The internet is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools for improving business productivity. But it’s also a magnet for procrastination. With unfettered access to the internet, it’s easy to stray away from your important work responsibilities. If done in moderation, five-to-ten minute breaks on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are harmless, but if employees spend several hours a day there, the internet is impeding office productivity. Fortunately, web monitoring can ensure your employees don’t overuse these sites. Time-saving measures At times, the internet can be very addictive. Web monitoring software saves employees from the temptation of online videos and games by restricting access to time-wasting sites that you deem unnecessary for business. But internet monitoring software doesn’t even have to be as extreme as denying permission to harmless social media websites. Just letting your employees know that you’ll be randomly monitoring their internet activity discourages them from taking prolonged visits to their Instagram page. Avoiding harmful websites The internet hosts plenty of unsavoury links and websites. Employees who haphazardly click phishing links or access malware-ridden pornography sites can put your business at risk. Working with infected machines can slow down the entire system and, in some cases, completely halt operations. But by using internet monitoring tools you can restrict access to dangerous websites, and identify reckless employees to remove their internet privileges, if necessary. Controlling bandwidth usage Even while using the internet for the right purposes, bandwidth can be used up quickly. Internet monitoring gives you up-to-the-minute reports on your bandwidth usage. Once you have a clear understanding of your company’s overall bandwidth usage, you can then control its expenditure. This feature allows you to prioritise bandwidth for critical business applications and reduce bandwidth for less necessary websites. Increasing productivity on the internet Web monitoring software may be a powerful tool, but it should be used responsibly. As a business owner, you need to walk a fine line between over-surveillance and under-surveillance. What you should do is establish a clear internet policy. Then, explicitly define the disciplinary measures to be dispensed on anybody who goes against the requirements of the internet policy. And deal with time-wasting employees on a case-by-case basis. It’s unreasonable to remove everyone’s Facebook privileges because one or two abused theirs. Employee productivity can be difficult to achieve, especially with the proliferation of what we would like to call, “procrastination software.” But with web monitoring software, you can truly get your business -- and your employees -- back on track. Looking for more ways to increase business productivity with technology? Contact Multi IT & Telephony Solutions today. We’ll be happy to make suggestions. Check out our Managed Monitoring Services now to find out on more ways to increase security and productivity.

If you are a small to midsize business with more important things to do than monitor, manage and support all of your IT systems and users with full-time employees, you have more than likely outsourced this multifaceted, non-core operating responsibility to a Managed Services Provider or “MSP.” When you consider rising costs, increasing competition, growing regulatory overreach as well as talent retention challenges and cyber-crime, there are ample reasons to harness the power of a qualified third-party who can address these major pain points with transformational technologies that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive and impractical to implement in-house. You are also more than likely all too familiar with periodic recommendations from your MSP to upgrade, replace or migrate elements of your infrastructure AKA hardware, software, and cloud applications. Please suspend your scepticism for a moment. This foundation and increasingly scattered technology needs to be highly functional in order for your organisation to spend more time with higher value line of business applications like ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence and e-Commerce. You know who else is all too familiar with periodic recommendations to upgrade, replace and migrate elements of their infrastructure? Your MSP. If your provider is capable of effectively and profitably managing more than 10 fixed-fee clients, they have to live by the same set of rules that apply to you. This includes following their own advice as well as wise counsel offered by their managed services providers, technology vendors and consultants. And they are not getting any “good buddy” discounts. Many MSPs like Multi IT & Telephony Solutions use a Professional Services Automation application (“PSA”). It is essentially a  ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence wrapped into one. Its relevance to helping IT providers gain operating leverage in order to empower their clients to gain operating leverage cannot be overstated. Not only does this PSA have to work at peak efficiency; it also needs to be supported by infrastructure that is working at peak efficiency. Each piece has a beginning, a middle and an end within the technology life cycle. Others are perpetual considerations: Laptops have a lifespan of approximately 3 years. Workstations have a lifespan of approximately 3-4 years. Servers have a lifespan of approximately 3-5 years. Operating System upgrades are ongoing and imperative considering today’s security landscape. Backup & Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity are 24/7/365 considerations. Wireless Access Points have a lifespan of approximately 3-5 years. Firewalls have a lifespan of approximately 5-7 years Cabling & Wiring have a lifespan of approximately 7-10 years. Switches have a lifespan of approximately 7-10 years. Internet Security & Compliance is a 24/7/365 consideration. Network Operating Center assets need to be moved or upgraded every 2-3 years. Primary and secondary Internet connectivity needs to be evaluated and rebid every 2 years to improve price/performance outcomes. Software Licensing needs to be evaluated on a regular basis to determine whether perpetual (CAPEX) or subscription (OPEX) is best suited to current requirements. Public cloud services like O365 and DropBox are ongoing considerations with options heavily influenced by changing security and integration requirements. Battery backup and power must be maintained with primary, secondary and tertiary sources with daily verification. Each must also be replaced with a regular cadence. Sound complex? Sound hard to keep up with? Sound like a never ending budgetary consideration? It’s all three. It’s also a dynamic process that many providers live and breathe, day after day, year after year. It’s called drinking the same coffee you serve your clients. Why not let Multi IT & Telephony Solutions simplify, track, budget and manage the technology life cycle for you? The team at Multi IT & Telephony Solutions is always glad to be a resource when it comes to sharing time-tested technology life cycle management expertise. Contact us today so that we can offer a helpful hand for your technology life cycle.

As far as communication goes, there are numerous factors to consider, especially when that communication is done online rather than in person. Since its inception, Microsoft Outlook has always been an excellent communication tool. And now, with its recent Outlook update, it can do an even better job at helping people communicate with one another quickly and easily. Learn and take advantage of the changes that Outlook’s update makes to the user experience. Improved Contact Cards One of the most welcome changes with the Outlook update is that the concept of the Contact Card has been greatly improved upon. In previous manifestations of Outlook, the information about contacts that was quickly available was limited to basic information such as name, phone number, and email address. With the new Outlook, Contact Cards can contain a person's job title, their relationship to you, and what your most recent communications were so that you can better remember who you are talking to and what you were talking about. Smarter Search Features Searching contacts, emails, and other features is easier with the latest Outlook update. Search features are now smarter in that they can go off of the first letter you type and retrieve your most frequent search requests starting with that letter. This speeds up searching and helps retrieve relevant information in seconds, not minutes. People Section Enhancements Outlook has also made some major improvements and enhancements to the ‘main people’ section of Outlook. You can now create smart lists of people based on common features. This will include your most frequently contacted people, groups based on job titles or departments, favorites, and those who need follow-up. These lists makes sending group emails to relevant contacts much simpler because you don’t have to scour all your contacts to find the right people. Now that you know some of the ways that the Outlook update has changed the user experience with its latest updates, you can begin to put these to use in your business. Contact Multi IT & Telephony Solutions to help you navigate those changes and put the benefits to use in your business and personal communications. Outlook is available in most office 365 packages. Find out which package is right for you.