Take advantage of these 4 new AI features in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based communication platform that allows you to chat, call, video conference, and collaborate with others. Its wide range of features includes video conferencing with up to 100 participants, live captions, recording and transcription of meetings, and screen sharing. It’s available on a variety of devices and is offered at various price plans for organizations.

Microsoft Teams Premium users, in particular, will be delighted to know that the platform has become even more feature-rich, boasting AI-powered innovations. Here are Teams’s top AI-powered features that can make meetings, training sessions, and webinars more efficient.

Intelligent recap

Intelligent recap automatically transcribes and summarizes meeting recordings, so you can quickly catch up on what you missed. Fueled by PowerPoint Live, Intelligent Recap uses AI to generate chapters in your meeting recordings based on the content of a presentation, streamlining the process of identifying and selecting the most pertinent segments. It also highlights key moments and action items in your meeting recordings, helping you stay on top of your work.

Imagine that your marketing team is conducting a project review meeting. The meeting covers a lot of ground, from market analysis to campaign strategies to performance metrics. It would be easy for team members to get lost in the details or to miss important information.

But with AI-generated chapters, the meeting recording is automatically segmented into each phase of the presentation. This makes it easy for team members to revisit and discuss specific sections without navigating through lengthy recordings.

Live translation

Live translation translates meetings in real time, allowing everyone to participate, regardless of their language. It also works with live captions, so you can see what’s being said in the speaker’s and your language.

For instance, a multinational company is conducting a strategy alignment virtual meeting with participants from different locations around the world. With AI-driven real-time translations, language diversity no longer poses a hurdle. A sales director in Tokyo can read the captions in Japanese, while their counterparts in Paris follow in French, and the marketing team in Salt Lake City stays engaged in English. This seamless interpretation not only enhances inclusivity but also enriches discussions by ensuring everyone comprehends nuances and context accurately.

It’s worth noting that only the meeting organizer needs to have a Teams Premium subscription to enable live translation for all attendees. This means that everyone in the meeting can fully participate and contribute to the conversation, irrespective of their subscription status.

Meeting templates

Meeting templates allow you to create custom templates for different types of meetings, such as brainstorming sessions, sales calls, or training sessions.

For example, a project manager can create a meeting template for weekly project status update meetings. The template can be preconfigured with settings, such as attendees, recurring schedules, and documentation links. By using this template, the manager is freed from repetitive setup tasks and can focus more on facilitating productive discussions. Moreover, the template enforces the company’s predefined guidelines, ensuring that every meeting adheres to a consistent structure and achieves the intended objectives.

Advanced webinar

Advanced webinars let you do two things efficiently: facilitate smooth event registration and craft tailored experiences for your audience. This new function is useful in a variety of scenarios, encompassing a range of webinars that simplify the process of hosting events.

Consider a real-life use case in which a software company is gearing up for a webinar to launch its latest software solution. With Teams’s advanced webinars feature, attendees can seamlessly register for the event, providing the hosting company with essential insights for planning and follow-ups. In addition, the customization options allow the company to tailor the webinar experience to match its branding, ensuring a consistent and immersive experience for participants. Features like interactive polls, Q&A sessions, and participant engagement analytics enrich the experience, enhancing the company’s ability to connect with its audience.

Want more tips to maximize your productivity tools? NetWize’s business IT professionals are ready to help you. Contact us today.

Direct routing to Microsoft Teams: What is it and what can it do for your business?

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how a crisis can suddenly emerge and prevent your staff from working at the office. Thus, it’s crucial that you adopt solutions that ensure greater workspace flexibility. One of these solutions is Microsoft Teams, which facilitates communication and collaboration through features like chat messaging, video conferencing, project management, and a cloud-based telephony system known as Direct Routing.

What is cloud-based telephony?

Traditional landline telephones are connected to one another by copper wires through the public switched telephone network (PSTN), which refers to all the telephone networks used around the globe. Cloud-based telephones, on the other hand, route voice calls through the internet.

There are several ways to make cloud calls. Besides using physical phones, you can also use software that functions like a telephone, called a virtual phone. With a virtual phone, you can make calls using any device that can run the program. These devices include smartphones, desktop computers, and laptops.

The Teams Phone feature adds Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) capabilities to MS Teams, allowing the program to function as a virtual phone. Unfortunately, because Teams Phone doesn’t connect to the PSTN, it can only be used to communicate with other users in your company, or with users of other communication apps, such as Slack. If you want Teams to be able to communicate with landline phones, you need Direct Routing.

What is Direct Routing on Teams?

Direct Routing allows your Teams client to connect to the PSTN using session border controllers (SBCs). SBCs are hardware or software that function as firewalls for VoIP systems, ensuring the proper transmission of data and preventing unauthorized parties from eavesdropping on calls. You can find different SBCs on the market, but you’ll need Microsoft-certified ones if you want to use Direct Routing.

SBCs are a complex technology and leaving their setup to inexperienced technicians can lead to risky misconfigurations and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. For this reason, setting up Direct Routing is best entrusted to the skilled IT professionals at [company_short].

Why should you use Direct Routing?

With Direct Routing, you no longer have to set up a separate phone line for your remote employees as they can make and receive calls using smartphones or laptops. More than this, Direct Routing lets your business enjoy the following benefits:

Greater control

Direct Routing essentially centralizes your telephony system through Teams. By implementing Direct Routing, your IT department will have an easier time implementing crucial security policies, monitoring usage rates, and enforcing usage limits when needed. It’s also easier to identify and resolve issues in a centralized telephony system because your IT personnel no longer have to deal with multiple, disparate devices.

Decreased costs

Microsoft offers other ways besides Direct Routing to connect your Teams client to the PSTN. These alternatives are Microsoft’s calling plans. The main difference between calling plans and Direct Routing is that the latter allows you to work with third-party service providers. This gives you more options and opportunities for your business to save money.

Additionally, you don’t need to use expensive telephony systems for Direct Routing. You can simply use devices that are already available to you and your employees.

More consistency

With traditional landline telephones, you may have to operate using different lines and devices, which can become quite confusing for your employees and customers. Centralizing your telephony system through Direct Routing streamlines your communication channels and promotes a better experience for everyone.

Direct Routing makes it easier and more convenient to communicate for everyone in your business. Let the IT experts at [company_short] set it up for you. Contact us today to get started.

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.

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.

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.

5 Ways Microsoft 365 enhances hybrid work environments

The hybrid work model not only helps employees become more productive, but it also promotes better work-life balance. Microsoft aims to further improve the experience through the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity tools. Let’s take a look at how the service benefits hybrid work.

Metaverse for immersive meetings

The metaverse is a virtual world that mimics aspects of the physical world using technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence (AI), social media, and digital currency.

To enhance hybrid work environments, Microsoft is integrating its metaverse platform Mesh into its business communication platform Teams. With Mesh, Microsoft is making it possible for in-office and remote employees to be together in 2D and 3D virtual meetings. Companies will also be able to create immersive spaces that resemble physical spaces like conference rooms, design centers, and networking lounges. What’s more, users can create personalized avatars to mix and mingle, collaborate on projects, and have encounters that spark innovation.

Improved Teams meeting experience

Microsoft is also updating Teams to foster more inclusive and productive hybrid meetings. When setting a hybrid meeting, the host can use the scheduling form to assign roles to participants. For instance, they can assign one employee to be the timekeeper while another can be the facilitator. Teams also now has a feature that lets the host see the order in which participants raised their hands during a meeting. This ensures that everyone is called and heard.

Related article: How to protect your Microsoft 365 environment

Easier cross-organizational collaboration

Teams Connect allows employees to share private and shared channels and files with anyone, including those outside their organization. Thanks to a recent update, you can now schedule a meeting, collaborate in real time on apps, and share channels with up to 50 teams and as many organizations as needed. In the future, users will also be able to chat with third parties who have personal Teams accounts.

Better collaboration with Microsoft Loop

Let’s say you’re planning a team outing, so you want employees to send pictures of their suggested venues. Then you’d want everyone to vote. Doing this may require multiple apps, but Loop allows your team to do it all in one place.

The purpose of Loop is to centralize all tasks to improve the collaboration of a team in real time, even if employees are in different locations.

Loop has three elements: Components, Pages, and Workspaces.

Components: These are small productivity units that help you collaborate and complete work while you’re in chats, meetings, emails, documents, and more. You can build your own components or leverage preset ones, including:

Voting table: Makes it easy for teams to reach a consensus and finalize decisions together.
Status tracker: Helps you gather information from your team, track progress on all project aspects, and always maintain an updated view of a project across your team.

Pages: These are canvases where you can organize your components and obtain elements like links, files, or data that are relevant to your project.
Loop workspaces: These are shared spaces that allow your team to see and collate everything important to your project. Workspaces also make it easy for you to catch up on what everyone is working on, react to others’ ideas, and track progress toward shared goals.

Enhanced employee digital experience

Under the hybrid work setup, the employee experience is not limited to a physical location, as it also extends to the internet. In this environment, employees also need to learn and stay engaged. That’s where Microsoft Viva can help.

Viva is an employee experience platform that brings learning, insights, communications, and resources together in one platform. It spans four categories: connections, learning, insights, and topics.

Connections: Uses AI to offer innovative engagement experiences to keep all employees informed of company happenings
Learning: Allows team managers to assign courses or lessons to certain teams or individuals, fostering a culture of development and learning in the company
Insights: Allows companies to make data-driven improvements in their processes and policies to enhance employee well-being and productivity
Topics: Organizes content in the organization, allowing employees to easily find the information they’re looking for

Microsoft Viva can be purchased as a suite that includes all of these modules.

If you need assistance deploying Microsoft 365 for a better hybrid work experience, NetWize is here to help. We will analyze all of your needs, deploy the right solutions, and ensure that you are getting the most out of your investment. Talk to us today to learn more.

Microsoft tips: File sharing and storage using Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive

Microsoft offers a wide array of productivity tools for businesses of all sizes in Utah. The Office apps are arguably their most well-known tools, but since Microsoft never rests on their laurels, they’ve built apps to cover the collaboration and file storage needs of their customers, too.

Let’s first take a brief look at what Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive are, then check out a few tips and tricks you can use to make the most of these apps.

What are Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive?

Microsoft developers liken team projects to coins. One side of a coin is a Teams channel, a place where your team members can communicate with one another and collaborate on project files. One of the many things you and your teammates can do on that channel is open an Office file in that same channel and not have to open the corresponding Office app separately.

The flip side of the coin is a SharePoint team site, which contains a common repository or folder for those files. The two apps complement each other to make cloud-based teamwork easy-peasy.

OneDrive, on the other hand, is also a storage facility, but is built for use by individuals instead of teams. It’s like your My Documents folder, but in the cloud. OneDrive is for your drafts and for project files that don’t belong in an existing team site or necessitate the creation of a team site yet. You can share files to other individuals or transfer them to SharePoint when you need to.

If your company is big on teamwork and your staff uses Office apps heavily, switching to Microsoft 365 Business will give you access to Teams, SharePoint, and many other awesome productivity apps! Let our IT experts at [company_short] help you find the right subscription plan for your business.

How do you store files in OneDrive and SharePoint?

Here are a couple of convenient ways to add files to the app of your choice.

In OneDrive

Upload to the app

Open OneDrive.
Click the Upload button in the top menu bar.
Pick the folders and files you want to store into your desired location in OneDrive.

Drag and drop to a folder

In the app, select or create a new folder in OneDrive.
Cut, copy, or drag and drop the files or folders you want onto the OneDrive folder you’ve selected or created.

Use the Save As function of MS Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)

Click the File tab.
Click Save As.
Select the OneDrive account of your choice.

In SharePoint

Upload to the app

Go to a SharePoint site.
Click the Upload button.
Choose the files and folders you want to store on that site.

Drag and drop to a folder

Open SharePoint Online and go to your desired site
Drag and drop what you want onto the destination SharePoint folder.

Use the Save As function of MS Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)

Click the File tab
Click Save As.
Select the SharePoint site of your choice.

If SharePoint sites do not yet appear:

Click Add a Place.
Select Office 365 SharePoint.
In the dialog box that appears, enter your SharePoint account credentials. SharePoint shortcuts will start appearing as Save As options for all MS Office apps.

How do you share and store files on Teams?

Sharing files of any type with your teammates is easy on Teams — all you need is access to these on the device you’re using. These are the files that are:

Stored on your device
In SharePoint, OneDrive, or other cloud-based storage
On the Files tab of your chats and channels on Teams

To quickly share a file with your team, share it in a group or one-on-one chat

The Conversations tab is where you and your teammates will do most of your communicating. Often, sharing files will be necessary, To share a file, you can copy-paste the link to that file, or you can do the following:

Click the Attach icon (i.e., the button that looks like a paperclip) underneath the box where you type messages.
Drill down to the file’s location, be it in OneDrive or local storage.
Select the file.
Click Open or Share.

Take note that this method might make files difficult to find, as chat threads easily become lengthy. For important files, you’ll want to add them to the Files tab of your Teams channel.

To make your files easy to find on your Teams channel, store them on the Files tab

As previously mentioned, each Teams channel is connected to a distinct SharePoint site. The Files tab of a channel acts as the access point to the main folder of the SharePoint site. Whatever file you upload to the SharePoint site will be accessible on the Files tab, and whatever file you upload to the Files tab will be accessible on the SharePoint site.

There are two main ways to store files on the Files tab:

Via the Upload a copy function of the Conversations tab

While you’re on the Conversations tab, do the following:

Click the Attach icon.
Accomplish one of the three methods below:

To pick a file you opened recently, click Recent, then Upload a copy.
To select from all the files you’re permitted access to on Teams, click Browse Teams and Channels, then Share a link or Upload a copy.
To choose a file from your private storage, click Upload from my computer or OneDrive, then Open or Upload a copy.

Via the Upload function of the Files tab

When you go to the Files tab, you’ll see subfolders (if there are any) and any shared files on the channel you’re in. To upload a file on that tab, follow these steps:

Select the location you want to put the file in. Open subfolders if you have to.
Click the Upload button.
Select File.

Before uploading your file, you may want to create a subfolder first:

On the Files tab, click New.
Select Folder.
Type the name for your new folder.
lick Create.

We’ve only scratched the surface of what you can do with Microsoft’s amazing apps. To discover more about how your business can benefit from these, talk with our IT specialists at [company_short]! Drop us a line or call us at 801-747-3200 today.

Managed Services demystified

You may have heard of Managed Services, but are clueless as to how they can help your business. You may have heard of how they can boost productivity and increase profits, but are unsure of exactly how they do that. For those who need a better understanding of just how Managed Services can benefit a business, today we’re going to demystify it all. Here is the explanation you’ve been waiting for.

Managed Services essentially amounts to preventative IT maintenance. What this means for your business is that little IT problems are nipped in the bud as soon as they bubble up, and before they have a chance to compound into much bigger, more costly ones. But before we delve deeper into how this increases your business’s productivity levels, it makes sense to look at the history of this service and the role of “preventative maintenance” in our culture.

Why preventative maintenance matters

Managed Services have been around for decades. But despite this, many businesses have been slow to catch on. And really, is it all that surprising? Preventative maintenance is not exactly a priority in mass culture. Whether you hire a mechanic to replace a catalytic converter, a plumber to repair a leaky pipe or doctor to correct your coronary heart disease, many of these oftentimes preventable problems have been culturally accepted as commonplace. Yet people are so used to the mindset of thinking “everything is okay until it’s not”, which is really where the true problem lies.

Additionally, when preventable problems are ignored long enough to the point they explode into emergency repairs, your wallet almost always suffers. This is just as true for a network crash to your business’s IT infrastructure as it is for a trip to the emergency room for a neglected health problem.

Because Managed Services prevent catastrophic IT repairs that surprise you out of nowhere, your bottom line will enjoy long-term savings. Along with this, you’ll also get a significant bump in your productivity levels.

How does Managed Services boost productivity?

To answer this question, it makes sense to look at a fundamental principle of productivity – focus. Imagine if you’re trying to complete a new marketing strategy for the next quarter. You’re doing some research, compiling a list upcoming networking events and trade shows to attend, when suddenly you’re disrupted by an urgent phone call. After you’re off the phone, you return to your research, and then your secretary bursts in with a handful of vendor invoices you need to sign off on. As these disruptions continue to pile up, what happens if your IT breaks down and you’re unable to use your computer? Basically, you don’t get anything done during the day. You become stuck.

When it comes to IT, Managed Services take preventative measures to ensure your IT is always running at its optimal level, so that you don’t suffer technology breakdowns or distractions that blow your focus – preventing you and your staff from getting any work done. Smooth running IT won’t resolve all your productivity problems, such as your staff focusing more on Facebook or their phone rather than their work, but it will resolve all of those that relate directly to technology. No longer will your business be held down by daily computer disruptions and associated repairs, and instead you and your staff can move forward and focus on growing your business. That is the beauty of Managed Services. More productivity, focus and growth for your entire organization.

Have more questions about Managed Services? Give us a call today. We’re happy to provide you the information you need.