4 Mobile Technology Features Every Business Needs

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Are you looking to enhance your business with new mobile technologies to give your workforce the competitive edge? If so, then we recommend that before you go out and purchase new mobile devices, you first need to understand the technology requirements of your organization. Here are four crucial needs you will want to consider.

Performance

Implementing a new technology that doesn’t meet the performance needs of your business will be a waste of everyone’s time and money by negatively affecting productivity. One mobile technology performance feature you will need to take into consideration is the ability keep employee productivity up, even when the Internet isn’t available.

It’s easy to overlook this performance feature because you assume that a connection will always be available, but when doing business on the road, your Internet connectivity can be spotty. Instead of going with a mobile device that needs the Internet to do everything, it will be better to give your staff mobile devices that can be used to work on every project, even if they can’t get any bars.

Easy to Use

Of course, ease of use is a goal with all technology, but you will especially want it when it comes to mobile solutions because not all mobile devices are built for business. It’s not worth your money to go with a cheaper consumer product that your employees will have to fight with in order to do basic business tasks like sharing files, using e-mail, and accessing up-to-date documents over your network.

Reliability

The best mobile solutions work seamlessly at sharing content over the device and your company’s network. When it comes to using the mobile versions of the software your business runs on, it’s important that the mobile app version is just as reliable. A mobile application that’s inferior to its desktop counterpart will cost your business money when employees lose productivity over reliability issues.

Security

Any mobile device that connects with your company’s network will need strong security in order to protect your sensitive information. The location of the needed files should be secure and obvious to the user, and data cached on employees’ devices should be safe and encrypted.

Finding the right mobile solution for your business takes knowledge and effort to make sure that all four of these features are covered. As a rule, when it comes to implementing new technology for your business, the better you know the needs of your business, the better you can find solutions that are right for your company. You also need to be familiar with all the latest technology solutions to give your business the competitive edge.

NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP knows what mobile solutions are best for business, and we will take the time to learn about the needs of your company. This way, we can recommend technology solutions that will make all of your company’s technology work for you! Call us at 812-618-4032 to learn more.

A Healthy Intranet = Strong Marketing

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Marketing is not done in a bubble. Instead, it requires input from outside resources. When it comes to effective marketing, communication is key. Having a computer network that acts as a communications hub for every department is one the best ways to help your marketing team.

In order to be successful, your marketing team must have the ability to quickly get feedback on a project from your entire staff. Your marketing team will need the ability to easily share files with each other and the entire company. Here are just a few of the major audiences your marketing team will need to effectively communicate while using your company’s network.

The Need for Direction from the Higher Ups

In business, everything starts at the top and rolls (or sometimes flows) downhill. Your marketing team needs direction. They need to know how their project fits into the company’s overall vision and implementation strategy so they can accurately communicate this to your market, and target the right prospects.

You need to be able to share with your marketing team any file that you think helps explain your vision, and they need to be able to easily find, view, and have some kind of forum in place where comments and ideas can be exchanged. All of this is done over the company intranet. The less reliable your company’s intranet is will translate to more delayed or misinterpreted communications, which can lead to your marketing campaign going in a different direction than what you would have liked.

The Necessity of Hearing from the Bottom

Even the best marketing team will fail if they’re trying to sell something to a customer base that’s simply not interested. The more avenues of communication your marketing team has in place to get feedback from your customers will mean the better the message can be tailored to the people you need to reach.

You will want to have some kind of technology in place where your customers can communicate their needs to your marketing team, and you will want to have a communication system in place on your network where all the other departments can also view and benefit from this data. You as the leader will especially want access to this data to inform the vision and direction of your company.

The Value of Peer-to-Peer Communication

Your marketing team will benefit from gaining insight from all the other departments in your business. Peers work closely with the same products the marketing team is trying to sell, and they interact with the same customers the marketing team is trying to reach. Adding this kind of insight to a marketing campaign will help make it more robust, and help your team develop marketing strategies that are more holistic. Your company’s network is the best place for this type of peer-to-peer communication to take place, and because this communication is valuable, you will want your intranet to be organized.

There are several different communication solutions available on the market, and while it’s great to take advantage of as many technologies as you can, it works out best if all of these different solutions are connected to your company’s network in an organized fashion. This way, no valuable information will be lost. A marketing team tooled with a reliable network that they are trained to use, will produce dynamic and informed marketing campaigns that will achieve your goals.

If you would like help organizing your IT infrastructure to provide your business with this level of communication between all of your departments, your customers, and yourself, then call NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP at 812-618-4032. We can keep your network running smoothly with our managed IT services, and even introduce you to the latest business solutions to enhance communication between all of your departments. Call NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP today and make your technology work for you!

4 Statistics Every Business Ought to Know About Data Backup

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Every business needs to have a business continuity plan to keep operations going after experiencing a disaster. The centerpiece to every plan is having a backup and recovery solution in place for your company’s data. If something happens to your data, your business may not recover. Here are four backup statistics that show the importance of backing up.

6% of All Computers Experience Data Loss Each Year

Data loss doesn’t just happen when a system crashes, even a small loss of data, like one workstation’s hard drive going down, can cost your business time and money. Taking a chance on a figure like 6% is kind of like playing Russian roulette with twelve-chamber revolver. It’s only a matter of time before the bullet goes off, and when it does, things will get messy.

Concerning Businesses that Do Backup Their Data, 34% Never Test It

While it’s vital to have a backup solution in place, just the act of backing up isn’t enough, you will also want to regularly test your backup solution to make sure it can perform under pressure. For the businesses that do test their backup solutions, 77% find that their backup solution fails on some level. Regular testing of your backup solution will give you the opportunity to take care of any shortcomings so your business can be prepared for anything.

A Company That’s Down for 10 Days After a Natural Disaster Will Not Survive the Next Year

Your business may be able to easily bounce back from a minor disaster like an hour-long power outage, but are you prepared to withstand a major natural disaster that will disable your business for days? Think back to Superstorm Sandy, this storm left America’s Northeastern seaboard without power in 2012; and in some places the outage was as long as two weeks. Many businesses were unprepared for Sandy and paid a high price. A strong business continuity plan will make provisions to keep a business in operation after a bad storm, which must include a way to access your data.

Tape Backup is Found to Have Discrepancies or Completely Fail 77% of the Time

Not all backup solutions are created equal. While it is important that you have a backup solution in place, you will want it to be accurate and reliable. Backing up with tape has been around for a long time, and it’s fast being replaced by a more reliable cloud-based tool called a Backup and Disaster Recovery solution.

With BDR, NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP takes care of the backup process for you, which includes regular testing to ensure your data is accurate, and BDR will not fail when you need it most. To learn more about how a reliable BDR solution can save your business from experiencing data loss and provide you with a strong continuity plan, call NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP at 812-618-4032

5 BYOD Worst Case Scenarios You Need to Plan For

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As the mobile device market is booming, more employees are bringing in their own device to work (BYOD). Advantages to BYOD include a workforce that’s mobile, increased employee satisfaction, and more; but using personal devices comes with risks, and business owners must consider these risks before allowing BYOD in their office.

Strong risk management means being prepared for the worst case scenarios. Here are five BYOD worst case scenarios that every adopter of BYOD will need to be prepared for.

Having the Device Lost or Stolen

How much danger would your business be in if an employee lost a smartphone with your company’s sensitive information stored on it? Even a stolen contact list with your client’s and employee’s phone numbers can be a messy situation to clean up after. You may be legally obligated to notify everyone affected by the leak because you are responsible for putting their personal information at risk.

Do you think your employees are too smart to lose anything? Think again, even the best of us have brain farts and misplace things. According to a study by CompTIA, it’s estimated that every day in the United States, 160,000 phones are lost or stolen, which accounts for half of all mobile security incidents. The cost of replacing phones, time and money spent on damage control, and actual money stolen from accounts linked to the phone adds up to $30 billion per year in the US alone.

Mobile Malware

The other half of mobile security incidents come from mobile malware. As mobile devices become more popular, hackers are targeting these devices with new malware. Two of the biggest mobile scams that employees fall for is downloading malware that captures authentication information for financial accounts, and unknowingly sending SMS messages to overly priced premium-rate numbers.

Dumb Social Media Posts

An employee with a smartphone has more opportunity to post their thoughts or feelings to social media. While the majority of employees can handle this power, all it takes is one dumb social media post to hurt your company. What if an employee reacts to a work argument by airing out their grievances on Facebook? Or what would happen if an employee unintentionally leaked company secrets about an important project? A company with strict Internet usage and social media policies will want shy away from BYOD.

Blurred Lines between Work and Personal

While it’s great that your staff is now mobile and they can do work from anywhere, if they begin to feel like you are requesting them to do work outside of their contract, like bugging them at home to call or e-mail a client, then you may be hit with a lawsuit for unpaid overtime. Then there’s the issue of what happens if you let an employee go, and your company’s information is on their personal device. You can try to go into their phone and delete your company’s data, but what happens if, in doing so, you accidentally delete their personal information? A mistake like this can also result in a lawsuit.

Is BYOD Worth the Risk?

All of these risks can be managed by being intentional about mobile security and having policies in place that prevents or prepares your business for these worst case scenarios. NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP can help you enact strong mobile security solutions and smart BYOD policies that will help your business get the most out of BYOD. Call us at 812-618-4032 to learn more.

When it comes down to it, you have to ask yourself if BYOD is worth the risk. Will your business see a return that warrants jumping through the necessary BYOD hoops? In a study by CompTIA, it was discovered that the top benefit businesses see with BYOD is employee satisfaction, and there is actual little increase in out-of-the office productivity, and little positive monetary effect. Maybe you value your employee’s happiness enough to give BYOD a try, or maybe you can find a less risky way to improve employee satisfaction like implementing Hawaiian Shirt Day Fridays. Whatever your final decision is regarding BYOD, NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP is here to help.

Can a Software Firewall Stop a Dragon?

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Having a strong firewall to protect your computer is an important investment. The casual PC user may not think twice about their firewall because they use the firewall built-in with their Windows OS, but the complexity of your business demands a stronger solution.

Your business has several workstations, servers, mobile devices, along with many different users, and each user has multiple access points. All of this will be too much to handle for the puny firewall that comes with a PC’s operating system. Even the firewall that comes with your server’s OS is no match for all the threats brought on by a complex business network.

You can think of this firewall situation like a knight (your firewall) defending a princess (your data) against a dragon (threats from the Internet). A single knight can do an adequate job defending a single princess from a fire-breathing dragon. All the knight has to do is hide himself and the princess behind his shield and the fire will be deflected.

Take the same noble knight and charge him with defending a castle full of people from a fire-breathing dragon that flies. The knight would be running all over the castle in a futile attempt to stay ahead of the dragon’s next attack, and the princess would be captured and taken to another castle.

What’s a good solution to help our overwhelmed knight? Recruiting more knights? This solution is equivalent to enabling all the firewalls on all the operating systems on your company’s network, thinking this will keep your business safe from Internet viruses.

Adding more firewalls sounds like a good idea, but it’s actually a weak solution because even an army of knights cannot totally protect a castle with all their little shields. Plus, dragons, like hackers, are smarter than they look and are good at finding vulnerabilities. Even with an army of knights protecting the city, a dragon will still find an opening and swoop in, steal the princess, and take her off to another castle.

What a castle (your business) needs in order to protect all of its princesses (files, or entitled employees), is a protective dome. One large protective dome covering the entire castle will deflect every attack from a dragon, and even attacks from multiple dragons!

NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP offers what is essentially a protective dome for your entire company. This dome is a firewall hardware solution called a Unified Threat Management (UTM) tool. A UTM is a single device that plugs into your network and serves as one strong firewall to protect your entire business from all the dragons on the Internet.

Your business is a castle; don’t leave the security of your company up to a single knight with a shield made of Windows. Instead, go with an all-in-one hardware security solution that will make your castle impenetrable! Call NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP at 812-618-4032 to learn more.

Save Your A-Team with the Cloud

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You have worked hard to gather and develop the perfect team and build a profitable business. It may have taken years to train your team in the intricacies of your business, and teach them to work together as a cohesive unit. Then life happens and messes up everything. When life hits, what can you do to save your team?

Major life changes tend to hit people hard, and at a moment when everybody least suspects it. It can be something worth celebrating, like maybe the spouse of a team member is getting a promotion that requires a move across the country. In a life event such as this, your team will lose a key member and face a major setback.

Other times, life can throw you a curveball, and the curveball tips off your bat and smacks you in the face. These curveballs might look like a parent getting diagnosed with cancer, and now your valued team member needs to move across the country to take care of them. In situations like these, it’s hard on everybody when they are forced to choose between continuing working with a rockin’ team, or leave their job to be with a loved one.

For all the talk about how great the cloud is, it’s in these hard life situations when the cloud can save the day by keeping your team together. You know that the cloud can give your employees the capability to work from anywhere, but did you know that the cloud can do more by allowing you to have a satellite workforce?

The difference between a remote worker and a satellite worker is that a remote worker will work from their homes and typically be within driving distance from the office, just in case you need them to physically show up for something; and a satellite employee is still a full-fledged team member, but they may live hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away. Cloud services from NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP can give you the capability to stay fully-connected with a satellite employee, or even an entire team of satellite workers.

The value of having satellite team capabilities is obvious for any leader that has done the painstaking work of developing a dynamic team. Can you put a price on your A-Team that brings in so much revenue? It’s estimated that replacing one $8.00 per hour employee costs an average of $9,4444.47. Of course, this figure is just the starting point, it’s almost impossible to put a number on an employee with 5, 10, or even 20 years of experience working in your company.

Time spent training your employees on the ins and outs of your business, and learning the dynamics of all the different personalities that make up your team, can only be purchased with experience. Many of these experiences are unique and impossible to replicate. In the meantime, while you are searching for and training a replacement, your team won’t be full-strength. Even if you take the time and money to invest in a new team member and finally get them up to speed, there’s no guarantee that life won’t hit you again and rob you of all your hard work.

Cloud computing from NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP can empower your local team to work remotely, and your satellite team to work and around the globe. To learn more about connecting your team with the cloud, give NOMAD TECHNOLOGY GROUP a call at 812-618-4032.