Coleman Technologies Blog

The cloud has proven to be an extremely useful tool for the modern business. Not only does it provide anywhere-anytime access to applications, processing, storage, et al; it also delivers those products as a service, allowing you to budget for recurring costs rather than major upfront ones. This provides your organization with functional, supported, and secure computing environments that eliminate a lot of the support costs that traditional computing environments require. It sounds like a perfect scenario for small and large businesses alike, but things aren’t always what they seem, as a lot of cloud users have found that they have incurred several hidden costs by using cloud platforms. Today, we take a look at these hidden costs.

A study from Research In Action polled 468 CIOs about their cloud usage and the costs associated with them. Many admitted that cloud investment was one of the largest expenses their organization would have from a technology point of view. The study went on to find that while a majority of CIOs considered the “hidden” costs of this technology, much of the concern is alleviated by the reputation of their vendors. Some of the potential problems they considered include:

Having to put forth more effort to properly manage vendors, and their corresponding Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Bottlenecking and the impact poor cloud performance could have on brand perception, productivity, and customer support.
The increased cost of solving complex problems inside cloud environments.

Are these concerns justified? Sure, but they are hard to measure. Many businesses just haven’t developed a system to properly quantify the perceived loss in revenue tied to cloud inefficiency. In fact, most companies don’t have updated, automated methods in use to track and manage their cloud performance.

Costs of Scalability

Many organizations also run into cloud cost overruns when dealing with the scale of their cloud platforms. Costs associated with over-provisioning (buying too much), under-provisioning (buying too little), management, and administration of cloud hosted environments present costs that may not look significant up front, but over time can have negative effects on the overall profitability of a business. Understanding the amount of space/processing you’ll need to meet your organization's needs is almost always going to be a fluid situation, but understanding how they affect your business’ bottom line is crucial to mitigate unwanted monetary responsibilities or cost overruns associated with the cloud platforms you utilize.

Going Too Far

Cloud platforms are nice, but you don’t have to look much further than your personal situation to see how the ease of use these platforms provide can get expensive pretty quick. For the individual, costs add up quick thanks to cloud-based streaming media and other platforms that come in a subscription model. You’ve got Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, and many, many more that are relatively cheap. Microsoft Office 365 is exceptionally useful and affordable, providing unparalleled value for about any computer user. The more you subscribe to, the more costs add up, which is why you’ll want to design, and stick to a dedicated plan to avoid overextending yourself, or your organization.

Utility computing in the cloud, whether it be applications, storage, processing, or some other form, is extraordinarily valuable, but only if you understand how to avoid paying more than you should for your cloud assets. The knowledgeable technicians at Coleman Technologies can help you come up with cloud deployment strategy, while also helping you avoid cost overruns typically associated with these assets. Call us today at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

There are several factors that contribute to the speed of a PC. Let's very briefly break these down:

CPU/Processor

The CPU handles all of calculations a computer performs. These days consumer-class CPUs handle billions and even trillions of instructions per second. While dated processors can greatly influence the actual speed of a computer, if your PC is fairly new (as in 1 or 2 years old, and possibly older for higher end builds) it's likely not bottlenecking your performance. Today, CPUs are equipped with two, four, or even more cores, which means the CPU can handle an more calculations exponentially and consume less electricity.

RAM/Memory

Random Access Memory is basically the short-term memory of your computer. While your computer is loading and running applications, they get stored in the RAM. The RAM is much faster than the hard drive, so your computer doesn't need to spin it's wheels looking for specific files and parts of applications. The more RAM you have, the more "stuff" that can be stored in it. The faster your RAM, the faster your computer can sift through the data that gets temporarily pushed into it. Once your RAM is full, your computer will depend on the hard drive to retrieve information, and that's where things get sluggish. Once you stop running a program, it will remove itself from the RAM to free up some space for everything else running.

Hard Drive

The hard drive is the storage device of a computer. For extremely high-end PCs, the hard drive is the bottleneck. Hard drives, when compared to RAM, are very slow to access and write information. Once your computer needs to rely on your hard drive heavily for RAM, things are going to start getting bogged down. While it's great that your PC can rely on your hard drive in this way for those times it needs some extra memory, it is likely this is the slowdown. Unfortunately, because hard drives are mechanical and have moving parts, there's limitations to how fast science can make them perform. There are costly solid-state drives, but as a performance-improving factor on a standard workstation, typically solid state drives aren't the cost-effective answer.

Of course, there are software factors as well. Malware and Spyware can bog down your system, and after a lot of use, temporary files can bog things down. Before upgrading hardware, you'll want to have a technician run a quick evaluation on your PC - it's possible a little cleanup can make all the difference in the world.

Otherwise, the next step is upgrading the RAM. RAM is usually relatively cheap, even to double or triple your existing RAM with faster, higher performance memory. Often the cost of the new RAM itself will be between $50 and $100, and more than likely less than that, and that's for a substantial increase, but it depends on your PC.

Is your computer running slow? Does it get bogged down by the time you have all of your day-to-day applications open? Contact us at (604) 513-9428 for a quick evaluation to see if a simple, cost-effective upgrade will help you perform your job more effectively.

One of the most asked questions we get is “How can you help us save money?” It’s the priority for anyone looking to outsource anything. So, naturally it has to be one of the first questions answered. In today’s blog, we’ll go through three ways that our brand of managed IT services functions to save our clients money.

Avoiding Downtime

One of the best ways we can save any organization money is to keep their operations functioning efficiently. We do this in many ways. First, we assess your business to find if you can make any immediate improvements to keep your business’ technology running more effectively. That includes replacing hardware, software, and strategies, and adding tools that will make your business more efficient. The more efficient your technology runs, the more you can get done. This productivity boost will increase revenue and bring more money into the organization.

After that, we use our state-of-the-art tools and organizational technology acumen to ensure that all the technology you do run is working. Every system on your network has a purpose, and if any of them go down—even for a few minutes—it can cost your business a lot in terms of money and negative reputation. Our monitoring platform keeps a finger on the pulse of your business’ IT, ensuring optimal uptime around the clock.

Finally, cyberattacks and other disasters can put a lot of pressure on your business. That’s why it’s important to do what you can to have a strategy to ensure continuity should you be unfortunate enough to have to deal with a cyberattack directly. Our comprehensive service can help in multiple ways. First, we can ensure all of your organization’s data is backed up so that should you need to restore your data, it is available. Second, we can outfit your network with all the tools available to keep your business secure. We also can recommend an end-user training platform that effectively gets your staff to be a proactive part of your ongoing cybersecurity strategy.

Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize

Very few entrepreneurs are IT experts. Hiring an in-house IT team can be extremely rewarding, but getting top talent can be difficult and expensive. Most businesses have found that outsourcing their IT management is a cost-effective alternative that covers all of their IT needs and allows them to shift focus to other matters crucial to the success of their business. 

Vendor relationships are crucial for every business, but they can command a lot of time. The last thing any business owner needs is more demands on their time. We manage compliance, acquisitions, and just about any situation with your technology vendors, taking another time-consuming task off your plate.

Things change fast in business; sometimes, you fear the worst when outsourcing such a critical part of your business to an outside vendor. We offer a comprehensive ticketing system that allows us to schedule our team to remediate any technology concerns you have quickly. We also feature a number of valuable support options that make it easy to handle any technology issue your business could have.

If you would like to have a conversation about how our services are well-positioned to save your business and how we can tailor a service plan to your business, give us a call today at (604) 513-9428.

What is art? It’s not an easy question to answer, especially with new techniques and mediums being developed all the time. By definition, art can be basically summed up as the creative expression of an individual through some medium.

For Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi, that medium is one that is familiar to those in and out of the art world.

Tatsuo Horiuchi Excels at His Craft…

…in a very literal sense. His art is not formed by clay or paint, but instead, the cells found in a Microsoft Excel worksheet.

Upon his retirement from his work as a medical equipment engineer, Tatsuo wanted to keep himself occupied, and his thoughts turned to becoming an artist. Lacking the supplies to do so traditionally (as well as the desire to invest in these supplies), the burgeoning artist decided to utilize a tool that he already had access to: Excel.

As he had never actively used the software for his work, Tatsuo dove into learning about the software and its features, teaching himself how to use different tools to accomplish different things. The autoshape feature helps with the overall design, the graph-focused line tool was repurposed to create trees, and the fill tool allows him to accomplish the shading that amplifies a painting’s depth. Gradually teaching himself these little tricks, Tatsuo’s process began in 2000 with the goal of creating something he would be willing to show to people within 10 years. His first three years were focused on learning to use Excel’s tools to create recognizable shapes and objects, while the next three were focused on combining them all into a cohesive image. In 2006, he won the Excel Autoshape Art Contest.

Since then, Tatsuo’s art has been featured at the Gunma Museum of Art, an honor shared by the likes of Monet and Renoir.

You can check out some of his work here.

One Moral of the Story: Technology Can Be Leveraged in Many Ways

All it takes is a bit of ingenuity. That being said, we don’t want your business to go without the information technology that would benefit its processes—or that keeps it compliant with various regulations and requirements.

Our team at Coleman Technologies has been helping businesses around British Columbia manage their IT since YEAR, and we’d love the opportunity to help you with yours. While we can’t promise to turn your team into award-winning artists, we can help them do more with their technology. Find out more about our managed IT services and what they can help you accomplish by calling (604) 513-9428.

As a small business, we’re sure you want to improve your profit margin so that you can offer more exciting and innovative services or products. One way that many businesses bleed capital is through their IT expenses. While it might make sense on paper to address technology challenges only when they present themselves, the truth is the exact opposite.

In reality, you want to address technology problems well before they surface, as the costs of waiting for them to materialize can snowball out of control, and fast. Rather than taking a reactive approach to your IT maintenance, we recommend you take the following proactive measures today to prevent downtime and save some capital in the process.

Patch and Update Your Systems

Your infrastructure consists of software and hardware, both of which need to be regularly updated to prevent potential issues. Software should be patched to keep security breaches as far away from your business as possible. At the same time, hardware should be upgraded to prevent a hardware failure from causing absurd amounts of downtime. MSPs like Coleman Technologies are trained to handle both of these tasks, and in cases that don’t involve hardware issues, we can even do them remotely.

Remote Monitoring and Management

In situations where we are not on-premises to keep an eye on your systems, we can still be there in spirit, so to speak, by remotely monitoring and managing them. It’s simple; hardware will showcase symptoms of an impending failure long before it actually kicks the bucket. If these can be detected and addressed before the failure, you avoid the fallout and keep operations running unimpeded. 

Perform Routine Maintenance According to a Schedule

Your business’ IT infrastructure should have a routine maintenance schedule where its many bits and pieces are examined regularly. If you build a schedule like this and stick to it, the chances of experiencing a hardware failure or major downtime incident drop considerably. Granted, we know that you might not have all the time in the world to do this, but we sure do, and we want to help you proactively monitor your technology through a maintenance schedule.

Get Started with Proactive Maintenance Today

Every day you’re waiting for your technology to break down is another day you risk spending considerable time and capital recovering from a hardware failure. Don’t let your technology take you by surprise; plan for its inevitable failure by working with Coleman Technologies. We can help you implement a plan of action that starts well before your IT experiences issues. To learn more, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

A successful business thrives on building beneficial relationships, which generates a lot of data and contracts that need to be efficiently shared and stored. While this might seem straightforward, leveraging today’s technology can significantly cut down on filing costs and enhance file-sharing efficiency. Let’s explore how.

Traditional Methods of File Retrieval and Storage

Before delving into modern solutions, it’s essential to understand the traditional methods of file storage. The costs associated with filing cabinets are substantial. An average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper annually, and it costs nearly $25,000 to fill a typical file cabinet, with an additional $2,000 each year for maintenance. Given these costs, it’s no surprise that businesses seek to transform their file management systems.

Modern File Management Solutions

Digital file management has transformed how organizations handle information, making it more efficient and accessible. Cloud storage solutions allow users to store large amounts of data securely online, accessible from any device with an Internet connection. This eliminates the need for physical storage and reduces the risk of data loss from hardware failures. Cloud platforms often feature real-time collaboration, automatic backups, and version control, enabling multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously and revert to previous versions as needed.

Modern digital file management systems also offer sophisticated organizational tools, such as tagging, metadata, and advanced search functions, which help users quickly locate files. These systems include built-in security measures like encryption and access controls to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.

Digital systems can also reduce costs by streamlining the dissemination of information. Documents can be stored in searchable databases, enabling real-time queries and access from any location via smartphones. Smart contract services allow clients and customers to sign documents digitally, a service that will become more and more commonplace for consumers. 

Overall, advancements in digital file management not only improve data organization and access but also enhance security and collaboration, helping businesses cut down on excessive file management costs. Implementing this technology is crucial for any growing business.

To learn more about modern file management and file sharing solutions, contact the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

As we’re in the midst of Q3 of 2023, common wisdom says that now is about the time that small businesses should be planning their budgets for the next fiscal year. As such, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to give managed IT services some serious consideration.

Let’s review what it is that makes managed services so budget-friendly.

First, Managed Services are Designed to Be Inherently Scalable 

One great way to eat through your IT budget is to invest in more than your business needs—maintaining more subscriptions to various services than your staffing requires, for instance. A managed service provider can help you avoid this kind of overinvestment by ensuring that you have precisely the resources you need, working with your vendors firsthand to ensure that you are limiting your overspending, and even negotiating better deals for your business. 

Second, Managed Services are Very Inclusive, in Terms of Their Offerings

By virtue of their business model, a managed service provider is motivated to fulfill as many needs as possible. In addition to offering you comprehensive remote and in-person support as circumstances demand, most managed service providers will interface with your vendors on your behalf, taking advantage of the combined needs of their entire client base to get special deals… passing the savings on to you.

That’s not all, either. Many MSPs will work with you to develop a roadmap for your technology to follow as your needs change and your company ideally grows, helping you grow your business without spending capital on unnecessary investments.

Third, Managed Services are Convenient, Which Adds Value

Time, as they say, is money. The longer any number of your team is prevented from working at their highest level of productivity, the more money you’re watching go down the drain. This is what makes the all-hours accessibility of your MSP so invaluable. You have the comfort of knowing that your network is being watched at all hours, allowing you to focus more of your work time on other tasks, and your personal time on your own rest and recuperation.

Plus, managed services allow your team members to quickly and conveniently access IT assistance whenever it may be needed, to any degree. This means that your team will no longer need to wait around for assistance when they need it—they’ll have a trusted provider waiting in the wings to help.

Fourth, Managed Services are Proactive, Which Helps Eliminate Additional Spending

Which sounds like a better way for your team to spend their time: constantly calling support for assistance with frustrating little issues, or simply getting their work done without issues interfering with their productivity? Hopefully, you answered with the second option, which is precisely what the proactive nature of an MSP’s services help to facilitate.

The better your technology is maintained, the longer it will ultimately last and assist your business, with fewer repair costs and not needing replacement nearly as often. When all is said and done, paying a consistent and predictable cost to keep your IT working will always be simpler to budget than crossing your fingers and paying as issues arise.

If It Wasn’t Already Clear, We Recommend that You Consider What Managed Services Could Do for Your Budget

We’re more than happy to answer any questions you may have about our services, too, and how they could prove to be a more friendly option where your operational costs are concerned. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

When times get tough, businesses are pretty quick to start cutting costs wherever they can…and frequently, the business’ IT is the first thing to hit the chopping block.

While we contend that IT is the last thing you want to cut back on when times are tough, you may not have a choice. Therefore, we wanted to take a few moments to explore how you can resist some of these cuts—and if not, what you need to prioritize.

Let’s begin with why you should avoid cutting your IT spending if you can help it.

Let Me Ask You This: Would You Fire Your Most Effective Employee if You Were Downsizing?

Cutting your IT spending is effectively doing just that—for modern businesses, IT can often be seen as another employee, and one who accomplishes a considerable amount for your business each and every day. If you were to really take a deep dive into the benefits that your IT provides to your business, we’d be willing to bet that your IT does a lot more than you might have considered without taking that deep dive.

Therefore, if you “fire” your business’ technology by cutting down on its budget, you’re quite literally hindering one of your most effective business resources. So, what do you do if you have no choice but to downsize your IT budget?

How to Downsize Your Budget without Hurting Your IT

First, you need to properly identify which IT metrics should be focused on, as there is a huge difference between suspending a potential technology after a failed stress test and suspending a reliable and proven function that provides measurable value. Otherwise, you could potentially create what is called a false economy—perceived savings that result in higher costs later on.

It’s also important to acknowledge that some costs simply should not be cut, like technology refreshes. While it may be tempting to do so, the relative value that these investments bring make them too valuable to sacrifice.

If You Need to Minimize Your Budget While Still Getting the Most Value, Consider Managed IT Services

I know, I know… the advice for trimming a budget being to add another service may sound crazy, but there are a few ways that working with an MSP can prove to be a great cost-saving investment.

First of all, you need to consider that signing on with a managed service provider is effectively the equivalent of hiring an entire IT department for a predictable monthly cost. An MSP also gives you easy access to better deals from vendors and more advanced IT tools that allow you to accomplish more with less. Cloud-delivered services, virtualized tools and software, and remote-enabling technologies can all have a positive impact on your expenses.

My team and I would love to discuss this with you further, so if you need assistance in streamlining your IT to better fit your available budget, please give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

Don't be Afraid to Replace

Got an older PC that's causing you a lot of issues? Older technology is typically more expensive to run, and after a while, it's cheaper to simply buy a new desktop than it is to continue pouring money into something that always seems broken. It's a great time to buy workstations, and if things are tight you can even buy refurbished desktops to keep costs low.

Enforce Energy Efficiency

If you reduce the amount of energy your technology uses each day, your utility bill from the electric company will decrease as well. Switching to LCD monitors (if you are still using old CRT dinosaurs), and enforcing company-wide policies to turn off monitors or put workstations to sleep at night can make a big difference.

Stop Dealing with Vendors

You hired your employees to work, not sit on the phone with a PC manufacturer because your hard drive crashed. Businesses waste money by paying employees to go around in circles with vendor tech support all the time. IT firms like Coleman Technologies build relationships with vendors and are able to get things done faster. This means issues get resolved quickly and your employees don't need to deal with less-than-helpful support.

Stop Paying your Phone Bill

Yes, you heard us right. Cease paying your phone company by switching over to a VoIP solution instead. Small businesses save up to 80% on their telephone communication expenses, so the investment pays for itself quickly. Many VoIP systems allow your users to take their phone and use it anywhere, giving you increased flexibility and functionality.

Get Proactive Monitoring and Maintenance

Nearly all day-to-day IT issues can be completely prevented with just a little bit of maintenance. Coleman Technologies offers these services to our clients, reducing the amount of downtime they experience. Traditional computer support only fix computer issues when they arise. Coleman Technologies provides proactive monitoring and maintenance to ensure fewer issues plague your business.

Business Printing

In the past, businesses greatly relied on the use of their printers, but it really can’t be said that this use is particularly monitored, even now. As a matter of fact, a survey conducted by Buyer’s Laboratory suggests that a full 90 percent of companies (yes, nine-zero) don’t keep track of their printing costs - a number that can regularly add up to over five percent of a business’ total revenue. If this seems high, take a moment to consider the different expenses that contribute to this total.

Naturally, you have to consider the resources you need in order to use a printer. You need the requisite paper and ink, but not many people would think to include the electrical costs of keeping the printer in operation. You also need to take the time (about 15 percent of it) that your IT department spends dealing with printer-related issues and the 23 percent of help desk calls that are made in regard to these issues.

This all impacts your operational budget, and there’s a chance that you weren't even aware of it.

What Can Be Done?

For starters, you need to begin tracking your printing costs, as it will be beneficial to find out how much of your budget is potentially being eaten away by unneeded spending there. Secondly, you should implement a print management solution to make it easier to continue this tracking in the future.

In order to really get the most out of your print management solution, you should have a strategy that allows you to do so. By granting you with greater insights into your printing, you can figure out ways to minimize or eliminate excessive costs, without negatively impacting the accessibility of printed materials.

When considering your options for a print management platform, we recommend that you look for the following features:

• Comprehensive Assessments - As we said, many organizations don’t use any tools to keep track of their printing costs. This tool in particular will give you a better idea of how much is being printed, where it is being printed from, and when your devices are due for maintenance.
• Print Management - A print management platform can provide you with precise controls over how your printers can be used.
• Paper-to-Digital Conversions - By transferring your printed resources into digital ones, you can evaluate the value that they provide when printed and better optimize your printing costs.
• Better Security - It stands to reason that your data security can improve when you have more control over this data. Hard copies inherently mean that you have less control, and a greater risk of a security issue.
• Tracking Capabilities - By tracking how much is being printed, you can help optimize your costs through implementing certain controls, like user limitations on how much can be printed in a set amount of time.
• Setting Print Policies - You can set up resource-saving policies like enforcing double-sided printing and establishing print quotas to prevent users from abusing the office printer.

If your business’ documents are resulting in excessive costs, reach out to our IT experts today! Coleman Technologies can help you keep your printing under control. Call (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

Information technology—IT—is a necessity for the vast majority of modern businesses to function. For the sake of these businesses and their operations, it pays to optimize this IT by any means available.

Let’s go over the benefits that a relationship with a managed service provider gives businesses, particularly regarding the overall efficiency these businesses see as a result.

Managed Services Make Technology Optimization the Standard

This is key because an optimized IT infrastructure will be an efficient one.

Efficiency is, after all, the goal of optimizing it in the first place. Older technologies will naturally slow down with age, particularly when compared to newer technologies. This is ultimately unavoidable.

That said, maintaining these older technologies as they age can help extend their useful

lifetimes simply because doing so helps remove some of the factors that speed up a device’s degradation. It won’t make these devices unendingly useful by any stretch, but it will help them remain efficient for longer than otherwise.

Of course, once the time comes that replacement is more efficient than maintenance, a managed service provider will help identify the technology that meets the current needs for it with room for the future.

This Leads to the Next Benefit: Cost Optimization

While giving your team less than they need doesn't make sense, giving them too much doesn’t make any more sense.

So far, our focus has been on ensuring your technology keeps up with your business’ and, by extension, your team’s demands. Let’s consider the opposite scenario, one in which every member of your team has the same hardware and software regardless of their role or need for the technology.

It almost makes sense if considered from a particular perspective—”Maybe they’ll grow in their skills and take on responsibilities that would call for X-program or Y-hardware!” Of course, then there’s the argument that working with an MSP makes just about every technology you invest in much easier to scale.

With an MSP in your corner, it becomes far easier for you to scale your different technologies in such a way that everyone has exactly what their role requires. Nothing more, nothing less, and if something changes, it is far simpler to adjust what they have to fit their new responsibilities.

These Are Just Two Ways that an MSP Helps a Business Optimize Its IT

What else do you think an MSP could help your business do?

You can find out. Give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428 to learn more about what we can do for you.

Unexpected downtime can wreak havoc on businesses large and small, which is especially bad when so many paths lead to it. Let’s explore some of downtime’s causes, and equally importantly, how it can be avoided.

What is Downtime, and What Causes It?

Simply put, downtime is when your technology cannot fulfill its function, disrupting your workflow and halting operations.

With how businesses run nowadays, any level of interruption is unacceptable. Not only does it put you at a competitive disadvantage, but it often costs a lot to resolve, on top of being expensive in the first place. You’re losing money because you’re missing out on revenue generation and productivity, and you’ll end up paying—both in terms of your actual recovery and damage to your business’ reputation. Combining all these factors reveals just how damaging a given downtime event is.

The Causes of Business Downtime Vary Wildly

• Cybersecurity Threats: It should be no surprise that cyberattacks often result in some level of downtime, particularly throughout the event and especially when attack vectors like ransomware are involved.
• Misconfigured Devices: On a related note, devices with errors in their configurations leave doors open for these cybersecurity threats to come in.
• Hardware or Software Failure: The older and more obsolete hardware and software become, the more likely they will hang up and fail.
• Natural Disasters: Inclement weather and other such events can lead to downtime in various ways, from power outages to damaging your business’ physical infrastructure.
• Human Error: Accidents, such as inadvertent data deletion or even tripping over the wrong power cable, can easily lead to downtime.

Make No Mistake: Downtime is No Fun

Fortunately, modern businesses have various means to help minimize, if not avoid, downtime… despite its unpredictable nature. Coleman Technologies is committed to assisting the businesses of British Columbia in utilizing them, including:

Backup and Disaster Recovery
Since downtime is frequently associated with disasters, being able to recover quickly from them can significantly reduce it. Having the preparations in place to do so will not only protect your business but also its productivity.

Help Desk
A help desk is intended to give your team a resource to turn to in case they encounter an issue. If they are experiencing downtime, a professional is on hand to diagnose and resolve it.

Remote Monitoring and Maintenance
Your devices will indicate if something is wrong, but someone must pay attention. An RMM tool does this for you, alerting you to problems while they are still impending and ensuring that the little things that also help prevent downtime, like updates, are attended to promptly.

If you would like to learn more about how to avoid the consequences of downtime, contact our team. Give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Data is at the heart of all successful modern businesses. The information you collect and store can help you make better decisions, plan better strategies, and gain a competitive advantage. Let’s look at how your raw data can be refined into more meaningful insights through the use of business analytics tools.

How Business Analytics Work

Business analytics help you turn your data into action. With the right tools, you can make sense of the elements that impact your business, like:

• Your business performance
• Current trends in your market
• Your customer behaviors

In essence, analytics takes the nitty-gritty behind your organization’s operations and helps you create real change. When used appropriately, analytics can guide your organization’s decision-making.

Why Use Business Analytics?

Larger businesses used to be the only ones capable of leveraging these tools, but SMBs now can do so as well. You can use it to perform the following tasks:

Use Data to Fuel Decision-Making

If you make decisions based on facts rather than assumptions, you can see real progress with better business choices. 

Identify Market Trends and Customer Preferences

Once you understand the market and your customers, you can better address the needs of the greater business niche you have adopted and your customers.

Improve Operational Efficiency and Cut Costs

Business is all about being efficient with what you have. There’s no need to work harder than you need to, and analytics can help you identify opportunities to do more of this.

Business Analytics Can Improve Your Organization

It can be challenging to make sense of this data, but SMBs have several options to make it more manageable. Here are the steps you can follow:

Compile Your Data

First, you have to collect and organize your data. This might include customer, financial, and sales data. To make the task easier, you can use various platforms, such as your customer relationship management software, for inventory management tools.

Once it’s all organized, you can analyze it for patterns and trends.

Implement the Right Tools

If you want to use your data properly, you’ll need the tools to do so. There are plenty of tools on the market, and we would be happy to recommend those we have used successfully.

How to Measure the Success of Business Analytics

You want to make sure the effort you expend to make good use of your data is worth it, which is where setting up key performance indicators comes in handy. KPIs help you determine your own metrics for success, like increased sales, reduced costs, and improved customer experiences. If you’re not improving your business with data analytics, then what good are they?

You Can Count On Us to Equip You with the Right Tools

We want our clients to have the best tools available, and you are no exception. Contact us at (604) 513-9428 today to learn more about using your data to its full potential.

Funerals are never to be taken lightly, which makes it all the worse that there are people out there willing to use these events to scam those in grief. Recently, Facebook has seen many groups that supposedly offer links to streamed funerals in exchange for credit card data, with different events being added more recently.

Let’s break down these scams and establish how to avoid them in your own life.

Scammers Claim They Provide Livestreams to Funerals

We’ve all lost someone important to us in the past, and there may have been times when we could not make it to their services or celebration of life. Scammers have realized this and are now creating Facebook pages that purportedly offer access to a stream of the event.

For instance, let’s pretend Bob P. Example recently passed away. Using the information about his planned services, a scammer can set up a Facebook group that shares the time of the events and offers to stream the services. These pages then divert those wishing to remember a loved one to an external website, where they are asked for their credit card information and—in some particularly ghoulish situations—donations in honor of the deceased.

I can’t be sure, but I’d be willing to bet that Bob would rather his loved ones keep their money and remember him as they can.

Multiple Outlets Have Spotted These Scams

Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs, of KrebsOnSecurity, shared that many of the links that these events pushed would go to domains referencing streaming in some way.

MalwareBytes Labs also found plenty of examples of this kind of scam, many leading to websites that required a sign-in to “watch your favorite movies.” I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I would describe someone’s streamed funeral. Once the sign-in process is complete, MalwareBytes found that the sites would then ask for credit card information, supposedly to verify that the user was in a country the site could stream to. Interestingly, hidden on the page was a preselected button authorizing a second membership and doubling the payments.

How to Keep Yourself and Others From Being Scammed

First, you should always check the website a funeral home allegedly hosting a live-streamed service maintains. Many have begun posting that funerals are not being live streamed, making this kind of disclosure to fight this very threat.

Second, you should never provide credit card details unless you are certain where your money is going. It also helps to keep some advice from the UK’s National Association of Funeral Directors in mind: 

“Watching the livestream of a funeral service is free of charge – you should never be asked for payment. Any livestream or fundraising links will be provided by the funeral director to the bereaved family, so please always check any links or pages with the family or funeral director first – and never accept friend/page follow requests, or click links, without checking them out first.”

Let’s go over some of the ways that an MSP can help reduce your support costs, while still providing better support than the alternative.

Where Support Costs Build Up

Take a moment and consider why technology costs tend to rise so rapidly once an issue is discovered.

• The technology itself could be expensive to repair or replace.
• The repair fee will likely include fees and travel costs in addition to the cost of the service itself.
• The repair is likely only focused on fixing the immediate problem, without considering if it will recur or if the fix itself will cause further problems down the road, leading to repeat visits.
• If an issue does happen, you have to call in the technician for them to come and actually fix the problem. This all takes a lot of time, before the repair even takes place, which itself can take a large amount of billable time as well. So, in addition to paying for the travel time for the tech to get there and the time they spend solving the issue, you are also incurring costs through missed productivity.
• It is next to impossible to predict these kinds of expenses when trying to budget out your year, as you can never know when you may be surprised. If you set aside too little, you could drain your budget long before you planned.

Of course, this is assuming that you would call a regular tech support company and that you didn’t have a managed service agreement with an MSP. Most of the above issues can be resolved much more efficiently (and cost-efficiently) through a managed approach, as we’ll demonstrate:

How MSPs Ease These Budgetary Challenges

Let’s go through the reasons we went through before, that would typically lead to swelling costs and exceeded budgets. This time, however, we’ll assume that you’re leaning on an MSP for your IT assistance and support.

• While the technology could be expensive for others to procure, the MSP likely has developed a relationship with vendors who can provide them with more affordable solutions.
• Many problems can actually be resolved remotely, as the MSP takes full advantage of. This means that travel costs are usually unnecessary, and anything that falls within the agreement with the MSP is covered by a consistent monthly fee.
• In addition to fixing the problem at hand, the MSP uses their access and vantage point to identify the root cause of the issue. This means that the issue itself is resolved, preventing future intervention from becoming necessary.
• Your MSP will also monitor your technology for these kinds of issues, using special tools that alert them of inconsistencies and errors. Since they use remote access to do so, they can even find potential problems and proactively fix them. Even if an on-site visit is required, it may be included in the agreement, as well. As a result, your team can return to work--and therefore productivity--that much quicker.
• With a recurring and inclusive fee for these services, budgeting for a managed service provider is a relative breeze. Any changes you need to make (like if you add more employees to further boost your productivity) can easily be incorporated into your monthly fee, keeping costs in check.

Interested in finding out more? Reach out to our team and ask about what other benefits working with us can bring! Call (604) 513-9428 today.

There is a scam going around that convinces organizations to pay for their Google Business Profile, and if you paid for this free service, you’ve fallen for the trick. Google is taking legal action against the scammers who have dragged their name through the mud, using Google’s notoriety to defraud businesses who just want to look competitive.

Let’s look at the announcement to determine what your business should keep in mind regarding these scammers.

Google Wants Consequences for the Scammers Who Charge Businesses for Business Profiles

The first thing you need to understand is that a Google Business Profile is free for business owners to claim and use to share information about their business with the public. This means that anyone who calls you to tell you to pay up for the profile is straight-up lying to you and attempting to scam you.

The problem has escalated to the point where Google needs to take action against these scams. The idea is that taking public legal action against the scammers will keep would-be scammers from acting while also increasing public awareness of these issues. Google’s blog post claims they were able to stop 12 million scammers from creating fake Business Profiles, and that there were 8 million attempts to fraudulently claim Business Profiles.

Again, Google charges nothing for Business Profiles. Such accounts are mutually beneficial; they give you a platform to show off information about your business, and Google can make their search engine better as a result. If you ever receive a phone call from someone claiming to be Google to sell you a profile, then you can rest assured it is most definitely a scam.

How You Can Identify Phishing Scams

Phishing scams can be tricky to identify, but with a little knowledge and training, you and your staff can be well-prepared to deal with any scams that might come your way.

• Look for urgency: Most scams will operate with a sense of urgency to get you to act before you have had a chance to think things through. Don’t fall for it; nothing is so important that it can’t wait 10 minutes while you verify the request.
• The devil is in the details: If you receive a call from someone who claims to be from Google, for example, you can always check the Google Business Profile page to view details on account creation. In this case, the page confirms that it is free, so you know you’re the target of a scam.
• Don’t take any risks: If you have reason to believe that a call or a message is a scam, don’t give yourself any room to make a mistake; just hang up or ignore the message until you can confirm that the message is legitimate or fake. If it’s not, then the person on the other end will surely have to respect your caution.

Let’s Make Your Business Security a Top Priority

If you are ready to take scams and cybersecurity seriously, Coleman Technologies can support you throughout the process. To learn more, contact us today at (604) 513-9428.