By the DynaSis Team

[featured_image]You may have noticed us alluding to a new term: Modern Officing, rather than talking about the Modern Office, which is often defined as an office environment not constrained by time or place, where technology powers the anytime-anywhere concept. That concept has now morphed into a verb, and folks are talking about Modern Officing.

This is the practice of enabling your employees to achieve anytime-anywhere productivity. It might incorporate letting personnel come into your physical office only occasionally―if at all. Of course, the core of this practice is technology―especially mobile and network technologies.

However, companies that succeed in this effort are judicious in how they weave other technologies into the solution. The idea is not to allow technology to expand organically, with everyone bringing their favorite solutions to the table. Rather, companies should strategically plan and deploy the right technologies, implemented security but accessibly. Not only should companies avoid too many solutions (especially if they overlap), but those solutions should not be too permissive or unrestrained. So, let’s look at a few of the technologies you likely use, and how your approach to them can be “just right” for the modern office.

These are just a few examples of dozens of technologies where right-sizing is beneficial to your company, its personnel and its bottom line. If your technology environment is insufficient or outdated, not only can your employees not achieve their missions, but customers to your physical space will perceive your firm as dated. Too many solutions, too much capacity, or an approach that is too unrestrained, and you could be throwing money, productivity and security away.

DynaSis has strategic planning experts that can help you pinpoint what improvements make sense for your firm, and which ones are unnecessary or unwise. To get started, fill out our inquiry form or give us a call.

By the DynaSis Team

[featured_image]Business owners hear frequently that they should have a good mobile site or application for their customer-facing efforts (e.g. sales or marketing), but what about corporate mobile apps? Are those important too? Depending on your business model, the answer can yes―or no. Corporate apps can be an important contributor to “Modern Officing,”―an operating model where employees can perform many or all office duties wherever and whenever it suits them, without the boundaries of time and space. However, as with public-facing mobile apps, corporate apps must be “done right” to succeed.

Corporate mobile apps are company-branded and approved tools that enable employees to run processes and connect to the corporate resources from their mobile devices. They allow companies a greater level of control and access restriction than simply allowing personnel to get direct access over the Internet. And they are becoming increasingly affordable to develop. So, what’s not to love?

Of the nearly 70% of employees that use personally owned smartphones and tablets in the workplace a majority (58%) abandon the corporate mobile apps they should be using for work-related tasks (per a 2013 survey conducted by ResearchNow). Most concerning, the report revealed that 64% of employees "go rogue," freely downloading public “productivity” apps of their choice and putting corporate security at risk.

Some 26% of smartphone users―and nearly 20% of tablet users―report that they "stick with" the corporate mobile app, but that productivity suffers as a result. A majority of users also reported returning to their desktops to complete tasks they could not effectively accomplish via mobile apps.

Now for the big question: what should your company do? That depends upon your level of technological sophistication and need for the apps. The reality for all businesses―especially small and medium-sized businesses―is that corporate apps are not a requisite in the way that customer-facing apps are. You do have options:

Secure cloud-based access: If you want employees to have access to corporate resources, for a very reasonable fee you can make those resources available securely, “in the cloud” Cloud security has improved substantially, especially when your data is hosted at a world-class data center or on your company’s own servers. Such setups are dramatically more secure than public apps. DynaSis’ ITility solution and DynaSis BLUE are approaches that incorporate this model.

Public apps with strict BYOD policy enforcement: Not all public apps are bad. It’s the unrestricted usage of them, without any corporate screening, that is dangerous. The survey we mentioned earlier found that only 24% of the businesses surveyed were enforcing a formal BYOD policy. Developing and enforcing a BYOD policy that lets employees download only approved, secure, well-respected mobile apps will go a long way towards reducing your risk, as well.

This effort is about incentives and enforcement as much as access. If personnel are using devices they paid for, you won’t be loved for restricting them from downloading public apps for personal use. You can incent them to use only company-approved solutions instead, through a combination of perks (company-paid minutes and data bonuses) and routine “health checks” with serious penalties for those that break the rules. Just make sure your choices are well-designed and intuitive or you may find yourself firing a lot of employees.

In-House Apps: If you want to develop in-house apps, they must be functional and intuitive. Companies developing them must adopt the best practices that are common with customer-facing apps. These practices include identifying user personas and use cases and targeting functionality to the broadest base of users. Corporate apps may not be a requisite, but if you are going to use them, they must work elegantly and offer a rich, mobile app experience.

DynaSis’ on-demand CIOs can help you evaluate and develop your mobile strategy and decide which of these approaches is best for you. The most important point is to do something. If you are waiting to make a decision about corporate mobile apps―or public mobile apps in the workplace―you are putting your company at risk. In the absence of a clear policy and directive, don’t wonder if your mobile-enabled employees are downloading public apps without your knowledge. Be assured that they already are.

By the DynaSis Team

Last year, we published an article that introduced the concept of Social Business and hinted at what it can do for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). We also promised to share more information to help you explore the value of this approach.

Social business, as we mentioned before, is an operating model where companies embrace social media at the enterprise level, not only for outward-facing marketing and communications but also for internal collaboration and information sharing among employees―and possibly partners and vendors, as well. Despite the availability of an array of enterprise-grade social tools such as Yammer and Socialcast, the approach is not taking off like gangbusters―yet. Per Forrester Research, only 8% of employees use social collaboration tools more than once a week.

Despite that discouraging statistic, many studies indicate that these tools and platforms can provide companies and their employees with substantial benefits. For example, a 2012 survey by consulting firm McKinsey & Co., found that social collaboration software can reduce the time employees spend processing email by 20-25%.

The challenge, of course, is adoption―by both SMBs and their personnel. Companies want secure, controlled-environment social collaboration tools; users prefer to “socialize” via Facebook or Twitter and don’t want to learn a new platform. Early adopters struggle to obtain user buy-in, and many become frustrated when it doesn’t happen.

Patience Pays Off

So, how can you deploy enterprise-level social tools without becoming a statistic? To borrow a phrase from the 1970s show Kung Fu, “Patience, young grasshopper.” Increasingly, major technology players from Salesforce to VMware are embedding social features into their platforms. Salesforce has reported success with its social networking and collaboration tool, Chatter, and Microsoft has integrated Yammer with Office 365 and SharePoint as a by-the-seat, SaaS (software as a service) offering.

In other words, you won’t have to force users to adopt a totally new platform, and you also don’t have to give in and abandon your craving for control and security. (Control and security should not be negotiable, no matter which solution you choose.)

The trick is to find an offering that integrates with enterprise-grade systems you already use (or are planning to deploy), rather than to expect workers to learn a new platform (and keep another window open on their desktops.) The more tightly social tools integrate with other technology systems, the easier it will be to encourage users to adopt them―and the more benefit you will see.

This is true, not only because social collaboration and information sharing is more approachable when employees access functions from a familiar interface, but also because interconnected platforms work together to convey more and better information. With an integrated solution, for example, your sales people might be able to receive alerts when a pending contract is executed. Then, your warehouse manager might receive an automated tweet because the contract was for more items than your current inventory levels could support.

This may sound like a futuristic scenario, but it’s already happening in larger enterprises. The potential for social collaboration and information sharing to foster amazing achievements is increasing, every day. Social platforms and tools are even helping some companies create “corporate brains” for vital knowledge sharing between departing Baby Boomers and their younger successors.

At the SMB level, we expect many larger developers to debut solutions that target (and are affordable for) smaller enterprises. Some already have. After all, that’s the real beauty of SaaS. Developers can serve an identical interface and feature set to a 50-person company or a global conglomerate at an affordable, per-seat cost.

To see if these solutions make sense for your firm, give us a call. Our virtual CIOs can perform an analysis and help you devise a strategy that will carry your business into a very bright future.

By the DynaSis Team

[featured_image]In 2013, the CEB (Corporate Executive Board), the world’s leading member-based advisory company, published its 2013–2014 IT Budget Benchmark study, developed from the responses of 165 member organizations. The study found that CIOs are not increasing their spending on innovation, whereas HR, operations, finance and marketing are spending sizeable portions of their budgets on innovative IT projects. (HR departments alone are spending between 6-9% of their budgets on IT innovations, per the study.)

The CEB concluded that these findings indicate IT departments are no longer driving technology innovation to other parts of the business.  For the CEB the question then became, "Why are IT departments not budgeting for and controlling these projects?"

The CEB postulated (and we concur) that this shift has occurred because nearly 70% of IT budgets (per the study) are being consumed by maintenance and mandatory (e.g. regulatory) expenses. This "cash crunch" is encouraging already territorial IT departments to reject other departments' pet projects.

While it warms our IT-oriented hearts to learn that marketing, HR and other departments are willing to cannibalize their budgets to implement IT innovations, from iPads to cloud services, this behavior also concerns us. The CEB called the revenue consumed by these expenditures "shadow IT budgets" and estimates that such unapproved projects increase corporate IT expenditures by as much as 40%.

The CEB also determined that some 50% of these expenditures are what it called "unhealthy spending." Unhealthy spending results when projects are not properly evaluated and vetted against a business' overall growth strategy and objectives and/or the risk/reward analysis for the project is inadequate. We've seen unhealthy IT spending among some of our clients that, if not caught in time, could literally have jeopardized the company's trajectory, in terms of priorities and focus.

So, how much "unhealthy spending" are your departments engaging in? How many initiatives have they undertaken without the knowledge and approval of your IT chief?  No matter what you think the number is, we're willing to bet it's higher.

To curb shadow (and especially unhealthy) IT spending, our virtual CIOs can perform "project discovery" and help you map all recent and future projects against your business goals and needs. If you bring everyone to the table for a conversation, we can help vet the ideas of your HR, marketing, finance and other departments and quantify the impact of the good ones for IT and executive management.  We may also be able to help you reduce maintenance and mandatory expenditures through solid IT practices, freeing up budgets for innovation.

Only when you address shadow IT spending—and accept that these efforts are well-intentioned and can be quite valuable when handled properly—will you reap maximum reward from your technology initiatives and move expenditures out of the shadows and onto the balance sheet.

To learn more, fill out our inquiry form or give us a call.

By the DynaSis Team

At DynaSis, we are continually working to make improvements, providing our customers with products and services that are faster, more powerful and more secure. This year, we have taken great strides in several areas, including introducing an affordable, secure cloud file system that just may revolutionize your business model.

If you haven’t been introduced to our new offerings yet, we invite you to call us for a complimentary consultation. You may be pleasantly surprised at how much our solutions can propel the success of your business

Automated Monitoring and Alerting: In February, DynaSis launched a cloud-based, high-availability monitoring and alerting service gives that gives engineers in DynaSis’ network operations center a dashboard view of customers’ infrastructure at all times. The service conducts analysis and inspection of DynaSis customers’ on-site infrastructure and networks, 24/7/365, scanning for issues such as low disk space, servers being overwhelmed by too many user requests, and other problems that affect availability and performance. Offered at no additional charge to DynaSis’ Managed Services customers, it added a further layer of scrutiny on top of DynaSis’ already robust network and infrastructure management and maintenance solutions.

Partnership with Veeam: In March 2013, DynaSis announced a partnership with Veeam, a leading provider of disaster recovery services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Partnering with Veeam gave DynaSis yet another best-practices disaster recovery option for its clients. With the Veeam solution, DynaSis customers’ data and servers are replicated from their virtual servers to DynaSis offsite data centers, eliminating the need for onsite backup appliances or servers. Customers enjoy instant file-level recovery, application-item recovery and virtual server recovery plus deep support for VMware and Hyper-V virtualization environments.

DynaSis BLUE: In September, DynaSis announced the launch of DynaSis BLUE, a solution that turns customers’ on-site file servers into in-house cloud servers. 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. DynaSis BLUE enables firms to harness the power of cloud-based file sharing and storage without relinquishing control of corporate files to a third-party provider. With 448-bit Blowfish encryption, two-factor authentication, full auditability and granular user-access and security controls, DynaSis BLUE provisions companies with a comprehensive, 100% synchronized and backed-up solution that offers significantly better governance than leading competitors.

These products and services are some of our 2013 highlights, but they are far from our only accomplishments. We’re also planning some great new additions for 2014.

We hope you had a great holiday season and wish you a prosperous New Year. From all of us at DynaSis, here’s to a great 2014. We look forward to working with you in the future!

Have you thought about The Cloud recently? We're not referring to the puffy bits of condensed moisture that float above us, but rather to the interconnected web of data, applications, services and other components, both public and private, that we now know as The Cloud. DynaSis thought about The Cloud quite a lot earlier this year, when we launched our cloud-based storage and sharing solution  DynaSis BLUE.

BLUE is incredibly flexible and secure, with granular management that gives companies real control over their content and how people access it. As a result, we hope you'll check it out, if you haven't already. But, BLUE isn't what continues to amaze us, as proud of it as we might be. No, that honor would go to The Cloud, itself.

We can across some statistics on cloud adoption and growth recently, and they blew us away like a leaf in a strong wind. Here are a few tidbits that might make you feel the same way.

• Research firm Gartner predicts that the bulk of IT spending by 2016 will be for cloud computing platforms and applications.
• The worldwide economic impact of cloud technology could be as much as $6.2 trillion, annually, by 2025, per McKinsey & Company's report, Disruptive Technologies, Advances that Will Transform Life, Business and the Global Economy.
• IDC expects public IT cloud services to grow by 23.5% annually (compound growth rate) between now and 2017. That's between four-six times as fast as that of on-premise IT.
•  According to KPMG's recent study of cloud adoption, Global Cloud Survey, the Implementation Challenge, 70% of companies say cloud computing is delivering operating efficiencies and cost savings, today.
• Boston Consulting Group says that adoption of SaaS (software as a service) is increasing at three times the rate of traditional, on-premise software. (With SaaS, companies and individuals contract to access and use software over an Internet connection rather than purchasing and installing it.)

So, have you poked your head into The Cloud yet? If not, the sooner you begin leveraging the productivity and operational benefits of cloud computing, the more money you can save. Adopting cloud computing will also help your company level its "playing field" in relation to larger competitors.

DynaSis can show you how to adopt the cloud securely and efficiently, without even giving up your in-house hardware, if you prefer. (Our approach to this hybrid solution is called Ascend.) You can start slowly, with cloud-based Microsoft Exchange or basic file storage and sharing for collaboration and remote working through DynaSis BLUE.

If you'd like to learn more, we have a great white paper on cloud computing you can peruse. The Cloud is waiting... what are you waiting for?

[featured_image]By the DynaSis Team

In case you have forgotten, the $500,000 Section 179 tax deduction, which was extended to 2013 through approval of H.R. 8: American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, has not been carried over for 2014. Although Congress is considering extending the bonus depreciation rules for another three years, it’s pretty obvious that they won’t extend the Section 179 deduction above its base threshold of $25,000 (with a $200,000 investment ceiling) before the beginning of 2014. U.S. business owners could easily be left in limbo for the majority of 2014―as they were in 2012―before Congress decides to take action retroactively.

A much better option, tax experts say, is for businesses to take advantage of the 2013 Section 179 tax deduction while they have it. The Section 179 deduction covers most new and used capital equipment―in fact, most depreciable assets that have less than a 20-year life. It also includes certain software.

The 2013 Section 179 Deduction Limits for 2013 (and 2012 retroactive)- 2013 Deduction Limit = $500,000

•  2013 Deduction Limit = $500,000
•  2013 Limit on Capital Purchases = $2,500,000
•  2013 Bonus Depreciation = 50%

Under the current law, bonus depreciation (which companies take on new equipment only) also ends Dec. 31. Companies can use bonus depreciation to deduct half the cost of new capital purchases in the first year.

Bonus depreciation can be more valuable than the Section 179 deduction, because the IRS limits the Section 179 deduction to business taxable income with any excess carried forward. However, if you’re actively involved in running a business, you claim losses generated by bonus depreciation against other income in 2013. Then, you can carry any still-unused losses back for two years and get a refund check from Uncle Sam.

To be eligible for these deductions, you must purchase equipment and put it into service before December 31. From assessing and upgrading IT infrastructure to upgrading outdated versions of Windows on company workstations (support for Windows XP ends in April, 2014), many firms are accelerating their purchases to take advantage of this year’s deduction.

It’s Not Too Late!
Don’t think that it’s too late to make purchases and put them into service. DynaSis’ Virtual CIOs and technicians are at the ready to help you decide which purchases are appropriate for your business and get them into service before the stroke of midnight on December 31. Call us to initiate fast-track project planning or to accelerate execution of your current plan.

by Dave Moorman

Given the state of the economy in the past few years, many small and medium businesses (SMBs) have taken a “wait and see” approach to IT spending. While this attitude is understandable, it positions companies to become reactive rather than proactive.

The reality of IT is that things break; they fail; they become outdated. Companies that don’t have a solid IT plan to address at least the core replacement cycle risk lowering productivity and/or making unplanned IT expenditures that do not fit into their overall strategic business goals. Beyond basic needs, companies also need a strategic vision for using IT, not simply to enable their business (or worse, just prop it up), but rather to drive its future success.

If your company has a strategic IT vision and is implementing it, then I congratulate you. If not, I urge you to allocate time, early in 2014, for IT assessments and planning. Commit—right now—not to spend another unplanned dime on technology.

Whether you are a business owner or an IT executive, take concrete steps to make this happen. First, ask company personnel to submit a list of IT equipment and tools they think would invigorate their productivity in 2014. Ask them to persuade you with a compelling explanation of why they need these enhancements and how they can benefit the company’s success.

Then, sit down with executive management and other IT staff or your services provider and consider such important issues as:

• Business processes (how can IT better help you do what you do)
• Content management (how can IT improve the way you store, access and share documents and knowledge in your company)
• Infrastructure requirements (what is the IT foundation on which the business runs and how does it need to evolve over time)
• Security (what IT changes will enable you to better protect and defend the business and its intellectual assets from theft, damage or loss from inside or outside forces)
• Workflow requirements (how can IT tie everything together so that work moves smoothly from one process to the next with appropriate oversight and management)

Armed with this information and other insights you will gain along the way, you and your associates can develop an IT plan and budget. Only then should you consider the 2014 purchase cycle.

For companies that have not previously developed and implemented a strategic IT plan, this can be a tall order, but it’s a crucial one. At DynaSis, we strongly urge our customers not to embark on any IT program without an up-to-date IT plan. If a firm is uncertain how to implement its plan without blowing the budget, we ask them to pinpoint the most important of three core benefits (reduce costs; minimize risk; increase productivity) IT can provide and to focus on plan items that will accomplish that goal, first.

For companies that don’t have a plan and don’t know where to start, we provide numerous assessment tools and techniques that can help them develop a plan and make these decisions. If you would like us to help you assess and plan your IT future give us a shout!

[featured_image]By the DynaSis Team

I read an interesting article in Forbes online recently, about “the death of the office.” In it, contributor Jeanne Meister postulated about what the office of the future will look like. One comment struck me as especially worthy of further consideration:

“As work becomes more flexible and communication more mobile, the office is turning into an increasingly complex and even abstract concept. As we look to the future, we have to ask: Will the workplace be on-site at our employer’s property, or on-demand at a collaborative space? Or will work simply be a mindset independent of place or time of day?”

That last concept―work as a mindset that has no bearing on place or time of day, is a notion that seems increasingly likely. Already numerous studies report that the newest generation of workers, the Millennials, does not want to be tied to a specific place or time to work. (DynaSis is putting the final touches on a white paper about these workers. To request a copy when it’s ready, fill out our inquiry form, putting “Millennials White Paper” in the comments section.)

Realistically, who among us doesn’t like the idea of being freed from the constraints of time and space that a physical office places upon us? Certainly, there are people who crave the social nature of an office environment, and team collaboration and brainstorming on some projects seems to work best when the group works together physically, rather than virtually.

However, for at least some of our office tasks, having the freedom to do them whenever and wherever is highly beneficial for both employer and employee. And that, many experts predict, is what the office is becoming―a place where cloud and mobile technologies enable workers to perform some, if not all, of their work, wherever they are and whenever it suits them.

Think about it: for corporations, the savings in energy and office space alone could be substantial. In the area of employee health and productivity, the “insomnia” that plagues so many people might disappear. Workers who lie awake at night, worrying about a project, could instead get up and work on it until they were tired, and then go back to bed. This would be possible because they could also sleep late, rather than getting out of bed, groggy, to be in the office by 8 or 9am.

In 2011, Live Science published an article that postulates waking during the night for a few hours before returning to sleep (called biphasic sleeping) is natural behavior for humans. The anywhere, anytime office would enable employees to embrace this behavioral predisposition rather than fight it.

When we view the “Mobile Office” in this context, it’s evident that it’s about more than mobility. It’s about achieving functional flexibility that not only drives productivity for businesses, but also helps employees mold their jobs to suit their preferences―and possibly their innate natures. It’s about providing easy, non-technical solutions that are secure, seamless and always available, no matter where workers need them.

We’ve been testing some new technologies here at DynaSis, and we’ll be telling you more about them, soon. We’re calling our initiative Modern Office, and we think you’ll love it. Stay tuned…

[featured_image]By the DynaSis Team

Earlier this year, we offered some information and advice on malware and cyber-attacks, but the news surrounding these threats has become so concerning that an update is in order. Recently, a new Trojan horse named CryptoLocker surfaced. (A Trojan horse is malware that masquerades as beneficial.) CryptoLocker is especially crafty―it disguises itself as a legitimate attachment and then, when activated, it encrypts file types―such as Word documents and Auto Cad files―stored on your computer systems’ drives.

CryptoLocker stores the decryption keys for these files on its own servers, and infected users see a message that offers to decrypt the data and return access to it for a fee (usually around $300). It also warns message recipients that it will delete the key if a certain deadline passes. In November, a group assumed to be the perpetrators launched an online site that purports to unlock CryptoLocker-encrypted files after the deadline passes for 10 Bitcoin (more than $2000) per file.

For the encryption, CryptoLocker uses 2048-bit RSA public-key cryptography, which is virtually impossible to break. Removing the program is not difficult, but it does not afford companies access to their files, which remain encrypted. So, firms are faced with two choices unless they have a recent backup―pay the ransom or lose the file. Of course, no one wants to pay criminals ransom, but the alternative may be loss of important corporate data.

CryptoLocker usually spreads through a zipped (compressed) attachment to a seemingly safe email message (often appearing to originate from a legitimate company). Given that it only targets Microsoft Windows PCs, it presents a significant threat to U.S. companies, the majority of whom run Windows computers.

DynaSis is launching a new anti-malware service that will defend companies against CryptoLocker and other insidious threats. We are also following up on a new report, just released, that indicates many recent cyber-attacks may be shared development and logistics operations masterminded by broad consortiums of cyber-criminals.

If this is true, it increases the likelihood of attacks becoming even more frequent, ferocious and difficult to block. We will report on this issue in the next few weeks. In the meantime, to learn how we can protect you against these threats, give us a call.