales rep has talked to the potential customer, the software will move this lead to the next step of the sales funnel. If contact is not successful, the software can send an email asking the prospect when they’d be available for a follow-up call.

Based on how leads engage with your sales reps, the automation software can determine the potential customer’s level of interest and how likely they are to convert. This enables you to reliably prioritize prospects by their readiness to purchase, eliminating guesswork and the risk of wasting resources and the sales team’s effort.

Automation can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of completing crucial business processes, enhancing your company’s productivity and freeing up your employee’s time for more value-added tasks.

Sending online purchase reminders

It’s much easier to sell to an existing customer than a new one because they’re already familiar with your product. After a customer has made a purchase, it’s important to keep in touch and nurture the relationship to ensure customer loyalty and repeat business.

One way to do this is by sending automated reminder emails for items that need to be replaced or refilled. For example, if a customer bought from you a product that’s good for two months, you can set up an automated email reminding them to buy refills 60 days after their purchase. This is a great way to keep your business top of mind and increase the chances that customers will come back to you when they need to restock.

In case customers add your products to their cart but forget to check out, you can also set up automated emails reminding them to complete their purchase. This way, you can reduce lost sales and boost your business’s revenue.

Conducting email marketing campaigns

Email marketing campaigns are among the most commonly used marketing strategies because they’re highly effective, relatively easy, and inexpensive. With automation, you can manage your entire email marketing campaign from start to finish without having to lift a finger.

Automated email marketing software can segment your email list through a wide range of demographic and psychographic details. This increases the accuracy of your targeting, enabling you to send messages that are relevant to your customers.

Email automation software can also send different follow-up emails depending on how the recipient responded to the last message they received. This is essential to building meaningful relationships with clients, improving your ability to build customer loyalty.

Managing social media accounts

Social media is a great platform for engaging with your customers, posting updates, and increasing your brand’s visibility. A social media automation tool reduces the amount of manual work needed for launching and maintaining campaigns. This includes scheduling posts and distributing these across social networks, blog sites, and other web-based platforms.

Automation can also help with handling private messages. For instance, you can leverage chatbots to narrow down a customer’s concerns or answer commonly asked questions.

Automation can do wonders for your business, provided you know which business processes to automate. If you need help finding the right automation solution or making the most out of your existing tools, turn to [company_short]’s IT experts. Call us today to get more information.

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3 Tips to help you avoid collaboration app overload

Collaboration apps are crucial to modern teams, especially since many businesses have switched to flexible working arrangements. With these apps, team members can keep track of deadlines, share files, and communicate and collaborate with one another seamlessly from anywhere.

Most collaboration apps have become Swiss Army knives of productivity for organizations in virtually any industry, and their capabilities keep expanding over the years. However, it’s not uncommon for companies to utilize more than one of these at the same time to manage different branches, departments, or projects. Unfortunately, such a strategy — if not managed properly — can lead to a problem known as collaboration app overload.

What is collaboration app overload?

Collaboration app overload happens when employees become too busy juggling multiple collaboration platforms that they can no longer focus on their tasks, causing their productivity to dip. When this becomes a daily problem, employees may start to feel burnt out.

Moreover, collaboration app overload can lead to the creation of information silos. When different departments or teams are using different collaboration apps, the data shared within each app becomes siloed off from the others. This makes it difficult for employees to access the information they need, when they need it, disrupting workflows and productivity.

How can you avoid collaboration app overload?

The following tips can help you prevent collaboration app overload:

Evaluate what your business needs

Just because a collaboration app has impressive features doesn’t mean it’s the best one for your team. If the app doesn’t match your business’s requirements, you may end up turning to other software to compensate for its misgivings, resulting in collaboration app overload. Alternatively, your employees might use unvetted collaboration tools, leading to shadow IT and creating even more inefficiencies and security vulnerabilities for your company.

Before investing in a collaboration app, make sure you understand your business’s needs and your employees’ preferences. Ask for input from your IT department and the rest of your staff. Doing this will help you choose one or two tools that actually help your team get things done.

Audit the apps you’re currently using

Create a list of all the collaboration apps your company is currently using to identify any poignant trends and issues. For instance, each department in your organization may be using a different collaboration solution, even though these tools have similar and overlapping features. It could also be that some of the tools on the list are being underutilized or are no longer being used by your team.

Auditing your company’s collaboration apps gives you a better idea of which ones to let go of and which to keep. This will declutter your software ecosystem, making it easier for your employees to focus on their work instead of trying to figure out which collaboration app to use for a specific task.

Consolidate your company’s tools

Some of the top collaboration solutions on the market can do the work of several separate applications. Consider taking stock of your company’s tools and replacing those with the same capabilities as these feature-rich collaboration applications. Not only will doing so create a more focused software ecosystem and enable your employees to find the information they need more easily, but it can also help you save a lot of money.

Take Microsoft Teams, for instance. It has everything you need for both collaboration and communication, including chat, voice and video calls, file sharing, and even project management capabilities. Teams also supports external sharing, which is extremely handy for collaborating with Microsoft 365 subscribers outside your organization, such as clients and vendors. Additionally, it integrates seamlessly with other applications, both those created by Microsoft and by other developers.

To effectively prevent collaboration app overload, you need to really understand what your business needs. Seek your IT team’s help or turn to a managed IT services provider like [company_short]. Our IT experts will help you audit your organization’s requirements and the apps in your portfolio. We will also recommend the best collaboration apps that truly contribute to your business’s goals. Reach out to our IT specialists today to get started.

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Digital skills that are most important for a smooth-running hybrid work setup

In a hybrid work setup, employees have the freedom to work either remotely or in the office. When implemented correctly, this arrangement not only helps companies save money, but can also improve employee morale and productivity. To implement a successful hybrid working setup, it’s critical that your company uses the right tools and that your employees develop appropriate digital skills. In this blog, we’ll discuss the most important digital skills for hybrid working.

What are digital skills?

Digital skills refer to abilities related to leveraging computing and communication solutions in order to learn, obtain, manage, and share digital information. A few years ago, these abilities were considered to be quite specialized. But with the increasing adoption of IT in business, digital skills are now a standard requirement in virtually every industry.

No hybrid work setup is possible without digital technologies like project management apps, video conferencing services, and collaboration tools. It’s only when they possess the right digital skills that your hybrid staff can use and make the most of these technologies.

What digital skills are essential for hybrid work?

To ensure the success of your hybrid work arrangement, your employees need to develop the following digital skills:

Digital literacy

Your staff must know how to use digital devices and tools to achieve their desired outcomes. This means being able to write and send emails, operate computers and smartphones, and search for information online, among other activities related to their jobs. With strong digital literacy skills, your hybrid employees can be productive whether they’re working in or outside the office.

Adaptability

Hybrid workers need to periodically switch between two or more workplace environments. This means they must be able to adjust their habits and work methods based on the task at hand and whether they’re working remotely or in the office. For example, an employee who’s used to working in the office may need to learn how to collaborate seamlessly with teammates while working remotely.

Communication

Hybrid workers must be able to communicate effectively using different tools and mediums and regardless of their location. For instance, they must know how to express themselves and understand instructions whether through text, audio, or video, or a combination of these at the same time. They must also be able to deliver presentations and explain concepts virtually.

Time management

In many cases, hybrid employees work without a fixed daily schedule. Although this gives them the freedom to work at a comfortable pace, it can also lead to procrastination and a lot of unfinished tasks. Hybrid workers must, therefore, know how to set goals and manage their time wisely. This involves using digital tools like project management apps to keep track of their deliverables and break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones.

Cybersecurity

Remote workers usually do not have access to the enterprise-grade cybersecurity solutions that protect office workers and IT systems. For this reason, it’s not surprising that when companies began adopting flexible working arrangements in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercrime rates jumped by 300%. And cybercriminals likely won’t stop targeting remote workers anytime soon.

Because of this, hybrid workers’ skillset must include the knowledge of and ability to follow cybersecurity best practices. This means knowing how to create strong passwords, update business apps, and back up sensitive data, among other measures. They must also be able to identify common cyberthreats like phishing and know how to effectively respond to these. Your company should have all employees undergo cybersecurity awareness training to ensure that they possess these skills and knowledge.

The right digital skills can help your remote employees be productive and secure no matter where they work. If you want to further boost your company’s cybersecurity, you should partner with [company_short]. Our IT experts can train your hybrid teams on cybersecurity best practices and recommend solutions to make your hybrid work setup succeed. Contact us today to get started.

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How does Dynamics 365 Sales enhance your sales process?

The sales process is a crucial but delicate step toward securing revenue for your business. This process involves generating and qualifying leads, which you can convert into paying customers if you nurture them properly. To do all these, you need a way to organize your leads and keep track of their information.

Some business owners collate information about their leads using a spreadsheet, but this approach works only up to a certain extent. As the number of your leads increases, it becomes more difficult to manage and organize information in a way that offers maximum insight about each potential customer. For this reason, you need a powerful tool like Dynamics 365.

What is Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based business application that features customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities, as well as artificial intelligence tools. CRM refers to solutions that keep track of information about potential and existing customers so businesses can start and foster meaningful relationships with them. ERP, on the other hand, is a set of solutions that automate processes and provide insights about the business using information collected from the different segments of the company.

What are the benefits of Dynamics 365 Sales?

Dynamics 365 Sales was built with salespeople in mind. It enables businesses to manage the different steps of the sales process, as well as gauge the outcomes of their endeavors using a single solution. With Dynamics 365 Sales, your sales team can:

Easily move data

Some businesses use disparate systems to collect, process, and store lead data. Unfortunately, moving information across different platforms can be a frustratingly repetitive process. There’s also the risk that your data will become disorganized when transferred to a system that’s not 100% compatible with the system of origin. Moving and reorganizing can lead to plenty of time lost — time that your salespeople could have used to nurture leads.

Dynamics 365 Sales enables you to import lead information individually or in batches. You can also activate its always-on connection to MS Excel. This way, if you use Excel to collect data, any information on your spreadsheet will be automatically imported to Dynamics 365.

Boost telemarketing outcomes

Just because you’re talking to your leads doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to convert them. Dynamics 365 Sales can bolster the results of your telemarketing efforts through its process flow user interface. This sends you prompts on which questions to ask and points to raise as you talk to potential customers on the phone. The prompts follow a logical progression from qualifying to converting leads, so you get a higher chance of securing new paying customers.

Track leads by stage

There are appropriate topics to cover and ways to converse with leads depending on which stage of the sales funnel they are in. For instance, those in the Awareness stage would appreciate information about their problem and possible solutions, while those in the Desire stage should know your products’ edge over your competitors.

Dynamics 365 Sales lets you define a series of stages based on the sales funnel. You can assign milestones to each stage, and only after a lead has satisfied all the milestones in a stage can they move to the next one. This helps you accurately track your lead’s position in the funnel and provide them with the necessary information and push toward actual conversion.

Keep track of your competitors

To succeed in business, you also have to pay attention to your competitors and what they’re doing right. This way, you can find ways to make their success work for your company also.

Dynamics 365 allows you to create accurate profiles of your competitors. These profiles may include their strengths, weaknesses, sales opportunities, and even the areas you’re competing in.

Score leads automatically

Some leads are more likely to become paying customers than others. You can score each lead depending on how close they are to the buying stage, so you know which ones need the most nurturing. However, scoring leads can be difficult to do if you’re dealing with hundreds or thousands of potential customers every month.

Dynamics 365 Sales allows you to develop rules for identifying a certain lead’s readiness to convert. The application will then examine each lead and automatically give them a score based on the rules you created, saving you a lot of time and energy as a result.

Optimizing your sales process using Dynamics 365 Sales can dramatically simplify your salespeople’s jobs and improve your company’s revenue. At [company_short], our experts can help you get familiar with Dynamics 365’s features so you can get the most out of this powerful tool. We can also recommend other solutions that can help boost your business’s bottom line. Talk to our IT experts today.

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What are the risks and benefits of a BYOD setup?

In a bring your own device (BYOD) arrangement, employees use their personal computers or smartphones to perform their tasks. This setup became especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic when many workers were forced to work from home. If you want to successfully implement a BYOD arrangement in your company, then you must first understand and address the risks it could pose.

What are the risks of a BYOD setup?

There are several reasons why many business owners hesitate to adopt BYOD arrangements.

Cybersecurity risks

Allowing your staff to use their personal devices to access and process critical business data can increase your risk of data breach and loss. This is because, unlike office devices that are equipped with enterprise-grade cybersecurity tools, your employees’ personal devices likely only have free security software, if at all.

To resolve these issues, require your staff to install anti-malware software on all personal devices they use for work. Your staff should also create a separate user account on their device specifically for work purposes. You can then use mobile device management (MDM) solutions to take control of and secure work accounts without intruding on how your employees use their devices outside work hours. To ensure that you’re on the right track, ask our experts at [company_short] for BYOD security best practices you should implement

Lack of control

You have little to no control over how personal devices are used beyond work hours. That is, your staff could be using their devices to visit malware-laden websites or download potentially dangerous files. They may also be connecting to unsecured networks, such as free public Wi-Fi, putting their own and your company’s privacy at risk.

Resolve this issue by developing and implementing acceptable use policies that define which applications and assets your employees may access using their personal devices. At the same time, train your employees on good digital hygiene practices, such as avoiding suspicious networks, files, and websites.

What are the benefits of BYOD?

Addressing the risks of BYOD will help your company reap the following benefits:

Increased productivity

Many people know their personal devices like the back of their hands. They understand their gadgets’ capabilities and can even troubleshoot minor issues, and these devices are configured to suit their users’ preferences and habits. Because of these, workers are very comfortable when using their personal devices for work and can be more efficient when doing so than if they were using relatively unfamiliar company-issued hardware.

Enhanced flexibility

Your employees likely have their smartphones or laptops with them all the time. If your company is following a BYOD setup, this means your staff can work on their tasks wherever they are. Flexible working arrangements can keep your employees safe during dangerous times (like during a pandemic) and allow them to work where they are most comfortable. This is why flexibility is such an important perk, especially for younger workers.

Great savings

Issuing work devices can cost your company a lot of money. You’ll need to pay for the machines themselves, as well as the licenses for all the applications and tools that will be run on those devices. Additionally, your company will have to shoulder the cost of troubleshooting, maintaining, upgrading, and updating both hardware and software, not to mention utilities, space, and other associated expenses. Even with only 10 employees, each with their own work devices, you could lose several thousand dollars a year because of these costs.

Letting your staff use their personal devices spares your business from many of these expenses. For one, your employees likely already have important business applications, such as the Microsoft Office suite, installed on their gadgets. Under a BYOD setup, your staff will also shoulder the cost of repairing, maintaining, upgrading, and running their personal devices, unless you agree on terms that state otherwise.

A BYOD arrangement can be advantageous to your business, especially if you’re aiming to improve your company’s productivity and reduce costs. At [company_short], we can help you develop and implement BYOD policies that take into account and address your company’s unique needs. Talk to our experts today to get started.

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IT trends businesses must watch out for in 2022

Another year has come and gone, and it seems like only yesterday that we wrote a post about IT’s direction in 2021. Well, here we are again with a brand-new list of significant IT trends to look forward to in 2022. Here are the top ones you need to consider for your business.

1. Businesses are consolidating their IT stacks

Before the pandemic hit, many organizations in Salt Lake City and all across Utah were fine with using disparate but top-of-the-line IT solutions. However, as companies shifted to remote and hybrid work setups when lockdowns were implemented, they had to increase their dependence on the cloud. And with staff members far apart from one another, their coordination suffered when the apps they used didn’t talk to each other.

The ensuing chaos taught business owners and managers the value of integrating apps — and that platforms such as Microsoft 365 already had synergy built into its massive suite of productivity software. To illustrate, Microsoft Teams users can share Word files in their chat threads and collaborate on those files within Teams — i.e., without having to open Word separately. This shows how everyday work processes can be streamlined so that staff can focus on their work instead of having to make their apps work first.

Platforms such as Microsoft and Google are presenting themselves as one-stop shops, which companies find appealing because:

  • They don’t have to learn different systems.
  • They don’t have to spend time and money on integrating apps.
  • Data that’s consolidated in one platform is easier for authorized users to access and secure.
  • There’s less risk of subscribing to redundant software services.
  • Installing app updates and patches on one platform is much easier than doing so for many separate standalone apps.

2. On-prem networks are being replaced by distributed clouds

With companies granting employees the option to work remotely part time or full time, there are fewer people to accommodate on premises. Such companies can rent smaller spaces, consume less power, and even tap laborers beyond their immediate vicinity. Since workers and teams are distributed, business apps and data are better accessed via distributed clouds.

Using a single data center would mean that data would have to travel long distances (and incur tremendous costs) to reach far-off contingents. With distributed clouds, however, there would be different hubs serving their respective cloud users, but with the entire operation monitored from one dashboard.

3. Not-so-new but advanced technologies will see greater business adoption

It takes time for cutting-edge technologies to prove their utility and become affordable. Some technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and Internet of Things (IoT), were introduced a couple of years ago. Early adopters found nifty business use cases for these, fueled further innovation, and brought costs down, which is why we’ll see a sharp increase in the number of businesses that will adopt these in 2022.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Expect to see evolutions in AI such as machine learning and natural language processing being increasingly used by businesses to automate tasks, make better decisions, and provide a better customer experience.

Augmented reality (AR)

AR allows users to see the world in front of them with an overlay of graphics or data. Use cases vary, such as:

  • Helping interior designers show clients what design proposals will actually look like without ever physically installing a single piece
  • Visualizing and demonstrating products to customers

Virtual reality (VR)

One area where you can expect to see plenty of VR usage in 2022 is business training. For example, business users will be able to use VR headsets to train in the use of new equipment or procedures before ever taking on the risk of doing things for real.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT devices are networked machines that are capable of sensing and interacting with their environment and one another without having to be prompted by a human being. Businesses are using these more and more, such as for automating supply chains and integrating smart systems into existing business infrastructure like elevators and heating/cooling units.

No matter how much IT changes and affects businesses, you can trust [company_short] to help you adapt and leverage it to your advantage. With us as your IT partner, 2022 may become one of your best years yet! Send us a message today to learn more.

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