Businesses are increasingly reliant on technology, and effectively managing IT support costs has become crucial. With approximately three to six percent of a company's revenue allocated to technology expenses, exceeding the monthly budget can have adverse repercussions on the ability to allocate funds elsewhere.

Printing has been a major part of most businesses for a long time. It’s how ideas were shared for decades. The past couple, however, have seen the need for printed resources go way down, but that often doesn’t stop businesses from wasting useful capital on unnecessary printing. This month, we thought we’d give you three tips to help you reduce your printing costs, month after month.

A company's IT strategy plays a pivotal role in shaping its entire operational approach. This underscores the critical importance of meticulously crafting your organization's IT strategy. Beyond merely aligning your IT resources and support with your business objectives, a tailored IT strategy empowers you to adapt to the specific conditions in which you operate and devise practical solutions to your unique business challenges. But the advantages don't end there; let's outline several compelling reasons why businesses should consider customizing their IT strategy to harmonize with their core business initiatives.

Downtime in a business context can be considered a "business predator" because it can have detrimental effects on a company's operations, profitability, and overall success. Downtime refers to the period during which a business' critical systems, processes, or equipment are not functioning as intended. Here are some reasons why downtime is often seen as a threat to businesses.

Financial Impact

Downtime can result in significant financial losses. When key revenue-generating systems or production processes are unavailable, businesses may lose sales, incur extra expenses, or face penalties for failing to meet contractual obligations. Downtime can also prevent a business from pursuing new opportunities or responding to market changes. In a rapidly evolving market, missing out on opportunities can have long-term consequences, and can be the difference between business growth and stagnation.

Operational Impact

Downtime leads to decreased productivity as employees cannot perform their tasks efficiently. This results in wasted time, missed deadlines, and a drop in overall output. In cases where downtime is due to data loss or system failures, it can result in the loss of critical information, which can be difficult or impossible to recover. This can have severe consequences for businesses, especially when it comes to sensitive or irreplaceable data. Frequent downtime can demoralize employees who must deal with the frustration and stress of interrupted work. Low morale can lead to higher turnover rates and decreased employee engagement.

Customer Impact

Prolonged or frequent downtime can do significant damage to a company's reputation. Customers and partners may perceive the business as unreliable, which can be challenging to overcome. Also, these unfortunate companies may find it challenging to compete effectively in markets with companies that show better reliability.

If you struggle with downtime, you can do better. If you don’t, you need to ensure that continues. The IT professionals at Apex Technology can help. We can introduce you to technologies and strategies that are designed specifically to reduce downtime and improve operational efficiency. Get a professional perspective by calling (704) 895-0010 today.

With countless threats out there waiting for IT professionals to slip up, it’s no small wonder that many of these professionals are opting into what is called a zero-trust policy for their security standards. So, what exactly is a zero-trust policy, and more importantly, how is it so effective at mitigating security problems in organizational computing? 

Somehow, it’s December. Can you believe it? 

2023 is practically upon us, and hopefully by now you’ve started to put some thought into how your business will maneuver through the next 12 months. It’s important to establish an IT plan and budget, so that your technology can actually be a value center as opposed to an expense.

Project management can be an exceptionally tricky part of implementing any new solution or service for your business. While technology can help with this process, you’ll want to understand how its implementation helps in the grand scheme of things. We’ll help explain how value-based managed IT services can help you ensure projects are completed with minimal downtime and technology hiccups.

When you buy into any idea, you need to ask yourself, “how much money am I willing to spend?” The same goes for your business’ IT. Of course, your business isn’t a public television telethon, but today, we’re going to pretend it is by going through the levels of investment you can make and how it can impact your business. 

Businesses that sell goods have always used inventory management, whether using pen and paper or a spreadsheet. In the information age, inventory management is more complex and with a lot of businesses operating on the Internet, it is more important to manage well. This month, we will discuss what modern inventory management entails and how technology can provide the efficiency your business needs to be successful.

“It won’t happen to me.” This is a common excuse amongst business owners who refuse to equip their network with a comprehensive data backup and recovery solution. They may feel like they’re careful enough to avoid a major data loss-causing disaster. Yet, the inconvenient fact remains that a disaster can happen to any business, no matter how prepared they may be.

Whether we like it or not, remote work is not going anywhere, and now that employees have gotten a taste of what it feels like to work remotely, more are eager to do so than ever before. Unfortunately, the reality is that employers are eventually going to want their employees to return to the office in at least some capacity. How can employers do this without upsetting employees too much? The answer lies in a hybrid work environment.

In all aspects of society, upgrades and updates have become part of life. For instance, consider how often you’re prompted to update your software—and how often some people may ignore these prompts, assuming that everything will be just fine.

As you might imagine, this is not the mindset that will allow your business to advance. Instead, it’s important that you can identify when your technology is no longer helping and is instead holding you back so that you can implement that which will help your business advance.

Digital transformation is projected to make huge waves in the business environment, with an anticipated value of approximately $767 billion by the year 2026. It’s clear that businesses have lofty ambitions and expectations for their digital transformation initiatives, but there is a shadow that is cast on this number that holds many companies back: many of these initiatives fail, and fail hard. Why is this the case? We explore these reasons in this month’s newsletter. 

Imagine this scenario: you’re going about your daily tasks when you receive an email from a cybersecurity company claiming that you have become the target of a hacking attack. Now, you don’t work in IT, so you’re not sure what your security agency is or what security policies or procedures you have in place, so you trust the message and respond to the email. Unfortunately, the message came from a cyberthreat, and now you are on their hook, line and sinker.

Saving on capital expenditures is the successful business owner’s superpower. Today, a lot of the strategic cost-cutting that is being done is through collaboration. When you increase the productivity of your staff, you can do more with less. Let’s look at some of the tools being used by successful organizations to enhance their productivity.

With businesses actively searching for ways to cut costs in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, one place a lot of businesses are considering cutting is their printing initiatives. Today, there are several new solutions that can provide businesses options without having to rely on printed materials. If your business is one that cannot, however, you should know just how much your printer is costing your business. In today’s blog, we’ll review how you can calculate this investment.

When many businesses look to hire new staff, they typically have a series of qualifications they need each applicant to meet before they grant interviews. They make their selection, do their entrance training, and then expect that the new hire will settle in and be as productive as possible as soon as possible.

Most businesses rely on keeping a certain amount of goods and resources in stock. For manufacturers and retailers, controlling your business’ inventory is essential to the success of their whole business. Today, there are inventory management tools that can give your business the confidence to know that you will have the resources and products in stock when you need them. This month, we’ll take a brief look at the modern Inventory management system. 

Voice over Internet Protocol phone systems, better known as VoIP, has completely changed the way that businesses communicate both internally with their teams and externally with their clients and customers. It’s not difficult to see why, but to understand the value that it brings to the table might require you to examine a hard truth about traditional business telephone systems: they are not designed with the consumer in mind.

Technology can often be a bit of a pain point for businesses, especially during the rollout of new solutions that are supposedly designed with productivity in mind. Many of the stressors associated with new technology can come from your employees and their reactions to these new solutions.