Ferrum Technology Services Blog

How does your organization manage its IT? For some businesses, it’s not an easy choice or even a remotely affordable one. Some companies are forced to endure subpar services from break-fix IT providers that don’t necessarily have the tools available to prevent issues from happening. Others try to prevent issues from evolving into major concerns. These others are the organizations that have the right idea behind technology maintenance.

When you run a business, solid decision making is crucial to achieving success. This goes from hiring and managing your staff, dealing with your prospects and customers, and procuring tools and resources that make your business possible. Today, technology is not only important, it is a major consideration when hashing out your yearly (or quarterly) budget. Let’s go through a couple of tips on how to make the best technology decisions for your company.

Cloud technology has shifted the way that many businesses operate in their day-to-day, offering advantages that were once a business owner’s pipe dream. Of course, there are now different ways that businesses can embrace these advantages. Let’s compare your options to determine which one better matches up to your needs.

No matter what type of business you run, we are sure that you have paper documents of some sort filling up a filing cabinet somewhere. These paper documents might be signed contracts by employees, clients, or just about anything else out there that you need to file and store away for later. These documents can take up a ton of space, though, so what is the business to do? The answer is simple: go paperless.

Revenue generation is the name of the game for every business and sometimes technology is looked on as more of a hindrance to profitability than a tool to cultivate it. To turn this notion around, a business needs to make strategic investments that will return some type of benefit, whether that be the availability of alternate revenue streams, a boost in productivity, improved collaboration, and more. Today, let’s take a look at some ways that businesses can invest in their IT and improve their profitability as a result. 

After 2020, it is understandable that many businesses would be seeking out a way to recoup a lot of the expenses and losses that the year’s events likely incurred upon them. This has led many to turn to their IT investments as the sacrificial lamb. While we are undeniably biased, we would argue that there are better ways to streamline your business’ expenses in terms of its IT than to simply cut them outright.

Today’s business has to do more with less. This goes for all of its resources including the technology it uses. Runaway IT budgets can put a lot of pressure on the technology to do more than it can. To get the most out of your business’ technology investments, consider the following strategies.

Businesses are in a tough spot right now, which makes their costs an even bigger issue for them to keep in mind. Luckily for businesses everywhere, however, many technologies are available now that can greatly benefit their operations—without being unattainable due to their price. Let’s consider five such technologies and strategies that can bring productivity and efficiency without sending you into the red.

Your IT budget might be a mess or it might be on point, but regardless of where you are on that front, you’ll come to face some situations that could be handled better. Today, you can optimize some of the most egregious financial requirements your business has regarding your technology--its IT support costs--by translating the unpredictably variable costs you likely deal with now for your support, to the much more sustainable agreement that a managed service provider will operate through.

Sad to say, but for the foreseeable future, cost control is going to be the number one priority for almost every business. With the COVID-19 pandemic into its sixth month, and revenue streams interrupted, businesses are being extremely cautious with their capital. One place where most businesses can cut back is on printing. Let’s discuss how to cut your organization’s printing costs. 

Most business owners are looking for a way to cut their costs. One way that many firms can see some cost reduction is to increase productivity through solid collaboration. Today, there are many digital tools designed to get more eyes on a project, but they may not completely fit your strategy. Let’s look at some strategies that are used to promote collaboration, and some tools that can fuel it.

Is your printer printing dollars, or eating them? Today’s blog is dedicated toward helping your business save as much money as possible on printing costs so that you can achieve the best return on your printing investment.

It has been quite a year for Microsoft, at least as far as Windows 10 is concerned. Since the release of Windows 10, over 300 million devices worldwide utilize the operating system. If you have considered upgrading, it is strongly recommended you do so as soon as possible.

The cloud is becoming a very important part of the modern-day business, and for good reason. It frees companies from the restricting physical nature of servers, desktops, and other hardware. In fact, according to Joe McKendrick of Forbes magazine, four-out-of-five small businesses will soon operate on the cloud.

While desktop virtualization isn't a new thing, it is one that has been increasing in popularity for businesses over the past few years. It offers a lot more freedom with particular aspects of managing your technology, including increased reliability and security. While the physical problems of a desktop are taken care of, you'll also have the benefits of being protected from a sudden crash or wearing from old age.

With the coming of spring, many people are taking the opportunity to get rid of all of the stuff they don't need anymore. As time goes on, you accumulate all sorts of junk that you probably don't even know you have. Sometimes it's a good idea to go through it all and see if you really need it - especially for your business's in-house IT department.

In the midst of Apple releasing one hot product after another, it's easy to lose sight of what Apple's doing on the software side of things, like the October release of OS X Mavericks. Apple's new OS is loaded with great features, and the best part is that Apple has made their new OS available as a free download!

Saving a little on your technology can go a long ways, but cutting too many corners can lead to additional problems and expensive downtime. Here are a few ways you can cut costs without creating long term issues.