Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of those monikers that we’ve extended to most machine learning technologies nowadays. Over the past few years, however, AI has made huge strides in industry, providing a level of automation that simply wasn’t possible previously. Couple in the massive benefits that organizations can see through AI-driven data insights and it is truly a transformative technology. This week, we’ll take a look at AI and unpack just how fast it is evolving. 

Your aim should always be to build more efficiency into your business. It boosts the productivity of your staff and makes your business a better place to work. Technology is central to this strategy, but it can be tough to get the right productivity in place. This month, we will give you a few considerations that you should pay attention to when adding technology to your roster.  

Technology has enabled businesses to do more with less and a lot of small businesses simply feel that they don’t have the technology prowess to properly resolve the myriad of challenges they have. There are plenty of enterprise-level technologies that SMBs can use that can make their business stronger and more efficient. 

In a day where nearly eight out of every ten employees prefer to take their meetings virtually, it can be a drag for them when they are pulled into face-to-face meetings, despite probably routinely doing them not so long ago. In this month’s newsletter, we will discuss the scenario that has people freaked out about being in physical meetings and if they are actually productive as compared to their virtual counterparts.

Technology is one part of your business that you can use to improve your capacity for competing with larger organizations and enterprises, even if you are a small team working with local clients. Today, we want to discuss four crucial technologies that any small business needs in order to be as efficient, effective, and most of all, competitive, as possible.

Supply chain management has been a major part of business for quite some time, and technology has played a major part in how it works. Whether it’s people buying or selling goods on the Internet or internally managing their resources, the supply chain is an integral part of any successful business that manufactures or sells products. Let’s look at some of the ways that supply chain management influences businesses–even companies that don’t make or sell products, but still rely on products.

Running a business is often a circus. Many times it requires several juggling acts and a dog and pony show to just get things done. This couldn’t be more true nowadays as business owners are considering how to operate with rising inflation and labor shortages threatening to stymie their organizational progress. Today, we’re going to look at some ways you can stretch your capital.

Even the most lucrative businesses never have enough capital and resources to do everything they would like to do. Whether it’s paying an unexpected bill or purchasing something you truly need, there are plenty of ways to spend more than you think for your business, especially with technology. Let’s go over some of the ways you can use technology to actually save money for your business.

You always read that “business has changed”. This is true because society has changed; and technology supports this new normal. More people use their mobile devices for a majority of their communication, their browsing, and a lot more, and it is changing the way business is conducted; it’s just not always easy to separate work use from personal usage. Let’s take a look at some of the ways mobility has changed the way people approach work, and how that shift in perspective has changed business.

Pets do weird things every so often… like laying on top of keyboards or sidling up next to computer monitors. If you’re not careful, your furry companions might accidentally cause a lot of damage to your technology. Some studies have indicated that pets cause around $3 billion worth of damage to technology annually—pretty shocking stuff. Let’s go over how you can minimize the chances of this happening to you.

Technology is remarkably useful for plenty of business-related tasks, but even the most knowledgeable user isn’t going to know all of the features available to them. This is why we like to cover even small, basic tips that people can use to get just a little more value out of their technology. Here are three ways you can get more out of your Windows operating system.

The operating system is the most important piece of software in computing. It is the bridge between the user and the resources needed to get work done. Many businesses make technology purchases and pay for support, so they don’t always know when is the right time to upgrade the OS on your organization’s computers. Let’s take a look at some of the variables you should consider to better understand when it is time to change the operating system on your employee workstations. 

Any project manager will tell you that there are countless issues that can get in the way of a successful implementation. To nobody’s surprise, business technology can aid project management by streamlining operations and making the entire process much easier for everyone involved. We’ll dig into the details about how project management software and value-based managed IT services can help you complete projects on-time and on-budget.

You will find dozens of different file formats on your computer, but for images, you may not know how to tell the difference. In order to know how an image is used, you need to understand what type of file it is. This month, we’ll go through some of the different types of images and what people use them for. 

There is so much about business that has changed over the last decade. What are the biggest gauges that we've seen is the inflation of cost affecting businesses and the need to scale back  without affecting their workforce too dramatically. This has led to a culture of collaboration that has popped up over the last few years. Let's look at three ways that any business is (or should be) using collaboration nowadays.

Most businesses deal with some type of inventory control. Even if they work in professional services there are tools and resources that have to be inventoried and managed. Unfortunately, for many businesses, they haven’t yet changed the way they manage inventory, leading to a lot of time being allocated to the endeavor. This can actually get expensive. Let’s dive into what makes technology a major benefit for modern inventory management. 

When you start looking at how organizations conduct business, you quickly notice the role IT plays. To this end, it is essential that all of the technology used by your organization is consistently maintained. To ensure the reliability of this technology choosing a partner that can make that happen is important. This month, we will go through the things that make managed services such a valuable service. 

From the outside looking in, network security can be intimidating to consider. There are so many moving parts that go into protecting a business, it’s understandable that you might not know where to start. Fortunately, we do, and we’re happy to provide this list of critical network security tools that should be seen as the foundation for your company’s protection.

Technology helps us do more than we’ve ever done before. Unfortunately, the more that we do, the more that is expected of us. That means the search for more productivity is endless, and therefore considerations on how to be most efficient in the way that you go about doing this is extremely important. Unfortunately, there is a limit on how productive people can be and there are definitely some situations that exacerbate this limit. This month, we thought we’d take a look at some of them:

Regardless of the business attempting it, data migration (or the process of moving data and systems to a new piece of infrastructure) is critical to get right. One way to improve your chances of success is to create and follow a migration strategy, evaluating it as you go. Let’s walk through some practices involved in doing so.