24/7 Support

The pandemic has changed the way many of us work, blurring what was already a hazy divide between life and work. Many experts are concerned about the long-term impacts on our mental wellbeing and the associated human costs of a 24/7 work culture, while others are suggesting that the pandemic presents an opportunity for a more flexible working arrangement for staff and a better work life balance. However the situation develops long term, it is clear that the 9am-5pm working pattern has disappeared for many businesses forever.

Giving staff the tools to work outside of 9-5, while not giving them the support they need outside these hours is clearly sub-optimal. Providing 24/7 support used to present an insurmountable logistical and resourcing challenge for small to medium sized businesses. Solutions often ranged from no support whatsoever to staff having to call IT managers mobiles in the hope they were available.

With advances in the IT managed service provider market, mature providers have the ability to supply 24/7 support in a simple cost per user model. This service can either compliment your existing IT team, or be an extension of your in hours support arrangement. Rather than an on call service, providers now have the ability to replicate in hours service levels – with a fully staffed, fully resourced 24/7 support arrangement, backed by firm SLAs.

Remote working and cyber security

The shift to remote working meant that certain security measures and requirements inevitably fell by the wayside. Alongside, cybercriminals saw opportunities to exploit remote workers as they were using improperly secured connections and technologies. Combined, these trends have created a more vulnerable environment affecting the cybersecurity posture of many businesses.

It can be difficult to know where to start, so it is useful to follow best practice methodology to understand your risk levels. Following a best practice method, such as a GDPR DPIA assessments (which business are legally obliged to do in any significant personal data handling change) will give you a good understanding of what to prioritise.

The always helpful and educational National Cyber Security Centre provides this advice for small and medium sized enterprises looking to secure their workers environments. Often working towards a government approved standard such as Cyber Essentials gives clarity to internal and external stakeholders that the position you are taking regarding cyber security is appropriate to your business.

Remote working productivity assessments

The pandemic proved the saying “Necessity is the mother of all invention” to be absolutely correct, we saw a huge uptake of remote working technology, with vendors such as Zoom quadrupling in size during the pandemic.

Again, businesses did what was required to keep operating. But businesses are now coming to realise that they are barely scratching the surface of what these technologies can do. Many people see Microsoft Teams as a video conferencing service. The reality is that is an ever developing collaboration platform that used correctly can massively improve staff productivity.

We have been engaging with our customers staff to understand how they use Microsoft Teams, to create valuable insights into how Microsoft Teams could help them in their roles.

We take these insights and work with our customers to understand how we can use the platform to create a collaboration platform that gives them an competitive edge. We have seen great success in using the platform to deliver significant business level outcomes, such as increasing employee engagement, improving customer service and automating business process.

It’s been great to see how well businesses have coped during the pandemic, and how technology has supported the effort.

Schedule meetings in advance

Constant communication through messaging platforms and video conferencing ensures that everyone is on the same page. On that note, you don’t want to be scheduling too many meetings either to the point where you’re disrupting your team’s workflow. Scheduling meetings far in advance and making sure everyone has clear guidelines for each meeting includes letting them know how long it will last. This should give everyone ample time to move their tasks around accordingly.

Divide everyone up into smaller teams

You might be working across different time zones depending on the nature of your team, which can prove difficult when it comes to aligning everyone. Indeed, even managers with a local remote workforce can find it hard to find meeting times that work for everyone. Although problems like time zones or personal schedules are hard to address, breaking your team up into smaller groups allows for more efficient collaboration amongst all members. You can then choose to touch base with each team individually or have a meeting with representatives from each group to discuss progress.

Encourage people to take breaks as needed

Productivity isn’t about how long you work for; it’s about working when you’re the most active. To make these breaks more effective, Verizon Connect recommends taking a break after around 90 minutes of work as research shows this is when our brain starts losing focus. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule — if you’re 30 minutes into work and are experiencing migraines or having difficulty concentrating, take a step back and grab a 10-minute breather. Setting up flexible work hours can also encourage team members to work when they’re at their most effective.

Cultivate personal connections

Productivity is closely tied to morale, and it’s hard to stay productive if you feel distant from your work and your peers. This is why Leaders Lab co-founder Kate Mercer stresses that it’s crucial for managers to schedule both team-wide and one-on-one meetings that focus on touching base with how people are managing their work. Scheduling these check-ups regularly shows your team that you care about them on a human level, and also creates a work culture where everyone can support one another.

Adjusting to remote work is hard, but it’s not impossible. Reminding your team of these productivity tips can go a long way in making them more effective and less stressed in the long run, which is a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Written for Emerge Digital by Dana Cane

Four Reasons Why Small Companies Need Cyber Security

Small businesses need cyber security to protect them in the event of a data breach, a cyber attack, or other security risks. Here, we’ll look at the four most important reasons why small businesses require smart and sustainable security solutions for the long term.

Protect Your Business
If you’re wondering how important is IT cyber security to small business, you’ll just need to look at some of the firms that have suffered with low protection in recent years. Those that have operated without the kind of cyber security protection offered by Emerge Digital have found themselves targeted by hackers and data thieves, leading to a loss of data and use disruption to their firm. Those with adequate IT cyber security measures have avoided these difficult, damaging and sometimes disastrous cyber threat events.

A smart cyber security partnership with a firm that you can trust to look after your data, look out for potential cyber threats, and secure your anti virus software, will help to alleviate the stress of operating a firm online in the digital age. Protection is your number one priority when it comes to your IT infrastructure and it should also be compliant with data protection laws and infrastructure protection to keep your firm going no matter what.

Find out how Emerge Digital can help secure your business

Increasing Need
The problem with cyber threats is that they develop over time. As cyber security becomes more sophisticated, so too do the threats that this security aims to protect against. In this pitched battle between the protectors and the attackers, there are often successful attacks that slip through. This is how businesses increasing need for cyber security remains incredibly important today.

To help you understand and protect against these developing threats, you should look to a managed security provider like Emerge Digital. Our team have worked in this space for years, responding to emerging threats and adjusting our approach so that the firms that we work with are always up to date when it comes to their software protection and the advice that we offer to your digital teams.

Smart Management
Small businesses and individuals often believe that downloading a cyber security software package will be enough to protect their personal computers or their business laptops from security incidents. Unfortunately, this approach is often simply inadequate when it comes to responding to the sheer volume and diversity of threats in the online space, and to protect your business properly, you need a managed approach. UK businesses deserve better from their cyber security, and that’s what Emerge Digital aims to offer: smart, helpful, reliable cyber security services. If you’re wondering how do we manage cyber security in a small business, talk to one of our expert advisors on the phone, email a query, or explore our website for case studies of the fine work we’ve achieved in the past.

Lack of Resources
At Emerge Digital, we’ve worked with small businesses for years. We know what makes firms like yours tick and we know how your resources are balanced finely in your quest to secure high profits year after year. We know, too, that it’s simply impossible for you to pay a full IT team in-house to protect your business from cyber threats. Local businesses simply don’t have the resources and that’s why our IT support business is proud to serve the small business community in the UK.

Our approach is tailored around the digital infrastructure that your business maintains. Whether you’re selling products online, maintaining a digital ordering system, or using customer and company data to refine your sales strategy, our security measures will help you to continue doing business with confidence. Small, local businesses might look like an easy target for hackers who are looking for a quick win through phishing, data acquisitions, or cyber threats, and that means it’s incredibly important that you partner with a managed IT services firm that can help you deal with cyber threats across the digital world.

Conclusions
These four factors should help you to reconsider your firm’s cyber security. At Emerge Digital, we’re happy to talk further with you about the cyber threats we see small businesses falling foul of across the UK, and what we can do to guarantee your firm protection from this disruption in the future.

How to Choose an IT Support Company

When you’re looking for IT support, you’re looking for trustworthiness and reliability. Ideally, you’ll want a team that will support you no matter what, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. And you’ll also be looking for an established firm, one that will run smoothly and help your small business flourish without dealing with headaches over the quality of your tech. These five tips will help you pick that IT support company.

1. Trust
You need to trust the IT support company that you choose to work with. Whether you’re concerned about your cyber security offerings, or you need a team to help you with disaster recovery, you’re ultimately on the lookout for a team that you know you can rely on when tech issues reach a point that your company cannot deal with alone.
How will you determine the trustworthiness of the tech support firms you’re browsing on the market? Well, you’ll be able to look at reviews online, which will help you see what other partners of the tech firm have experienced. You’ll also be able to conduct conversations with the IT support representatives, asking them questions about how they operate and what their experience can help your firm with. At Emerge Digital, we’re always at hand to take your calls and queries.

2. Experience
Another important consideration when engaging in a partnership with a tech support firm is their level of experience. Every partner that the IT support firm have worked with in the past will inform their approach in the future, helping them build on their past learnings. At Emerge Digital, we’ve helped hundreds of UK business shore up their computer systems against contemporary threats and bugs.

So, when wondering what to look for in an IT support company, you should keep an eye out for those firms which have a proven track record of working with firms like yourselves. Check with representatives from managed IT support companies to see if they’re used to helping firms like yours.

3. Full Services
When you partner with an IT support company like Emerge Digital, you’re looking for a firm that has all bases covered in your IT woes and difficulties. Why use IT support companies which can only guarantee you protection and services across a sliver of your IT systems? You’re looking for a firm you can turn to, whatever the difficulty.

Most small businesses are looking for experts who can bear the burden that an IT team would in a larger firm. Small companies rarely have the budget — or indeed the need — for in-house IT specialists. That’s why Small business IT support, including that offered at Emerge Digital, must cover the full spectrum of services required for businesses, like social media support, data protection, and cost effective software solutions.

4. Reliable
What does an IT support company do? It provides you with a safety net should you experience a data breach, a hack, a malware or ransomware attack, or a period of downtime that you hadn’t expected. This IT support is only effective if you know that you can turn to your partner at any time, with any problem.

This is a big part of your thought process when you’re considering how to choose an IT support company: can they guarantee they’ll help you at any time of the day, at any time of the year? At Emerge Digital, we’re proud to offer that guaranteed response time to customers and clients across the country.

5. Effective Contract
Even with the above tips, you’re still going to want the guarantees set in stone in a contract in order to really trust the IT support company that you choose to partner with. Your support contract needs to look to the long term, covering risks that feel imminent, and those which are more far off. All of this should be detailed in the contract that you draw up with your IT support partner.

Make sure that your lawyers take a look over the agreement you’re signing with your IT company of choice to guarantee that they’ll work for you through thick and thin, creating a lasting and profitable partnership across all support services and service level agreements.

Be sure to consider the five factors above before launching into a relationship with an IT support company in the future. A support team will ensure that your digital services run smoothly into the future, and that your information technology systems are protected from threats online. Why? Because the best in the business will maintain all your computer systems, providing a cost-effective service, with a guaranteed response time that will help your business grow with confidence in the digital age.

Hire in-house staff

For a lot of businesses, the ideal solution is to hire their own in-house IT staff. It not only supplies a significant degree of flexibility, but it also gives a business instant support and response to any IT-related issues.

There’s just one issue with this option: it can be a significant drain on finances.

An experienced and capable IT support engineer doesn’t come cheap, and this is especially the case when accounting for their pension and other potential financial bonuses. Oh, and one employee often isn’t enough, and a team will typically need to be assembled. If you add all this together, then you have an expense that could be too much for even a mid-sized business.

Pay-as-you-go IT support

Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) support, also known as ad-hoc support, is a suitable choice for small businesses that don’t have a heavy reliance on technology. With a PAYG contract, you are simply charged every time you require any IT support. Expect to pay around £75 per hour for this type of service.

For a company that requires minimum support, this could be the most cost-effective option for the upkeep of their IT. Yet if you run a business with multiple employees and an intricate IT system, that type of fee is going to quickly mount up. In the end, a mid-size business could spend up to five figures each month on their IT support – which isn’t a favourable answer to the question posed by this article.

Managed support

For a small or medium-sized business that utilises a sophisticated IT system, arguably, the best option is to go with a fully managed IT support service. It will typically be the most cost-effective choice relative to the above picks. This is certainly the case if you make full use of the services that are often offered.

Yet pay particular attention to the word ‘often’. If you type into Google “cheapest managed IT support” and go with the first result, this could come back to haunt you. It’s never a good idea to select any type of IT provider based solely on the lowest cost. This also works the other way around. Just because a big provider has the most expensive package, this doesn’t necessarily mean they offer the best service.

This is why you ought to put your trust into a respected provider like Emerge Digital. As well as 24/7 support, you receive assistance from IT experts and benefit from specialist services. Best of all, it’s cost-effective and can be scaled up whenever required.