Two Technology Upgrades That Won't Ruin Your Budget

The hunt for the best technology for your organization sometimes becomes problematic because you either don’t have the required capital or operational leeway to combine the latest and greatest solutions. For the business that needs an upgrade but isn't sure what the next move is, consulting with an IT professional like Macro Systems is a great option. 

At Macro Systems, we deal in business-class technology every day, and the resulting knowledge allows our consultants to identify when a technology solution is a good fit, and when it should be avoided. While every business needs technology that provides solid Return On Investment, no business needs technology that they can’t properly use. Below we'll look at two parts of your businesses' computing where you could make significant technology upgrades that would provide rapid ROI, and won’t ruin your annual technology budget.

Communications
Communications is an imperative aspect of the modern business that has seen some drastically sharp shifts. For decades the telephone was the number one (and only) solution for company communications. You had a desk, you sat at the desk, and you answered the phone when it rang. Naturally, in our current era, things are much, much different; so different that sometimes you’ll be standing in line in a store and you think someone is talking to you, but they are actually negotiating a sale with someone two time zones away through a Bluetooth headset. 

Modern business communications solutions are significantly better, and often more cost effective than communications in the past. With the arrival of the smartphone and the cloud, more can get done on the move than ever before. Here are two of the communications solutions that are available to the modern business:

• Voice over Internet Protocol: Every organization needs a telephone system, and often business phone solutions from the telephone company can be increasingly expensive. Now there is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) that utilizes your organization’s Internet bandwidth to provide in-office and mobile options for businesses. Some VoIP solutions will come packaged with other services, but stand-alone fully-hosted VoIP solutions are a powerful and cost-effective option for any business because of the variety of services that are available with a VoIP plan. Usually billed per user, per month, hosted VoIP can save you money and provide the mobility and options your company needs.
• Hosted Team Collaboration: Forums and Instant messaging have been around as long as the Internet, but in our modern era there are full-featured team collaboration tools that combine the easy utilization of IM with the comprehensive project collaboration found in today’s strongest email solutions. Options such as Slack and Microsoft Teams can provide any organization with a heavily-integrated platform in which to communicate, collaborate, and cooperate, moving projects ahead faster than ever before. Because it is hosted in the cloud, information can be accessed from any place that has an Internet connection on any allowed device.

File Storage
Any business that relies on IT has to store data. All the emails, documentation, presentations, marketing materials, databases, graphics, and media your business has can take up a huge chunk of storage space. That’s before you even take into account the amount of file storage space every application your business utilizes. Where and how you store your data is a major consideration.

What innovative options are open to your business? As with any technology, you will want to first consider your needs in both storage required and where you want to store it. It’s true that some of the data you have should be stored onsite, but it’s also true that today cloud storage options are faster, cheaper, and more reliable than ever. Here are two options you should consider when deciding what file storage situation is best for your organization:

• Multi-Cloud Storage: It is indisputable that cloud storage has been a huge benefit for business. Not only does it provide near-ubiquitous access to data, it can be set up on or off-site, as a cost-saving measure, or one that is extraordinarily secure. One issue that many businesses have with cloud computing is that they have to give up management to the infrastructure that holds all their data, or they have to spend heavily on their own solution to control, and some of the data they have isn’t worth the hefty investment. With multi-cloud storage, it gives the business freedom to assign storage (applications and processing) to whichever cloud server it deems appropriate. This provides the ability to enforce policies and standards across on-premise and hosted cloud environments, providing the agility and flexibility many businesses are looking for in their cloud storage solutions.
• Management as a Service: There is more data than ever, and the higher volumes of data there are, the more resources it requires to sort and manage it. Resources always cost money. As a result, you are now seeing management as a service (MaaS) platforms being launched. This service essentially outsources your data storage management. Since businesses are increasingly storing data in all types of environments, and they need to focus on turning a profit, companies are now offering in-cloud support, management analytics, and performance optimization to organizations that just can’t keep up with the amount of data they are storing.

Innovating is critical for any business, as new solutions can really make a difference at the bottom line. Before you sink money upgrading any portion of your business' information systems, contact the IT experts at Macro Systems to do an assessment. Our knowledgeable technicians can find innovative technologies that are right for your organization. For more information call us at 703-359-9211.