By DynaSis

Last month, I introduced our fall Disaster Recovery Education initiative and promised to provide you with more valuable information. This week, we’ll talk about length of downtime (period without access to some or all of your computing resources) and its cost to your organization.

A decade ago, many companies considered a week or more of downtime―in the wake of a disaster―to be acceptable. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) were becoming increasingly computerized and reliant on the Internet, but the hunger for instantaneous communications was nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is now.

Today, many large enterprises measure acceptable downtime in hours (if not minutes) and cannot imagine going for a week or more without access to their email, corporate files, customer records, business processes and other important revenue drivers. SMBs need to adopt this same strategy to compete effectively―and it’s becoming increasingly affordable to do so.

Let’s consider the cost of downtime. It varies by the business, industry and business application, of course, but it is considerable in every instance. Analytical software developer Alinean ran some numbers and determined that the average cost per minute of infrastructure downtime is $700. Having a business application down can cost far more.

Alinean placed the cost per minute of messaging outages at $1,000; with e-commerce pegging at an estimated $10,000 per minute. Supply-chain management software, where system downtime can literally disrupt your entire supply chain for a week or more following restoration, tops the charts at $11,000 per minute.
For SMBs that don’t conduct e-commerce, rely on complicated supply chains or have legions of salespeople in the field, these numbers may seem excessive. To help you get a handle on your own cost of downtime, I’ve provided some practical calculations you can run.

Quantifying downtime, at its most fundamental level, requires calculating two primary losses: reduction to individual or workgroup productivity and loss of transactions. Calculating both helps you pinpoint wasted expenses and lost revenue.

For the first number, you’ll run the “CPA” calculation:

C = average employee cost (salaries or wages + benefits)
P = number of people affected
A = amount of time they are affected

As of September 2013, the average U.S. average “burdened” salary (compensation plus taxes and benefits) per employee was $29.11 per hour, per the U.S. Department of Labor. (Calculating your real number would be more accurate, of course).

Multiply this figure by the number of employees in your operation, then by the amount of downtime you consider acceptable in the event of an emergency. That figure equals your cost of lost productivity.
For business impact, the calculations become more difficult. While you can calculate this per employee, it’s likely easiest to multiply your transactions per hour or day by the average profit per transaction and then by the downtime duration.

These calculations do not consider lost customer good will (or even lost customers), nor do they consider any overtime you will authorize to bring the firm back up to speed in the event of a disaster. These numbers are hard to gauge, but a good figure would be to increase the “people” and “business” numbers by a percentage that increases with the length of downtime (5% for durations of a few days; 25-30% for downtime of a month or more.)

Once you’ve calculated your downtime costs for a variety of disaster scenarios (server crash―1-3 day of disruption; fire or major weather event; possibly weeks or months of disruption), compare it against the cost to reduce your downtime exposure.

If it still seems expensive to implement a near-instant recovery plan, give me a call. Our IT experts can show you how affordable it is to never lose access to your data―even for a minute.

DynaSis, Atlanta’s premier provider of IT services and support for small and medium businesses (SMBs), today announced the debut of DynaSis BLUE, an affordable, secure cloud file system. BLUE turns customers’ on-site file servers into in-house cloud servers, enabling firms to harness the power of cloud-based file sharing and storage without relinquishing control of corporate files to a third-party provider.

“Workers increasingly need access to their company’s files and other resources from remote locations, but many firms aren’t comfortable storing digital assets on data center servers in a traditional cloud configuration,” said DynaSis President Dave Moorman. “BLUE creates an enterprise-grade, stringently secured and encrypted cloud on the client’s own server, enabling authorized personnel to access and share files over any Internet-enabled computing device, including mobile phones and tablets."

To deploy BLUE, DynaSis installs a tiny software agent on a client's file server and then configures the in-house cloud environment to meet the customer's specifications. BLUE incorporates 448-bit Blowfish encryption, two-factor authentication, full auditability and granular user-access and security controls.

Far more than a simple cloud-sharing site, DynaSis BLUE provisions companies with a comprehensive, 100% synchronized and backed-up solution that offers significantly better governance than leading competitors.

BLUE is a perfect solution for SMBs due to its affordability, ease of deployment and low impact on system resources. It does not require a special server configuration, does not impact server performance, and does not require firms to purchase additional servers, cloud storage or a VPN (virtual private network).

Yet it gives these companies’ remote workers near instant data accessibility from anywhere in the world. The deploying company also controls which data remote workers can view and share, with DynaSis enabling cloud-based access for only those documents and folders the client company designates.

“DynaSis BLUE was built from the ground-up as a highly secure, accountable business productivity tool,” said Moorman. “It enables SMBs to reap the benefits of remote file sharing and collaboration without the up-front investment or effort usually associated with developing corporate clouds.”

By Dave Moorman, DynaSis

The current forward momentum and pace of technology is extraordinary. It now pervades every aspect of business, from customer relations management to finance, as software solutions (often cloud-based) increasingly replace manual effort.

Yet, companies on tight budgets frequently struggle to fund the improvements that will enable them to leverage technology effectively and put it to work in their firms. Or, they are afraid to upgrade to new solutions because they don’t think they have the resources and skill to manage them. In the end, they muddle along, focusing on maintaining outdated solutions and missing out on the tremendous efficiency and productivity gains that newer technologies bring.

If this sounds like your company―if there are key areas of the business where you could put technology to work for your benefit but are not―it’s time to reevaluate your stance. And, if you are not working with an IT services provider―or your current provider is more of a “Hail Mary” problem-solver than a partner in helping you select and implement new technologies―you should reevaluate that decision, as well.

The question, then, is how? With the barrage of information on big data, mobility, disaster recovery, BYOD (bring your own device) and other technology challenges, where do you start the conversation? Following are some considerations that may help you answer that question.

Know Your Organization and Its IT Needs. Conduct a thorough assessment of your organization and how it uses technology currently. Which technologies are mission-critical? Which operations are absolutely essential to your daily operations? These are the areas where IT investments will likely result in the fastest payback.

Recognize Your Vulnerability. No company wants to have its data stolen or its network hacked, but for some companies, a security breach could threaten their business continuity due to lost customer good will, legal or regulatory ramifications, and other issues. Ensuring your business assets are sufficiently robust for your level of risk tolerance should come before adding a new sales management platform or other technology tool.

Understand Your Staff and Its Preferences.  What do your workers wants from their work environment? Do you have a troop of young workers that expect (and know how to utilize) new systems and solutions, or is your team composed of mostly older employees who are uncomfortable with “new-fangled” technologies? Issues such as staff retention (younger workers) and resistance to adoption (older workers) should be considerations for your IT strategy and decisions.

Define What Success Looks Like. It amazes me how few SMBs clearly identify their metrics for success. I don’t mean having an overall goal ―“We want to achieve $5 million in revenue by 2015”―but rather the performance indicators that let a company know if it is moving toward a vibrant and prosperous future. Companies that know (and can measure) whether or not they are succeeding in propelling more business value have a better chance of achieving their goals―and of choosing the right technologies to help them along the way.

If it sounds like a big effort to perform all these evaluations, that’s because it is. But it is also essential, not only to your accomplishments with technology but also to your long-term success as a company. The good news is you do not have to walk this path alone. Entrust your top personnel―and maybe even some trusted vendors―with providing input during your journey to discovery. If you currently work with an IT provider, include them in the conversation, as they will be making the recommendations that align with your plans. If you are not certain your IT firm is up to the task, or you do not currently work with anyone, give me a call. Our virtual CIOs specialize in helping companies develop technology roadmaps that drive businesses in the right direction.

By Dave Moorman, DynaSis

Social media activities are capturing many headlines these days, whether it's a celebrity tweeting something foolish or an employee being fired for posting the wrong thing on Facebook. These stories make for interesting reading, but they obscure the underlying message—social media is here to stay. Not only has it become deeply entwined with many peoples' lives, but the newer generation of workers is positively addicted to it.

Savvy, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are exploring social media in all its aspects. This effort goes well beyond creating social media policies for usage in the office or even launching social marketing campaigns. Social media in the enterprise, for which the new catchphrase is "social business," can include internal collaboration between employees and contractors, external communication and information sharing with vendors and customers, and much more.

Nearly 62% of businesses are expanding their investments in social business, per an IBM Institute for Business Value report. Increasingly, companies are weaving social throughout their operations—from marketing and customer service  to team collaboration and R&D.  The immediacy that social media offers has incredible advantages in today's fast-paced business world. Consider these examples:

• Attendees at a conference discover when arriving on Sunday that their packets lack Monday's session brochure. If office workers or meeting planners are monitoring conference Twitter feed, they can resolve the problem that night and ensure the brochures are awaiting everyone the next morning. If the problem had to be address via email, it MIGHT be resolved as quickly—if an attendee knows where to send the message. Otherwise, a phone message might go unnoticed until the next morning, and attendees might miss getting maximum value from the morning's sessions.
• An employee finds conflicting information in a report he or she is preparing for an important meeting. Their regular "go-to" person is unavailable, but the company has built a network of designated experts in various topics and connected them via internal social media. As a result, the employee can post out his or her question and it will appear, instantly, on the desks of qualified workers who can then respond.

These examples only scratch the surface of what social media can do for a company beyond marketing and branding. Anything that averts an unnecessary delay in company operations fosters momentum and agility. Every resolution that saves a few minutes of productivity adds to the cumulative value of social media, which can be enormous over the course of a year.

Simply connecting workers with better, more available information can provide extraordinary benefit. A 2011 IDC report estimated that knowledge workers spend 15%-35% of each day just searching for the right information.

SMBs that become social businesses can more efficiently process, leverage and disperse the massive amounts of data flowing through the world every day. They can help people connect, find expertise, make better decisions, take swifter action and develop stronger employee, customer and vendor relationships. Doesn't that sound good?

Of course, in order to achieve this benefit cost effectively, firms need their technology ecosystem to support the effort, and they need to develop lasting, viable social business programs tailored to their needs, not jump on whatever bandwagon happens by.

Furthermore, they must design the program with mechanisms and metrics to ensure sufficient management buy-in, security, governance and other success factors—just as they would with any major deployment. (Stay tuned—I'll talk about more about this in a future blog later this fall.)

DynaSis' on-demand CIOs have the knowledge and expertise to help you evaluate and develop a robust, fully integrated social business platform in your own firm. If you'd like to speak with one to learn more now, give me a call.

By Dave Moorman, DynaSis

Last month, I promised share more mobile productivity tips, and this week’s article marks the second installment in an ongoing series. Today, we’ll review some valuable productivity apps―mobile applications workers install on their phones to streamline their workdays.

While no mobile app can be deemed 100% uncrackable, none of these have been implicated in any security breaches and they require minimal access to corporate data or networks. (If you are concerned about security, discourage your employees from using Android devices. Android is a great platform, but the percentage of mobile malware that targets Android has risen to 80%.)

Expensify
Expense reports are an ongoing hassle for SMBs, their employees and management, especially frequent travelers who end up with briefcases full of receipts to process. Expensify lets users snap pictures of receipts with smartphones and upload them to a website. Expensify also supports and reads scanned receipts uploaded from desktop and laptop computers and can process receipts embedded in purchase confirmation emails. Just forward them to receipts@expensify.com in one of nine supported, common format and Expensify adds them to your account.

The first 10 scans each month are free, and companies that upgrade their subscription enjoy added features, such secure integration with leading accounting packages and direct deposit reimbursement to employees. We also like Shoeboxed, which in addition to these features will scan and process paper receipts that you mail to the company. Shoeboxed can be more expensive than Expensify if you need QuickBooks integration, but depending upon your level of disorganization might be a better choice.

Genius Scan
This app turns your workers’ smartphones into scanners. Whether they are across the country, down the street or on the other side of the office, they can use their smartphone cameras to take a picture of any document they want to scan. They can also capture details on items―such as equipment labels (or the equipment itself).

Of course, most smartphone cameras can already take decent pictures of just about anything. What makes Genius Scan so much more valuable is that it lets users tag their scans for easy document identification and upload them securely to a variety of cloud-based storage services. It also improves the quality of scans to make them more legible, creates a database that is searchable by name or date, and lets users group documents together into PDFs.

MobileDay
This application syncs with employees’ calendars and reminds them about conference calls and online meetings, then lets them dial in with a single click. It accomplishes this feat by auto-detecting conference call details within the meeting invites. In addition to traditional conference calling setups, it supports GoToMeeting, Google+ Hangouts, WebEx, Apple FaceTime and Skype Audio. For companies that use SalesForce, it offers a special version that lets workers upload details of new meetings and conference events directly to their accounts.

The corporate version also offers least-cost dialing, which means it chooses the least expensive dial-in option among the available lines offered by a company’s conference service. MobileDay also touts its strong security and states that no corporate information leaves a user’s device during its processes.

By Dave Moorman, DynaSis

Earlier this year, talent solutions firm Glassdoor ran an article about how companies can avoid scaring away top talent. In the article, the company pointed out that the job market has improved considerably, and companies are again competing for the most talented workers, especially in high-skill positions.
This particular article focused on avoiding mistakes in the interview process, but there are other steps companies can take to ensure they lure the “best and brightest” candidates in today’s market. When those candidates are promising college graduates or young workers, the answer lies in technology.

According to a report released by networking giant Cisco Systems, young professionals under 30 and college students place a high value on unrestricted technology access―specifically freedom in choosing their mobile devices and using the Internet and social media. Rather than keeping their work and personal lives separate, or focusing on work-life balance (a term that is now nearly three decades old), they yearn for a blended approach.

For example, a separate study found that most young workers prefer to check corporate email in the morning before heading into the office―and many say they want access to email and corporate resources at night and even on vacation. Rather than viewing this access as an intrusion into their private time, they see it as an opportunity to stay caught up and begin their workdays without a log-jam of messages to process.

This generation also wants working flexibility, with 69% and 70% of workers and college students in the Cisco survey, respectively, reporting it is unnecessary to be physically in the office regularly with the exception of important meetings. Access to corporate information is also a top perk―approximately 64% of respondents want access to corporate data on their home computers; 51% want it on their personal mobile devices.

Additionally, this technology-centric group wants to be trusted to use social media in the workplace. They view social media as a cornerstone of communication and collaboration, not a toy. In fact, 56% of those surveyed indicated they would either not accept a job offer from a company that banned access to social media―or they would find a way to circumvent the rule.

More importantly for companies with tight budgets, more than 40% of college students and young employees under the age of 30 said they would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility of device choice, social media access and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.

Admittedly, these statistics are for college students and young workers in general, as it is impossible to predict and interview only future stars. Nevertheless, with these preferences being so broadly applicable, it is highly likely that talented individuals share these views. SMBs who embrace these approaches have the best chance of winning top talent at a lower salary level than those who continue to follow outdated technology models.

DynaSis can perform business and technology assessments and develop recommendations for moving your firm in this direction securely and with minimal disruption. To learn more, I invite you to call me.

DynaSis, Atlanta’s premier provider of IT services and support for small and medium businesses (SMBs), today announced it is has begun accepting resumes for a number of IT positions within its company.

“As a firm whose mission is to help businesses develop, implement and maintain cutting-edge technology platforms and solutions, DynaSis seeks staff that is the best and brightest,” said DynaSis President and Founder Dave Moorman. “We encourage our employees to grow their talents and challenge them to sharpen their creative problem-solving skills.”

Company team members enjoy big-company benefits in a small, entrepreneurial environment, including employer-reimbursed training and certifications, telecommuting options and flexible schedules, and company-paid health and dental benefits.

“DynaSis enjoys a long track record of hiring top talent, who are drawn to our work environment and corporate culture as well as the opportunities we offer for professional growth,” said Moorman. “The IT world is incredibly exciting right now, with new technologies debuting almost daily. DynaSis stays on the leading edge of IT, and that is exactly where we and our employees want to be.”

Individuals interested in exploring DynaSis’ current openings or applying for a position are invited to visit www.dynasis.com/about-us/careers/ or send their professional resumes to careers@DynaSis.com.

By Dave Moorman, DynaSis

With 2013 shaping up to be a non-event, both in terms of hurricanes and tornados, many small business owners (SMBs) may feel validated in their belief that disaster recovery plans and procedures are a waste of time. Not only has 2013 been unusually quiet in terms of “major” disasters, but the media recently reported that we are nearing the eight-year mark without a major hurricane (Category 3 or greater) striking the U.S. (The last one was Wilma, in 2005). That’s the longest unbroken stretch without a major hurricane since 1851.

If you are one of those SMBs, ask the folks in Missouri, who suffered catastrophic flooding this year, or the residents of New Jersey who were wiped out by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. For that matter, numerous businesses in “low-risk” Atlanta experienced lengthy power outages and even flooding this summer during one of the stormiest periods in recent history. And, don’t forget the 500-year flooding of 2009 that crippled the city for a week.

The reality is that a weather event doesn’t have to meet the definition of “major” to cause substantial disruption. In fact, using the term “disaster” in connection with business continuity and recovery may be a bit misleading, but it’s become an industry-standard term nevertheless.

To put things in perspective, let’s call it “disruption recovery” instead. That’s how we encourage business owners to think about business continuity. Ask yourself questions such as:

How long could your business operate without its business data?

• How much do your employees rely on Internet access to conduct their business?
• How long could you work without access email before productivity suffered?
• How patient are your customers, and how quickly do they typically expect you to respond to requests for assistance, information or other services?

It’s become a fact for most companies that an “important” department like Accounting could lose access to its systems for a day―or even a week―and it wouldn’t affect operations or corporate reputations over the long haul. Yet, if those same companies lost access to email, customer service records or Internet access for more than a few hours, they could experience major productivity losses and potentially damage their standing with clients. If everything went down for a week or more, the damage might be irrevocable.

Technology has forever changed the way we do business, and the majority of SMBs are not adequately prepared to address the impacts of its disruption. According to the 2013 Small Business Disaster Survey carried out by Alibaba, Vendio and Auctiva, 74% of small business owners don’t have a disaster recovery plan for their business.

To encourage SMBs to rethink their strategies, DynaSis is launching a disaster―and disruption―preparedness and recovery program this fall designed to help SMBs reduce or eliminate their vulnerability to disruption. As part of this effort, I’ll be sharing valuable tips and suggestions here over the next few months.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if your business operations are disrupted by a tropical storm or a bad driver crashing into a major power pole and wiping out a transformer. An outage is an outage, and it probably affects your business. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult to minimize your risk. Stay tuned for further updates, or give me a call if you’d like to know more, now.

For years there has been a running discussion about turning off PCs at night. One camp said turning them off saved power; the other said leaving them on reduced wear and tear on hardware. Today, energy efficient workstations with robust hardware have made both of these points largely moot.

However, there is a very good reason for not turning off your workstations―at least Monday through Thursday. On each weekday night, DynaSis performs system operations, from critical system patches and virus definition updates to backups. On weekends, we usually perform operations on servers, when they are not in use. We create schedules for every company that details what we do, and when. (If you are curious what we do in the wee hours of the morning, see image below for an example.)

In fact, even setting your PC to Sleep or Hibernate mode can prevent us from performing system operations on them. Just one unavailable PC can cause the network to be out of sync and potentially increase risk for the entire office. If you and your employees feel better powering down your workstations (but not servers) over the weekend, go ahead. Most importantly, during the week, please keep workstations on and available (not in sleep or hibernate mode).

By Dave Moorman, DynaSis

For decades, the technology world has described its industry as “Information Technology,” or simply, “IT.” There were IT workers, IT consultants, IT systems and IT companies―all of which were part of an ecosystem that stood alone and apart from “business.” IT systems enabled the preparation, storage and dissemination of business information, but few companies gave much thought to IT’s role in the business effort.

Over the past decade, however, companies and industry experts have begun talking about “business technology,” or BT, rather than IT. So, what is business technology? There is no official definition for the term and, in fact, it continues to evolve. However, the BTM Institute, a research think tank devoted to cross-disciplinary thought leadership, defines business technology as:

“The application of IT to deliver a business capability or automate a business operation―the result of configuring, implementing, applying and using IT to produce a business result.”

In other words, business technology is exactly as it sounds―the convergence of business directives and technological capabilities. Whereas the world might previously have thought of IT workers as ivory-towered geeks, working in the elite inner sanctums of their cubicles, business technology workers―also called business technologists―are deeply engaged with the company’s plans and objectives.

Have You Adopted Business Technology as an Approach?

BT-oriented companies understand that technology is a powerful mechanism for propelling business achievement; a tool to enable the attainment of corporate goals and results. They believe in measuring the performance of technology, not in terms of network availability or server uptime, but through key performance indicators (KPIs) tied to specific business strategies and goals.

This doesn’t mean that uptime and network reliability are not important. The ability of technology to carry out its missions is still paramount. However, BT-oriented firms incorporate technology strategy into their business planning and execution. They view their technology systems, workers and consultants, not as necessary adjuncts, but as value-add contributors to and partners in the company’s success.

Technology has always helped achieve business objectives, from reengineering processes and reducing costs to streamlining worker collaboration and communication. However, its value to the balance sheet has largely gone unrecognized, with management perceiving technology primarily as a cost center to be kept in check.

In a company that endorses business technology over information technology, that will no longer be the case. Technology will be a fundamental component of the business equation―technology and corporate blueprints and roadmaps will support each other and be inextricably linked. Furthermore, companies will be able to calculate the value technology should deliver and then benchmark the outcome against those projections. Such an approach may raise the expectations for technology, but it will also increase the rewards. If you’d like to discuss transitioning your firm from IT to BT (hint: it’s easier than you may think), give me a call.