by Dave Moorman

Risk is all around us. It’s beside us as we step off a sidewalk and cross a street; it’s seated next to us every time we fly in an airplane or drive a car. It’s our constant companion, and some experts say this causes humans to inadequately recognize the importance of risk mitigation.

In life, that’s a good thing, to a degree. It’s gotten humans where they are, today. For example, if we stopped to adequately assess the risks in hurtling ourselves across town in a metal bucket (a car) at 60 miles per hour, we might never go anywhere.

In business, the opposite is true. Inadequate risk mitigation can be highly destructive to a company’s future prospects; it should be one of every company’s top objectives. And, with technology playing such an important role in business achievement, it must be a core consideration in this process.

So, where are you in the risk management and mitigation process? Do you have valid reason to believe you have adequately shielded both your business assets and technology infrastructure from possible loss, damage or theft? For most businesses, the answer is either “No,” or “I don’t know.” (If you answered “Yes,” give me two minutes to persuade you otherwise.)

What constitutes risk management and mitigation as it relates to technology? A successful approach encompasses all the following activities, and more:

• Network security management (including but not limited to virus blocking, spam filtering, intrusion detection, firewall monitoring and management, network device monitoring and management, and remote access—e.g. virtual private networks—management).
• Infrastructure security (restricting virtual and physical access to your servers and other core hardware)
• Monitoring and application of system changes, modifications and upgrades.
• Effective, replicable backup and recovery within a timeframe that works for your business objectives, both on-site and remotely.
• Desktop and device management (securing and managing access to the hardware and system resources that employees use for daily activities without hampering productivity).

Nested within these line items are many other operations, from policy management to data deduplication. Collectively, these activities represent the technology component of corporate security. And, although they are limited to technology, for most companies they protect against 90-95% of the most persistent and harmful threats.

Such a broad list of items may seem overwhelming to many, but when incorporated into a systematic approach to security, they are highly manageable. In fact, DynaSis manages all these activities for dozens of customers on a daily basis, without a hitch.

The gut-wrenching reality is that risks to businesses and their assets are greater than at any previous time in man’s history, and the task of protecting critical resources and precious intellectual property is more daunting. Fortunately, the weapons available to fight this war and its many battles are more robust and comprehensive that ever. Are you ready to enlist?

After event-management company Caldwell Group, Ltd. took a technology plunge and developed its own in-house IT infrastructure, the firm realized that the solution was not meeting its needs. While investigating other options, Caldwell Group President Polly Bermingham found a better answer in the cloud with ITility by DynaSis cloud solution. That was in 2007, and today the partnership is as strong as ever.

From Under performing to Outstanding
“At the time, we were working with a pharmaceutical firm that had huge meetings—2000-3000 attendees—so we needed a fast system,” says Bermingham. “We had spent a lot of money on a server that could take 200 hits a minute, but it wasn’t enough. We kept expanding and expanding and it just wasn’t cutting it.”

Bermingham’s frustration lead her to search for a new IT solution, and she came across a mailing piece she had received from DynaSis. She and her team began evaluating vendors and eventually chose the ITility by DynaSis solution because, as Bermingham says, “We liked them the best. Plus, we were paying more to our one IT guy for service than we would pay DynaSis for everything in a year.”

DynaSis transitioned Caldwell Group’s data and business applications—Microsoft Outlook and Office—to a cloud server hosted at its world-class data center. With the new solution, Bermingham and her employees would access their data, email and software over a secure, redundant, high-speed Internet connection. She would no longer have to worry about on-site infrastructure or data security and backups, because DynaSis would manage and maintain everything in the background.

Responding to Changing Conditions
When the economic recession hit, ITility by DynaSis enabled Bermingham to be technologically prepared. With the meetings and events market taking a tumble as companies tightened belts, Bermingham adapted without any IT headaches.

“The economy had a huge impact on the industry, so we went to a remote model,” says Bermingham. “Today, our people still work from their homes, and we are incredibly more productive. We have all our files on the server. We’ve saved so much money, and it’s not just because we went remote. It’s because we partnered with DynaSis.”

Ultimate Portability
Using ITility by DynaSis has given Caldwell Group benefits that extend far beyond the money Bermingham saved in infrastructure and office space. Her team can access their files—from any Internet-connected computer—while they are in the field or at a conference, trade show or client meeting.

“We used to have big file books we would drag around with us, but now we just get on our computers and we have everything we need,” says Bermingham. “When we have presentations, if people forget or lose something or we need something in an email, the information is right at our fingertips.”

Bermingham also touts the ITility by DynaSis solution for what she calls the “crisis management” phase of meeting management. “You have the plan, but it changes until the day everyone arrives. You need access to that information and it has to be current—almost real time. With ITility by DynaSis, we have a security blanket. DynaSis saves the day, all the time.”

Service Beyond Expectations
Bermingham says the DynaSis support staff is knowledgeable, friendly and focused and says, “They will teach you and coach you until you get it. They have made me a fan of technology.” If something goes wrong, she notes, “Their emergency service is quick and responsive. You never have to wait and you never have to call them twice.”

As evidence of the DynaSis team’s enthusiasm, Bermingham relates the story of getting a new computer. “I was trying to set it up remotely, and I couldn’t figure it out. I said, ‘Just let me bring it over,’ and in 10 minutes they had it up,” she reports.

Even though Bermingham and her team are now working with different people than when they started with DynaSis five years ago, she says the team is just as helpful as they were at the outset. “We were big fans of DynaSis back then and we still are today,” says Bermingham. “I have not talked to one person who couldn’t do what we asked. It doesn’t matter if it is 10 on a Sunday night, they will call you back. There are not many companies like that.

“DynaSis has totally lived up to our expectations,” Bermingham concludes. “There is no better decision we could make, for the service; the product; the money. I would highly recommend them to anybody, and I have.”

“Technology isn’t just a tool, it’s a weapon,” Executive VP Ed Steinman said. “Your technology should support your business in ways that allow you to discover more quickly, respond more quickly. IT should never hold you back, it should be pushing you ahead.” Through the Digital Veins program, DynaSis constantly monitors the operation of Whitaker’s systems, performing regular maintenance, executing backups and installing upgrades and patches proactively.

When automotive, commercial and industrial lubricant supplier Halco Industries found service going down and prices going up with its former IT support firm, the company decided it was time for a reboot. After discussing the situation with its current firm, the company called DynaSis for a consultation. The result was a retooling of Halco's IT strategy that not only increased satisfaction but also is helping them explore adoption of new technologies.

Business Basics.
Halco's 29-user IT configuration centers around five on-premise servers running either Windows Server 2003 or 2008. The firm uses MS Exchange 2010 for email messaging and archival, Multiview Financial software, plus Microsoft Office (with Excel power users) and heavy reliance on Internet access. Despite having sufficient infrastructure running leading software products, prior to DynaSis's arrival things were always going wrong.

"We were continually having downtime across the organization. On different systems and at different times our Internet, email and order entry would be down," says Halco Accounting Manager Joann Carney. "The president of the company was familiar with of DynaSis, so we had them come in a few times to discuss how they would address our needs. We liked their approach and we switched."

DynaSis recommended its Digital Veins service, in which it manages, monitors and patches the on-site servers and other IT equipment for its customers, either remotely or on premises. The solution adopted by Halco also includes a backup and disaster recovery system as well as spam filtering and patch management. DynaSis also provides problem alerting and support notification to Halco users.

Service First.
DynaSis installed a dedicated software solution that placed an icon on the desktop of every Halco user. When users have a problem, they click the icon to initiate a service ticket.

"DynaSis responds directly to the user, as opposed to our previous solution where only one or two people could call in with issues," says Carney. "I love the fact they are willing to talk to every user, and will talk to folks in the warehouse about how to reboot a computer so I don’t have to go out there and do it."

According to Carney, DynaSis's proactive approach ensures she is notified of problems before she is aware of them. "I get a text message telling me the server is down before I get to work," she says. "The monitoring on their end watches our servers."

While she is driving into the office, Carney relates, DynaSis works to restore the problematic server remotely. "They ask me to call when I arrive if the server isn’t restored to normal operations," she says.

"I just had a nasty virus and they dialed in and repaired it," she continues. "While they were there, they noticed a patch missing from my machine and checked all the other workstations to make sure they had the patch, then reported back to us on the resolution."

On the Spot and Within Reach
Carney reports that she has timed DynaSis's response time and found it to be "excellent." She says the average is around seven minutes, and if DynaSis cannot repair a problem remotely, they are quick to arrive and take care of the problem, on site. "We’re a sales-based business, and sales people are taking orders all day, so if a server goes down it puts us in a backlog," says Carney. "We are unable to take orders and make our money."

DynaSis also supports the Blackberries and iPhones of Halco's outside sales force, who call DynaSis directly for support. DynaSis's engagement has also extended the reach of Halco's employees, in some cases enabling them to perform tasks they never before considered. "Some of us work at home and have the ability to dial-in; they have made a big difference in our remote capabilities," says Carney.

"Our sales manager just got an iPad and is trying to do quotes from it," she continues. "DynaSis is helping him enable direct desktop access from his iPad." So successful has the effort been, so far, that Carney says DynaSis will soon be helping Halco integrate more iPads with their system as well as easing the transition into a new CRM solution.

"One of our oil company partners recently provided iPads to our representatives and invited us to join a beta program for order taking," says Carney. "Now, our sales people are exploring what else they can do with the devices, and DynaSis is helping them out."

In the past 5 years, businesses have learned how to get by with less, but sometimes the constraint is unsustainable. Budgets, especially in IT, have been disproportionately affected by the big squeeze, but eventually people will have to upgrade their aging infrastructures and look to strategic business capabilities (SBC's) to get back to growth.

Businesses are demanding better IT services and functionality, while offering minimal to no increase in their total IT spend. In response, IT service providers like DynaSis have continued to innovate and create new IT solutions to meet the demand, but the solutions can change the very core of their daily business. The question that needs to be considered is whether businesses are willing to adapt to the new landscape.

Getting Ahead Of The Curve

In many cases, technology change has outpaced the ability of IT departments and staff to change along with it. To take advantage of technology innovations, rather than becoming a victim of them, businesses must challenge traditional ways of thinking and working. But at the same time, they must reduce or maintain operating costs.

Most businesses do not have the IT knowledge necessary to determine what they need to do in order to get ahead of the curve and gain a competitive advantage. Instead of trying to hire a single person who can handle IT, what if they relied on another business who could do much more, with less?

IT As A Utility

Similar to the utilities companies that provide your power, computing has itself have become a utility too. Why continue to maintain IT in-house, when you can get much better by tapping into a larger, more efficient IT resource like DynaSis? Outsourcing IT has become the natural evolution of the IT department. A cloud provider has more technology, expertise and resources to transform your business. We do nothing but manage IT for businesses so we can design the best solutions at the lowest costs. The goal is to add new technologies like Mobility, Business Continuity, Security and Disaster Recover to enhance your organizations competitiveness in the market place. Doing this and it being cost neutral is what we do.

You don’t have to worry about where the technology is going and how to keep up. Instead, you can think about what your business can do with all of the new potential.

If you would like to tap into the power and efficiency of managed IT services, feel free to give us a call. DynaSis will get you ahead of the curve.

David J. Moorman

Look at how United Parcel Service (UPS) markets themselves, they are a, "logistics company." Years ago, they were a packaging company with emphasis on the people that make UPS. Delivered with a friendly smile from a clean brown truck. The reality is much different. Sending packages involves data input, retrieval, bar-codes, scanners, GPS, and coordinating people, planes, trains, and automobiles. There are far more machines and technology running operations, than people. At some point in UPS’s history they realized moving things from Point A to Point B wasn't just a matter of a fit person picking up a package and dropping it off.

For at least 15 years, UPS has known that they are a technology business. It's only recent that they've come out to the public admitting it. Prior to this, customers liked the thought that a crystal chandelier might go through a different process than an office chair. Maybe, they thought, someone would dust the chandelier and handle it with white gloves. Fortunately, this isn't the case, a modern day shipping logistics system is capable of transporting both items equally as well, no white gloves are required. Customers have embraced the fact that in order to send packages, the shipping company needs to be high-tech. Technology in business is now viewed as a strength. If a company is leveraging technology to its fullest, you can count on them to be around in the future. Not embracing technology, in an onlookers opinion, is a sign a business can't adapt to the "new normal" global economy.

Embracing technology as an important part of your business can be both liberating and terrifying. Yes, there will be less of a human component in parts of your business as you gain efficiencies. Technology is already replacing the work of many people in many industries and the ratio will continue to grow. On the other hand, it also means that an individual is capable of much more production on their own assuming they accept change.

It’s time to start facing the reality that you are in the technology business. No one will hold it against you, instead, it should come as a relief. Customers count on you to lead the way, and to be there in the future.

by Chas Arnold

Cleaning in IT shouldn't happen once a year. Backups and archives for e-mail should be happening at least everyday. Implementing the right systems will help you maintain a clean inbox and prevent bloating. Besides cleanliness, there are three other very important reasons to have an e-mail archive system in place. E-mail archiving systems provide unmodifiable backups of e-mails for future reference, they provide a backup to e-mails in case you ever lose your e-mail data, and they can be used for litigation support.

Regulatory Reasons

Your e-mail system shouldn’t be like the junk closet in your house. An e-mail archive system will make sure you never have to sift through a pile of unorganized e-mails from years ago. Instead of opening the closet door and having junk fall out, you will be able to pinpoint e-mails without worry of it being lost in the abyss. You never know when you’ll need to reference an employee’s e-mail. But if anything ever happens that would call into question your employee’s communications, you’ll have a perfectly organized closet that stored their e-mails.

Disaster Recovery

Unfortunately, data loss can happen when systems crash. Fortunately, there are IT solutions that help to minimize or eliminate the possibility of permanent data loss. Real-time e-mail archiving systems prevent your communications from disappearing when your systems crash. Beyond not losing data for your own sake, an archive of your e-mail communications needs to be in tact for regulatory reasons:

“As industry and government alike grow continually more reliant on information systems, particularly email, these information become more valuable. To protect this valuable information, standards and government regulations have been enacted that require certain retention and timely response to legal and information queries. A proper email archiving system allows companies to meet regulatory, and/or business records retention requirements by enabling compliance officers to easily search email stored in the archive and perform periodic reviews.”

Litigation

Losing data is a miserable experience, but businesses also have to worry about the speed at which data is retrievable. If your data can be tampered with or is unorganized, you are less protected in court. Anything that could slow down or hinder the legal process, that you could have prevented with a proper e-mail archive setup, decreases your overall security:

“For legal discovery, e-mail archiving solutions will lower overall risk of spoliation and greatly speed up the discovery function because of their message indexing, audit capabilities, deduplication and protection of all e-mail messages stored in the archive. For litigation support, email can be retrieved quickly and a history of the email exists to prove its authenticity for chain of custody. For compliance support, email records are stored in the archive according to administrator defined retention policies.”

Real-Time Cleaning

Waiting until spring to clean up your e-mails isn’t just a matter of dust collecting, it can have serious consequences. Don’t procrastinate in setting up your digital archives. Instead, implement a proactive e-mail archiving system to help protect you and your business from potential problems down the line.

by David J. Moorman

Many people learn to live with those old Windows computer that take 10 Minutes to boot. Sometimes, they can even learn to put up with taking 5 minutes to open a Word document. It’s clear to see how bad computers can result in poor performance. Slow computers are what most people think of when they imagine what a failing IT infrastructure looks like. When we talk about the costs of under-performing IT, it doesn't mean your computers don’t run as well as they should. What it does mean is that:

You Lose Productivity From Employees

Slow computers are one thing, but there are also undesirable consequences to limiting employees’ ability to work remotely. Though they are in denial, most people know and understand that employees will do personal activities during work hours. But, your IT solution shouldn't limit an employee’s ability to do work activities during their personal hours. Work life is 24 x 7 these days; take advantage of it.

Having the ability to work remotely improves your employees’ quality of life. They can stay home sick, without getting the rest of the office sick, and still accomplish all of their work. When they can’t sleep at night, they can login and accomplish the things they used to be unable to from home. When employees are anchored to the office in order to work, you lose productivity.

You Can Damage Your Brand

If your IT system begins to break down, the effects can be noticed by your customers. A real world example happened a few years ago during the recession. A high-end country club was feeling the crunch and started cutting corners. One of the corners cut was their IT system. As a result, their system would randomly lose orders patrons had placed. Servers would bring out the food and a plate would be missing. Other people would come in only to find out their tee time hadn’t registered in the system. A place that used to be viewed as prestigious was noticeably looking like they were just scraping-by.

You Can Lose Customers And Revenue

If your employees are underutilized and customers see a blemished brand, you can lose revenue. Waiting until its to late to improve your IT is an uphill battle. With lost revenues, having to make an investment or major change adds insult to injury. It’s always best to improve upon IT proactively than to cut corners and later realize how much damage has been done. Like most things in life, a proactive solution is better than a reactive solution.

IT Can Be A Strength

Many people find technology to be a burden because they only realize their dependence when it  malfunctions. We should always keep in mind how much IT has improved business overall. Most businesses can’t function at all without some sort of computer system. Instead of viewing IT as a blessing and a curse, realize that it’s mostly a blessing. Under-performing IT is a result of not recognizing it’s importance within your business. If you make your IT a high priority, it can take you years ahead of your competition. Otherwise, if you don’t, it can take you out of business.

by David J. Moorman

Technologies that can help drive business operations and efficiency, as opposed to just keeping business operations afloat, are considered competitive technologies. If everyone else is using the same tools and technologies in the same way, it doesn't really provide a competitive advantage. The following technologies aren't currently being utilized by everyone, but they will be probably be in the future:

Sales Automation systems

Sales Automation systems are at the top of many technology executives to-do lists and if they aren't, they should be for 2011. The goal of a Sales Automation system is to give a company the ability to generate more qualified sales opportunities, more effectively and to increase the close rate on those opportunities.
One popular example of a Sales Automation system that provides a competitive advantage is Salesforce.com. The implementation and integration of Salesforce with other systems can help to increase automation, Business Intelligence and communication. Services such as Google Adwords, Facebook, twitter, chat and other social media platforms can integrate with Salesforce.com to generate more opportunities and in the end more sales.

Business Intelligence

Easily readable, real-time business data helps executives make decisions faster, better, and more accurately. Business Intelligence is the collection of data usally from multiple sources and parsed and displayed in a pre defined format. B.I. Systems help to analize the data for questions like:
How many sales occurred today?...by which representative?...to what customers?
What were today’s margins?
What are current inventory levels?
To answer these questions, systems record, create, and organize historical data. This data can be packaged together and displayed into a dashboard or used for reporting purposes.

Data Analytics

Diving deeper into your data to answer very specific questions requires a system that can tap into the troves of data collected by a data warehousing systems. For example, Data Analytics would be able to determine how many resources a customer is requiring from your business. Should you raise rates for some customers and lower them for others? Data Analytics would make complex questions much easier to answer.
Are the customers that are requiring the most of your services generating profit? If so, do you need to allocate more resources for those clients? Should you hire more people to provide adequate service?

Being able to drill down deep into the data helps to reduce the risk of uncertainty. These systems increase confidence in your decisions which translates into a competitive advantage in every scenario.

Social Media

Social media can be used in IT to help market and sell more products. With social media integrated into sales automation systems, you will be able to track where leads are generated, who’s buying your services, and who’s reading your company’s communications. Social media with increased automation can tailor marketing messages to a very specific audience.

Integrated Systems

While each of these systems by themselves can benefit a business, it’s when they all work together that their true power is realized. Ultimately, they empower people by reducing workload and increasing knowledge. When used together you can know exactly who your clients are and what they want. This knowledge can be used to find the most efficient path to balancing the needs of your business and your clients. An integrated IT system can be the competitive advantage your company needs to set it apart from the pack.

By David Moorman

The beginning of the new year is a great time to re-evaluate your IT strategy. The IT strategy is a living and breathing document. Not just meant to sit on the shelf in a pretty presentation folder, you should refer back to your IT strategy regularly to continually align your business goals with your IT infrastructure, as the IT capabilities you have often dictate the critical business information on hand to make successful decisions. Just like a budget, your IT needs change from year to year with the ebb and flow of your business. Evaluating it each year can help you locate areas to cut back on as well as areas that need attention to get you to the next level. DynaSis staffs IT strategy experts that will work with you to create and re-evaluate your IT strategy. Need help? Call us today.