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Why is IT such a headache for small and midsized businesses (SMBs)? Because technology often creates a vicious circle that smaller companies can’t seem to escape.

It starts when a small company realizes it’s not getting all it can out of its aging technologies and infrastructure and decides to upgrade. But with limited in-house expertise, the company can’t make the right choice of technology – and hiring more IT staff is out of the question. Rather than risk spending precious budget on a costly mistake, the company stands still.

Will the company’s business needs also stand still? Of course not. But business users will have to continue to make do with outdated technology, rather than using new solutions that can support innovation and growth.

Does This Sound Like Your Company?
If you’ve ever experienced the kind of decision-making paralysis described above, you’re not alone. Many SMBs run IT with a hand-to-mouth approach that’s designed to fit their small budget – but probably not their business needs.

They’ll add a new server here, a couple of new desktops there, but they hesitate to build a formalized IT plan. As a result, they often find themselves thinking:

“I know that I need IT to run my business, but I don’t know a lot about it – and I don’t have time to figure it all out.”

“When we buy a new piece of equipment we generally just upgrade to the latest model, without really understanding if that’s the best choice for us. We have no idea if we’re spending wisely or wasting money.”

“We’re often forced to rely on paperwork and manual systems and that leads to a lot of mistakes. It also affects our customers!”

Don’t Panic. Focus on These Six IT Challenges. (And Call Us for Help.)
What trends and factors are putting SMBs in their current IT predicament? We can think of several:

• Limited IT resources. Small IT budgets lead to small IT headcounts. And when headcounts are small, only the most urgent IT problems tend to get addressed, while other significant issues go unresolved.
• Growing data volumes. We live and work in an age of rapidly growing data. SMBs are eating up their available storage just as quickly as larger enterprises.
• Security risks. Security breaches are costly to companies of all sizes. But to an SMB, a single incident and its accompanying fines (not to mention, the PR damage) can be devastating.
• Difficulty accessing and processing information. It requires quite an up-front investment to implement the technologies and systems that enable fast queries and agile decision-making.
• Aging infrastructure. Older technologies and infrastructure can not only hamper business productivity, but also waste energy.
• Reliability issues. According to a Coleman Parkes Research study, small businesses lose about $15 billion from IT system downtime each year – more than any other segment in the study.

Of course, there’s no need to panic. Just call Corporate Technologies for help.

Corporate Technologies offers a wide range of IT solutions, including managed IT services, staffing, voice and data systems, storage and virtualization, consulting, and networking solutions. With 30 years’ experience and more than 260 employees, we’re ready for any challenge you send our way. To learn more, call (800) 680-8415.

There are a number of good IT consulting companies in and around Minneapolis. If you do your homework and interview enough providers, you’re sure to find answers to all your technical challenges. We hope this blog post helps you focus your search.

The Advantages of Working with a Consulting Firm Want to take the risk out of your IT operations? Gain greater technical knowledge and insights? Stay ahead of your competition through IT innovation? Forming a partnership with a full-service technology consulting firm is a good way to accomplish all of the above.

And if you’re working in a small or midsized business (SMB), be aware that more and more of your direct competitors are changing the way they think about IT. No longer do they see technology as expensive overhead – they now believe IT can help them achieve their goals, grow their business, and plan for tomorrow. In fact, in the 2008 International Small Business IT Survey, 96 percent of respondents thought IT was important to their growth, and 91 percent felt small business owners could benefit financially from a greater awareness of IT.

Minimum Requirements for Your IT Consulting Firm
No one consulting firm will be a good fit for every company. But as a starting point, look for a firm that offers:

• True IT services—not just new hardware.
• A local presence in your area.
• Business savvy as well as technical knowledge.
• Speedy response to your issues.
• Valuable partnerships for the areas they can’t cover by themselves.
• A true partnership, and a willingness to get to know your unique network.
• Flexibility to your budgetary and service-level needs.

Bonus Requirements for Your IT Consulting Firm
Want to be sure your IT partner will be prepared for anything you throw their way? Ideally, you’ll find a partner that can also offer:

• IBM Premier Partner status. Get the specialized guidance you need to select the right IBM small business solutions for your situation.
• A wide range of industry certifications. Ask your prospective partner for a complete list of the certifications they hold.
• A long, stable client list. IT providers that do large volumes of business often have greater buying power and can offer you deeper discounts on hardware.
• Teams that specialize in areas such as storage, virtualization, and networking. Large, well-established firms often hire top engineers and technicians in each discipline.
• A secure, remote data center. Leading IT consulting firms can give you the option of storing your company’s data remotely in data centers that meet the highest security standards.

Here’s a Good Fit: Corporate Technologies
We do encourage you to research your options – but we want you to know that Corporate Technologies can meet each of the requirements above. Not only are we headquartered in Minneapolis, but we also offer customizable IT solutions that support the unique needs of any business. Ask about our Technology Advantage® program, which is designed to provide Fortune 500-level IT support and services to SMBs at an affordable price.

Learn more today. Just give us a call at (800) 680-8415.

Refining your approach to IT? Looking for an IT strategy whitepaper or eBook to guide you? Corporate Technologies can help. We’ve recently released two new resources that can deliver the advice you’re looking for.

Our eBook, “Getting More from IT: How Small and Midsized Companies Can Meet Today’s Leading Challenges,” describes the vicious circle in which many small and midsized businesses find themselves.

Working on a limited budget, smaller companies often hesitate to implement IT innovations. But if they’re trying to grow quickly, these companies also don’t want to stagnate on their current IT configurations. With their hands tied, smaller companies often use up the IT budget by simply adding new servers and storage to their network. This further limits their ability to innovate.

The eBook goes on to describe how you can:

• Overcome six leading IT challenges for small and midsized businesses.
• Assess the impact of IT challenges on your bottom line.
• Use three proven strategies (including virtualization) to get more from your IT investment.

Register to download the eBook now.

Our whitepaper, “Implementing Your IT Strategy: Four Guidelines for SMBs,” takes these concepts one step further. Once you’ve gotten comfortable with the concept of transforming IT to yield a greater return on your investment, you’ll need a blueprint for developing your new approach.

This whitepaper delivers. Read it to find out how you can:

• Make sure your data storage capacity grows along with your company’s needs.
• Find exactly the right time to outsource technical support.
• Identify the IT solutions that are most likely to meet your needs without breaking your budget.
• Get more from your relationship with an IT consulting partner.

Register to download the whitepaper now.

Again, these two resources are designed to help you navigate your IT options, which continue to increase with each year that goes by. We invite you to download them both. Or, if you’d prefer to discuss your next IT project with one of our consultants, just give us a call at 1-888-543-5728.

Nowadays, everyone in IT seems to be talking about the benefits of virtualization. But is anyone talking about the benefits of virtualization for SMB?

Actually, you might be surprised at how many small and midsized businesses have harnessed virtualization technology to save time and money for their companies.

When you stop and think about it, though, it makes sense. In its simplest form, virtualization simply consists of a physical server with a virtual machine monitor installed on it to act as a layer between the hardware and operating system. Even a very small company could probably benefit from running multiple operating systems concurrently on this layer, and running various business applications in each operating system.

It sure beats powering up a whole rack of physical servers.

Is Virtualization for Everyone?

So, can just any company virtualize? Does it make sense to look into virtualization if you haven’t even filled up your one tiny server room? 

That depends. A very small company probably won’t achieve an impressive payback – at least not right away – with virtualization. But don’t let that discourage you. Instead, focus on the incremental improvements your company may be able to make.

For example, could you consolidate three physical servers into one? If so, wouldn’t you reduce your power consumption, cooling costs, maintenance costs, and overall IT workload? Of course you would.

The question then becomes, how much of an initial investment are you comfortable making to achieve these ongoing benefits? And that’s a question only you can answer, based on your company’s unique financial situation.

What’s the Payback?

If you’re leaning towards virtualizing at least parts of your IT infrastructure, know that you’re not alone. According to a 2010 Aberdeen Group report, 76% of mid-market CIOs were either currently implementing or planning virtualization projects at their companies.

What kind of payback are these early and mainstream adopters achieving?

•  A 2008 IDC survey found that virtualization allows companies to reduce hardware costs by 20% and realize average annual cost savings of 23%.
• IDC also found that virtualization can have a profound effect on annual costs per user. Companies that haven’t virtualized spend an average of $18 per user on hardware, compared to $6 for companies that have implemented advanced virtualization.
• According to IBM’s David Vaughn, storage virtualization can help increase disk utilization by up to 30%.

Virtualization for SMB: Finding a Partner

Eager to tap into the benefits of virtualization, many small and midsized businesses are reaching out to IT consulting firms for help in getting started.

This is a smart move – but you have to know what you’re looking for. Rather than give you a laundry list of requirements, we’ll give you a single rule of thumb: look for an IT provider that has a designated virtualization team. By doing so, you’ll be able to tap into the expertise of virtualization specialists – rather than getting “one size fits all” service from IT generalists.

Ready to get your virtualization project started? Give Corporate Technologies a call at 1-888-543-5728.

I met with a small customer who was asking about alternatives to their POP3 email.  I asked him what he specifically wanted and he replied “a more business class email.”  Asking him if that was it, he replied “yes.”  Well, what is business class email?  Attachment limits that don’t hinder what can be sent to your customers?  An SLA that guarantees your email will be running?  How about the ability to read those emails from anywhere?  The short answer is yes, but I then asked him about taking this a step further and look at “business class messaging.”  After setting them up with Microsoft’s Cloud Services, they have all that they expected in regards to email, but now have Calendar functionality as well!  This means calendar and appointment setting from anywhere.  Being able to view others calendars and create appointments accordingly.  The ability to track personal events and business events using Outlook and setting reminders so you never lose track of an appointment again!  In a nutshell… no more carrying around little black appointment books.  So, for them no more POP3 meant more than going to a “business class email” solution.  It meant improving their business with “business class communications” and they’ve been one happy customer.

Jason Sines, Cloud Services Specialist

Jason’s role is solely focused on helping clients find their comfort level within the cloud from single applications to hosting an entire environment . Jason has worked as a business consultant for 10+ years delivering  solutions that help customers save money and time while moving their businesses forward.

You may see Jason out and about presenting and delivering  cloud messaging to businesses in West Michigan via webinars, seminars and blog postings.

What is new with the latest code 8.3 and why should administrators upgrade their firewalls?

With this release many new features have been added such as NAT redesign with network objects, Real IP use in the access-lists, full IPv6 support, failover cluster license enhancements, threat defense optimization, and botnet traffic filter.  With so many changes and enhancements a memory upgrade is required to run the new code.  Cisco SmartNet customers are strongly advised to upgrade to this latest code to continue use of the full Cisco ASA feature set.

Caleb Oosterhouse, Sr. Network Engineer

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Does your company wait days for your one man IT cowboy to ride into the office and save the day?

2. Have you verified your customer data is recoverable should your server(s) fail?

3. Is your bookkeeper also the point person when a computer dies?

4. Are you buying white box equipment from the web because your IT person doesn’t sell equipment?

5. You like your IT company, but don’t understand what you’re paying for.

If you answered yes to any of the above, you’re not doing your business any favors when it comes to managing your technology. Take a few minutes in 2010 to research how companies are saving money and time by outsourcing their IT support to a managed services organization.

Corporate Technologies is hosting a webinar in January to discuss how forward thinking businesses are handling IT support and managing technology costs. Visit www.gocorptech.com/evite/ta/ and learn more about how your company would benefit from a managed services solution.

Dan Rosedahl, General Manager - Corporate Technologies LLC

Posted by: Dan Rosedahl, Corporate Technologies General Manager

Someone across the globe right now wants to peek under the hood of your network, or more likely they would like to use your computers and servers as a delivery conduit for SPAM and Virus emails.  Stop the majority of these threats at the door is the goal. Take the time to review our 5 point checklist for Small Business Security:

1)      Utilize a hosted SPAM filtering solution. Stopping thousands of SPAM emails before they get to your in-box.

2)      Anti-Virus Software on every computer and server is a must. Work with a provider that can monitor and manage this remotely for you.

3)      Install a business class internet firewall or edge device. This may include an all-in-one device that can provide security and secure remote access.

4)      Update your operating systems. Microsoft recently reported the infection rate of computers using Windows Vista is 60% lower than previous versions.

5)      Educate your employees about safe computing. 

Navigating the ocean of threats is easier when you have a trusted advisor to lead the way. By working with a seasoned Managed IT Service Provider you should be able to significantly reduce your risk and help your business stay safe.

Dan Rosedahl, General Manager - Corporate Technologies LLC

Posted by: Sean Desvousges, Sales Manager, Minneapolis

Most business owners tell me “I don’t budget for IT support” or “It depends…some months I spend $0 and some months it’s $2,000.”  Reactive, pay-as-you-go support leads to missed maintenance and updates, unpredictable downtime, non-technical employees fiddling with IT, and erratic unforeseen month-to-month expenditures.  If your business is currently in reactive IT support mode you will probably agree it’s almost impossible to budget for.

The better alternative is a fixed-price package including all routine maintenance, all updates and patches, constant 24/7 monitoring, unlimited helpdesk, and regular on-site hours  – all accomplished by trained professionals with the latest technical expertise and tools.  Benefits of proactive managed support include reduced cost and downtime, increased productivity, and ability to predict one’s budget.

Smart business owners know their IT support budget.  It’s steady, reasonable, and lets them focus on running their business.

Sean Desvousges, Sales Manager - Corporate Technologies LLC, Minneapolis