Ferrum Technology Services Blog

When you talk about line of business software, you are typically talking about the unique applications that your business uses to manage their business. In the retail space, line of business software would typically refer to your Point of Sale (POS), or Point of Purchase (POP) software. This month we will talk about how businesses implement their POS software and how it works to manage different aspects of a retail business.

When it comes to dealing with things around the office, most people have almost no problem calling in a subject-matter expert to handle the issue. Toilet won’t stop running? Bring in a plumber. Simple, right? Yet, it seems that there’s one notable exception: technology issues.

As technology has advanced, we’ve reached the point where work can easily be accomplished outside of the office environment. In fact, just over half of all employees around the world work from home at least one day each week. This only makes sense, as there are a few very appealing benefits to remote work… including for the employer.

Communication plays a critical role in the way you develop relationships and clients. To optimize communication with your clients and customers, proper use of technology is essential, but it also makes for a much nicer experience from an operational standpoint. How can your business utilize this powerful communications technology?

Productivity is something that either happens or it doesn’t, but it’s important to keep in mind that nobody can work at optimal efficiency at all times. This doesn’t mean you can’t leverage some best practices to make better use of your time, though. Today we’ll examine three general ways to improve your productivity, including examples of how to make them happen.

It’s clear that your business’ profession was chosen based on a specific lack or need in your area, but if you don’t have the technology to make sure this need can be met, you’re not providing value to your clients. This is one of the key reasons why businesses like us offer remote monitoring and management services to organizations like yours.

There is a special kind of frustration that comes from a slow computer. We think it’s a combination of being unable to get something done combined with your computer’s inability to take a hint and register your frustration as you furiously click your mouse. Either way, slow computers are annoying. Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to speed things up before you consider throwing it out a window.

The business world is inherently somewhat Darwinian: instead of organisms with desirable traits surviving and carrying on, better businesses tend to outlast those that are inferior. In order to keep on, you need to ensure that your business has the tools it needs to be better than the alternative. Part of this is a great staff, yes, but for today’s tip, we’ll discuss how optimizing your technology can help.

While email remains an important facet of professional business communications, the instant message is of rising importance in office environments everywhere. While any one of many factors may contribute to this shift, it provides those businesses that adopt it great advantages to their internal processes, and might even aid in their cybersecurity.

The Internet contains countless articles and bits of information that you can absorb on a daily basis. More likely than not, you have a couple of go-to websites that contain information you find more valuable than the rest, and that’s perfectly normal for a busy business owner. However, you can save valuable time by creating bookmarks to help you more readily access the information found on the Internet.

You know just how essential your company’s IT is, but do you have any idea how your employees feel about the technology you provide them? In order to get the productivity your company needs out of your staff, meeting their computing needs becomes a fundamental requirement. Today, we’ll go over some of the determining factors you have to consider when purchasing computer equipment for your staff.

At the time of this writing, it has only been about a half a year since the Meltdown and Spectre exploits became public knowledge. Fortunately, patches were swiftly rolled out to mitigate the problems that these exploits could cause, but that doesn’t mean that these exploits are dead and buried. Let’s look back at Meltdown and Spectre to help us establish where we stand today.

Every business has IT projects they want to complete. Whether it is a small change like introducing a public cloud platform, or a large one like migrating all your data from four servers onto one, you have to expect situations will arise that will make you want to pull your hair out. To overcome the challenges that come with any major IT project, consider these four points.

If you’ve ever managed a major IT project, you’re probably well acquainted with Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Every project is going to have some rough patches. The key to overcoming these challenges lays not with the execution of the plan, but with the preparation. Here are four things to consider when you’re planning out your next long-term IT project.

It would be hard to find someone who has never experienced the feeling of a time crunch, a situation where someone has more to do than they had hours to do it in. This feeling can be reduced by enhancing productivity through better time management. For our tip this week, let’s discuss some methods to improve time management within your office.

Chances are that you, like most business owners, have assembled your staff very carefully, looking for people who are the best-in-class, willing to work their hardest for the good of the company. However, this staff will be made up of humans, and will therefore make mistakes. As such, you need to make sure that your data is managed in a way that keeps it safe.

Smart business owners always look for ways to improve the way their organization functions. Digital transformation is one of these ways, as it allows for organizations to use technology to minimize waste and enhance workflow. To help you with digital transformation, we’ll walk you through what it is and how it works.

There are a lot of moving parts in a business, but overall the goals are simple. If you make more money than you spend in operational costs, you’re considered a success story. However, it’s not always easy to achieve this balance--especially when you’re a small business with a limited workforce and budget. How can you cut costs and increase your bottom line?

How do you refer to your group of employees? If you’re like most businesses, you call your employees your ‘team.’ This only makes sense, as a team is meant to work together toward a common goal. But what if your team isn’t acting very much like one?

It can be hard to accomplish work in a timely manner when your technology is a haphazard mess. To help with this, we’re devoting this week’s tip to three ways you can improve workflow by organizing your technology.