Businesses today are heavily reliant on digital solutions for operations, marketing, security, payments, and more. Because of this, it?s extremely important for businesses to have a capable IT backbone and support system to ensure uninterrupted operations. However, excellent IT support is rarely cheap, which can be a problem for smaller businesses with limited resources. For these organizations, an outsourced IT helpdesk can be the best solution to keep their IT ecosystem running. Related article: Choosing The Right IT Ally How Does an IT Help Desk Work? An IT Help Desk can provide all the technical support needs of a business’s employees and/or customers. It allows users to troubleshoot problems, track and prioritize issues, and get assistance with products, services, or processes. An effective IT Help Desk can help reduce downtime, improve employee productivity, and increase customer satisfaction. To request technical assistance, employees and customers can either submit a ticket to the Help Desk, or they can search through a knowledge base with help content to find answers on their own. A robust IT helpdesk system can help users with the following: Bug fixes on company-issued software Questions about proper usage of hardware and software Incident monitoring Network and VPN troubleshooting Login and password problems Device compatibility Scheduled maintenance, upgrades, and patches What Are the Common Features of an IT Help Desk? For an IT Help Desk to provide exceptional support to employees and customers, it must have the following features: Ticketing system A ticketing system is a centralized platform that allows IT teams to manage employee conversations and respond to requests from multiple channels. The ticketing system will create a ticket that contextualizes the concern to help support agents resolve issues and provide personalized service. It must also be able to automatically route tickets to the agent best suited to handle the request, which is based on expertise, availability, or workload. Self-service portals A self-service portal is a website or an application that allows employees to find information and get help on their own. This can include FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and knowledge base articles. Employees can use the self-service portal to find answers to questions without needing to reach out to an agent. It?s also a great idea to create a place in the knowledge base for senior-level employees to share their knowledge with new hires or less-experienced peers. This can help the latter get up to speed quickly and prevent them from potentially clogging the helpdesk. This way, the ticket volume in the helpdesk queue becomes more manageable. Reporting and analytics IT Help Desk reporting and analytics tools can help businesses understand which areas employees or customers need the most assistance. Businesses can use these tools to track metrics such as ticket volume, response times, and first-contact resolution times. This information can also help them identify areas where their support system can be improved. Prebuilt dashboards provide real-time helpdesk metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) based on industry standards. This means that businesses can start generating reports right away, without having to configure the tools themselves. Custom reporting lets companies create a personalized view with the metrics most relevant to them. Related article: Empowering Nonprofits With IT What Are the Benefits of an IT Help Desk? Investing in an IT Help Desk can provide many benefits, such as: Reduced […]
Nonprofit organizations face special challenges; not only do they have strict budgets, but they are also mostly self-defined and have more than standard cookie-cutter business operations in place. At Info Advantage, we help to bridge the gap between Nonprofits and IT. We?re able to do this by offering solutions and services, training, and consulting that helps Nonprofit organizations raise funds and communicate with their stake holders while managing their operations more effectively. Here are a few ways that we can help: State Contracts: Acquire discounted pricing as an eligible buyer through our Woman Business Enterprise and New York State OGS contracts. Nonprofit Grants: Utilize and maximize available grants to manage IT more effectively. Procurement: Receive peace of mind with compliance and help building the dynamic, reliable, and sustainable IT structure you need to do the most good. Like many businesses, Nonprofit organizations have operational problems and productivity deficits that can be mitigated with the use of innovative technology. Operations bottlenecks can sink the effectiveness of these organizations; keeping resources scheduled and on-point can often be difficult for Nonprofits that seem to be handling all their issues as they arise. Technology can help Nonprofit organizations in numerous ways, here are 4 immediate benefits: Enhanced Efficiency & Production ? Automated systems often allow for increased efficiency and productivity that streamline processes and boost delivery. Expanded Reach ? Additional capacity to reach and serve more people. Increased Revenue and Decreased Costs ? Maximize your marketing messaging and reach while decreasing your operating costs through adequate technology use and training. Mitigated Risk ? Investment in IT infrastructure protects assets and mitigates potential legal liabilities. One thing we know is that almost any business or organization can benefit from having a comprehensive plan for their IT management. Rest assured, our team will support you every step of the way, providing you with access to leading technology vendors that offer custom options at competitive prices to adhere to your budgeting needs and goals. When you partner with Info Advantage, you get our 31 years of industry experience as we manage your IT and allow you to focus on your goals and business programs. We’re ready to get started, simply contact us today to learn more about how Info Advantage can help improve the overall effectiveness of your charity or nonprofit organization.
Does your business have the proper tools in place to mitigate the risk of fraud or other crimes? Are you able to fully protect your assets and resources, including your data, your website, your financial data, your intellectual property, and your email? Can you currently meet your business sector?s regulations and overcome its specific vulnerabilities? To mitigate the ever-changing threat environment, it is important that you know where your risks really are to focus resources on continually eliminating the biggest threats. That?s why Info Advantage is excited to announce our Free Security Health Check. Cybersecurity is changing fast! Take a look at these statistics from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency: 65% of Americans who have an online presence have received at least one online scam offer in the last year. 600,000 Facebook accounts are hacked every single day. The #1 Cyber Crime is the Imposter Scam, with 1 in 5 people reporting a financial loss. 47% of American Adults have had their personal information exposed by cyber criminals. Worldwide, consumers lost $358 and 21 Hours, on average, per year, dealing with online crime. Our Free Security Health Check is broken down into several phases to achieve your specifical goals: We use our advanced tools to identify internal and external vulnerabilities. We?ll look for holes in your Security, Detection, and Prevention policies and practices that could lead to a breach. We will provide and review with you a summary of our findings and recommendations to help make informed decisions. At Info Advantage, we believe that it?s more important than ever to have the right ally to help guide your business. That?s why we follow a clear roadmap that allows us to create consistency and deliver an optimal customer experience. Contact us today to request your Free Security Health Check. All we need is your business email to get started!
Cloud Computing. No longer a new concept, but one that may still be a relative unknown for small and medium-sized businesses. Which brings into light the question: What is Cloud Computing? In their ?Beginners Guide to Cloud Computing? Microsoft explains that Cloud Computing is the delivery of computing services over the internet (?the cloud?) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. Computing services can include anything from servers to storage to databases to networking to software and so much more. Insight from Foundry notes that 69% of companies have accelerated their cloud migration since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic; with an expectation that the percentage of companies with most or all of their IT infrastructure in the cloud will grow from 41% today to 63% in the next 18 months. With that in mind, here are a few of the Top Benefits of Cloud Computing for small and medium-sized businesses: Cost Effectiveness: Regardless of the service model you choose, you only pay for the resources you actually use. Avoid overbuilding or overprovisioning your data center and give your IT team back valuable time to focus on other work. Flexibility: Access the data you need anywhere and everything; cloud-based app can keep your offices connected to the communications systems you use between employees, clients, customer service, and suppliers. Reliability: Make data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity easier and less expensive as data is mirrored at multiple redundant sites on a cloud provider?s network. Scalability: Easily adjust the number of users with access to cloud applications; either up or down, and only pay for what you use without every having to worry about running out of capacity or adding unnecessary expenses. Info Advantage?s iaGuardianCloud has changed the way businesses communicate, collaborate, and budget their IT, providing a highly customizable, flexible, and scalable business solution. Using Info Advantage for your Cloud Computing needs allows your business to take what used to be a large capital expenditure and shift it to a nominal operating expense. Thus, allowing small and medium-sized businesses to no longer be limited to the infrastructure you can afford to manage in-house, but to start to see enterprise-class features and capabilities without seeing enterprise-class costs. At Info Advantage, we pride ourselves on providing fast and reliable IT solutions, 24x7x365, for your business users. No catch, no gimmick, just experience and best practices that we?ve honed over the years to make our services work for your business needs! Cloud Computing is the future of small and medium business technology that will save money and increase efficiency! Contact us today to learn how your business could benefit from Cloud Computing!
Coming this June, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will implement a new Safeguards Rule.The new guidelines will require organizations to develop, implement, and provide ongoing maintenance of security controls that are designed to protect client information such as Cybersecurity, Incident Response Plans, Risk Assessments, and more. The Safeguards Rule, which now has a compliance deadline of June 9th, requires non-banking financial institutions to develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive security program to keep their customers? information safe. At Info Advantage, we?re asking? is your business prepared for these new compliance requirements that start in June? Originally, the Safeguards Rule took effect in 2003, with a 2021 amendment that aimed to allow the Rule to keep pace with current technology, reflecting core data security principles that all covered companies need to implement.The FTC recently shared an article titled FTC Safeguards Rule: What Your Business Needs to Know and these were our major takeaways from that article: Information Security Programs need to have administrative, technical, and physical safeguards elements that are designed to protect customer information. The amended rule covers information about your own customers and information about customers of other financial institutions that have provided that data to you. The three main objectives of a company?s Information Security Program should be: To ensure security and confidentiality. To protect again anticipated threats or hazards. To protect against unauthorized access to private information. Long gone are the days where antivirus software and a firewall were enough. Today, businesses require fully managed cybersecurity solutions to protect all of their endpoints from both external and internal threats, helping them to meet industry compliances like HIPAA, PCI, DSS, SOX, and more. Info Advantage already specializes in this as part of our Security Services focus on Compliance, allowing you to meet and exceed industry compliances and get regular security compliance audits and evaluations. We aim to be the best at what we do, providing a level of service that is top notch. We stand by our best practices; training our talented team and providing them with the best tools in the industry to make sure they can provide you with the best services possible! Don?t wait to ensure that you have the proper security controls in place. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you meet compliance standards before the FTC deadline approaches!