Category Archives: Manage Service

The Virtual IT Help Desk: What Is It? What Are Some of the Benefits?

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Virtual IT Help Desks allow customers to receive fast and friendly tech support.

Virtual IT Help Desks allow customers to receive fast and friendly tech support.

You may have heard of the virtual IT Help Desk, but you may not know what it is, or what the many benefits entail. In this blog, we will go over what having a virtual IT help desk entails, what the benefits of a virtual IT help desk are, and why you should enlist our aid to obtain a virtual IT help desk.

What is a virtual IT Help Desk?

Better known as a remote IT help desk, the virtual IT help desk is one of the most essential parts of an office today. The virtual IT help desk is around 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to help your office. This will allow all the users to get in touch with a skilled IT tech whenever they want, and to get your questions answered in a quick amount of time.

The virtual IT help desk relies on technology (specifically, software) and the Internet to give your technician access to your computer system. For this reason, your technician doesn’t have to be on-site in order to work for you. Needless to say, outsourcing this resource saves you money…but that’s one of the many benefits of the virtual IT help desk.

The benefits of the virtual IT help desk

  • A virtual IT team requires the best talent — so you know you’re going to get nothing but the best. When a virtual IT team goes to work, that’s all they work on — they don’t answer phones or do marketing or any other sundry work. They simply work on IT — which means that they’re the best in their field.
  • A virtual IT team can be assembled from every corner of the world. This means that your team can be available, in varying shifts, 24/7/365.
  • Because a virtual IT team works on a contract basis, and not in-house, the costs are significantly lower for much more specialized work.
  • A virtual IT team uses call center software to streamline their work flow…they can handle hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts this way! Talk about efficiency.

Why should you hire a virtual IT help desk?

Here is a list of reasons why you, and your company, should outsource your virtual IT help:

  • Your overhead costs will be lowered — aside from saving money on payroll, you will be saving money on operations costs, such as utilities and on-site resources.
  • You can easily scale up — or down — as your company’s needs change without any concern about hiring and/or firing.
  • IT professionals not only form the perfect help desk, they can actually help your company implement new software, including call center software and CRM software.
  • Because they’re not in the office with you, there’s no distractions to decrease office productivity. They can literally be on the job all the time, whenever you need them to be.
  • Because your professionals don’t have to commute to wherever it is you need them to go, they can keep the focus on the job at hand.
  • Best of all, this is a natural fit for companies who don’t need to keep their employees in the office. This would allow your customers — and your employees — to get a hold of an IT professional at any time.

SystemsNet has been providing businesses with a reliable source for complete network solutions for almost 20 years.

We maintain a staff of highly qualified network specialists, application developers, systems administrators, and ACT! Certified Consultants. Whether you need help desk support, hardware and software support or installation, network troubleshooting, spam filtering, or any other type of IT support, SystemsNet can help.

Contact us today to discuss your IT needs. We promise to get the job done for you!

Incoming “Industrial Internet of Things” Data Explosion Encourages Proactive Monitoring of Network Infrastructure

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With the development of the Industrial Internet of Things, proactively monitoring your network infrastructure will be easier and more efficient than ever.

With the development of the Industrial Internet of Things, proactively monitoring your network infrastructure will be easier and more efficient than ever.

A crucial barrier for every future-focused enterprise to overcome any lack of interoperability among existing systems. Many of today’s industries still use technologies that function primarily in silos, where systems work beside each other, and not together as an integrated whole. For small businesses, this circumstance arises when digital services and software products are purchased individually for specific purposes. Standing alone, each product provides singular operations for its designated purpose. However, without integration into a system that supports the entire enterprise, the individual gains from each product are minimized. Further, the potential for future disaster is increased, since the failure of one product could trigger the failure of other products, rendering the enterprise inoperable or perhaps even terminated. And the situation is about to get worse.

According to the World Economic Forum, the next ten years will see dramatic changes in manufacturing, energy, agriculture, transportation and other industrial sectors. These changes will mirror those experienced in the last 15 years, as the Internet redefined media, retail, and financial services. Now dubbed the “Industrial Internet of Things” (IIoT), the coming revolution adds complexity to the digital world through the collection and sharing of data by devices, completely independent from human interaction. Establishing the infrastructure to manage that future data (and the systems used to collect, store and retrieve it) will be critical to future enterprise success.

In its 2015 report, “ The Industrial Internet of Things: Unleashing the Potential of Connected Products and Services”, the Forum details a digital framework to guide business and government leaders to long-term success through Internet and IIoT technology. It lists key business opportunities in four major areas:

1. Improved operational infrastructure efficiency through constant preventative maintenance (ie – proactive monitoring to prevent systems crashes and malware attacks) and remote management;

2. The emergence of an “outcome based” economy – software and hardware driven services that improve processes to produce defined outcomes;

3. Software platforms that come together and blur traditional industry boundaries, and

4. Increased collaboration between human and machine, vastly increasing productivity.

The Forum suggests that the incoming software/hardware partnership will capture, aggregate and exchange data over multiple platforms to create new products and services at an unprecedented scale. The new products and outcome-based services will create new kinds of value that will better respond to consumers’ expectations. With the use of soft and hardware maintenance systems, producers and manufacturers will be able to tailor production facilities to harness network-collected data and inform business strategy to maximize profits and prevent costly losses and breaches.

The challenge for today’s industrialist is to modify existing products and services in preparation for the oncoming data explosion. The ability to capture, record and analyze overall equipment effectiveness is critical to both inform corporate decision making and to prevent expensive equipment and production failures and shut-downs. Proactive monitoring of network infrastructure will ensure that redundant backup data capacity, sufficient malware protections, and high-security thresholds will prevent loss or failure. Maintenance and oversight software can perform evaluative or diagnostic services, including raising equipment failure flags, tracking inventory to prevent over- or under purchasing, and analyzing aggregate sales data to track the profitability of products and services.

As important, the opportunity to forecast the lifespan of equipment and systems will prevent unexpected shut-downs, and allow management to install replacement technology before any losses or delays are realized.

The processes used to monitor and record industrial productivity have changed. The emergence of preventative maintenance software has introduced technical oversight and maintenance processes that far exceed the capacity of any human-performed exam. And the ever-competitive global community is recognizing the value of preventative maintenance to reduce time and resource waste when production systems fail.

If your business is planning to participate in the IIoT future, it will benefit from 24/7/365 proactive monitoring of its technological infrastructure. Contact us today to find products and services that will bring all your current technological assets into a cohesive whole, and will protect and preserve your present and future corporate infrastructure growth.

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Office Support: Ways to Keep Your Tech Running Optimally

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It's amazing how many people don't take the time to do basic maintenance on their office computers.

It’s amazing how many people don’t take the time to do basic maintenance on their office computers.

Do you need a cheat sheet on office support in your company so you can get a handle on basic IT issues? Some things you can do on your own, but working together with an IT team that understands what you need creates a more powerful process. As your business grows, you likely have more technical aspects to think about, especially if you don’t even know what devices get used.

For example, with a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, your employees are probably using dozens of mobile devices in the workplace. Even all your desktops in your company can’t always be accounted for, especially when you have employees doing things on them you can’t keep track of on a daily basis.

As a result, using your own cheat sheet as a form of office support works in tandem with a managed service from a dedicated IT team.

Here at SystemsNet, we provide managed services and a superior help desk that works along with your own sensible office support system. Take a look at some things you can do to keep all your tech devices running optimally. Combined with managed services, you’ll know what each employee does, plus methods to get issues fixed faster.

Basic Security on Your Computers

You need to have a meeting with your employees and make them aware of how prevalent viruses are, particularly through phishing schemes in emails. The more awareness they have of the latest threats, the more circumspect they’ll be when surfing the web or doing email reading. It doesn’t hurt to acquire virus software or firewalls for preventative measures.

Combined with a managed service, however, you have added protection since your systems gets monitored around the clock. In the chance you catch a virus by accident, we’re there to get it removed remotely so you’ll have no downtime.

Employee awareness and managed services work hand in hand for the ultimate safeguard.

Basic Maintenance on Your Computers

It’s amazing that so many people still don’t take the time to do basic maintenance on their computers to prevent slowdowns. By simply going in to your Windows or Mac control panel, you can defrag your hard drive, plus remove temporary Internet files that slow your computer down. This also includes doing all software updates on your computer. If you fall too far behind on those, you open your computer to major threats.

Doing this alongside having managed services, you once again have remote assistance if something happens. Managed services also make sure you have updates done on your software and hardware if you forget to do it on your own.

Backing Up Your Files

You already know about the dangers of not backing up your files, and using external drives or even your own server for file backup helps to a point. Regardless, these aren’t always reliable due to the possibly of server failure or even external drives malfunctioning.

With managed services, you have the cloud available as a safer and more reliable backup so you’re guaranteed to have all your data intact when you need it back after a disaster.

This is even more essential on your mobile devices where we save all data to the cloud as it’s being created. Considering many of your employees are out in the field with their mobile devices, you don’t want them losing any data while conducting business with a customer. Smartphones and tablets are also just as vulnerable to online threats if they depend on an unreliable Wi-Fi service.

Contact us here at SystemsNet so we can help you with office support for your tech in a way that works efficiently alongside company awareness.

Partner of Choice: Why Chorus Communications Provides the Best Telecommunications Products for You

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Combined with our IT services, Chorus Communications can provide business communication systems that consolidate rather than complicate.

Combined with our IT services, Chorus Communications can provide business communication systems that consolidate rather than complicate.

Our personal partner of choice here at SystemsNet is Chorus Communications, a technology solution company here in Philadelphia that’s been nationally recognized for their sense of quality. They’re particularly noteworthy because they provide customized communication solutions to companies big and small. They understand, as we do, that all companies are different and need specific types of telecommunications that fit their business structure.

With two decades of renown behind them, the above is just one reason why we associate with Chorus Communications to provide telecommunications products to our clients. They have a long list of products that you should think seriously about acquiring in your company to keep yourself competitive.

In today’s business world, you can’t afford to fall behind in telecommunications because of the increasing competitiveness in every field. No matter what industry you’re in, there isn’t any question you’ll have multiple competitors trying to take away your business. You need the best technology available in order to keep communication between your employees going every day.

Ultimately, the more you communicate with the proper technology, the better you can all be on the same page when working on a critical business project.

Take a look at what Chorus Communications offers and why, combined with our IT services, you’ll be ready to compete in a much fiercer business climate.

Unified Communications Products

Chorus Communications is one of the best in the nation when it comes to providing superior unified telecommunications products that manage to consolidate rather than complicate. They manage to do this thanks to their top-notch cloud services and providing all of your communications in one inbox.

When you need to have better phone services, they provide a feature-filled Hosted PBX system and even VoIP. All of these get managed through the cloud and give you so many features, you’ll be amazed at what’s available.

All of your other communications get consolidated in one place so you don’t have to visit multiple online locations to find everything. This means that in the box where you read your emails, you’ll also be able to see all of your faxes, hear your voice mails, and have company directories all together.

You’ll appreciate this when you have to travel on international business trips since you can access all communications on any mobile device. As a result, you’ll have easy communication management while saving money because you’re not paying for separate services.

While in the middle of an important business project, this is essential so you get a leg up on your competition. Communication with all of your employees is simpler this way without having to worry about lack of quality time discussing your project in person.

It works the same with business associates where one feature allows you to see whether they’re available online or not. Then you can decide what the best method of communication is to reach them.

How Does This Work with Our Services?

Combining our managed services here at SystemsNet with technology from Chorus Communications provides you a complete package of business efficiency. We know that when technical mishaps occur, you need a good management team to keep things running optimally. Through our managed service packages and excellent help desk, you’ll never have confusion with any piece of technology you use.

Using our managed service tiers, most problems get solved remotely without constant need for an in-person visit.

Contact us here at SystemsNet to find out more about our services and why Chorus Communications is the true leader in providing telecommunications equipment to leading Philadelphia companies.