The big problem with technology is that it develops at such a fast pace that, before you know it, today’s shiny new toy is tomorrow’s dusty old thing. That said, innovation has slowed considerably in the past couple of years, yet the ability to know when your technology starts to hold you back is still a valuable skill to have.  We’re here to help you determine when that point occurs where your technology that used to be the cream of the crop, is now keeping your organization from achieving its full potential.

At this point in our productivity blog journey, we’ve discussed what productivity is, how it can be measured, and what goes into protecting it. To wrap things up, we’re discussing what you can do to maximize productivity for your employees so that your business can grow and prosper.

Even when it is doing really well, your business never has enough money. There is always something that needs to be paid or purchased that isn’t in the budget. Well, one of the ways that you can put your business into a position where it can afford some of the things you have earmarked, is through the use of technology. Today, we’ll go through how investing in technology and technology support services can actually pay for themselves. 

The past couple weeks have been dedicated to productivity on this blog, as well as how you can get more of it, so today we wanted to go over some of the impediments to productivity that you’ll have to watch out for. We’ll also cover how you can overcome them so that your productivity is not hampered needlessly.

Today, you have a lot of options for how to go about doing things. There are many outside vendors that do a portion of your business and you can sometimes gain a lot from outsourcing. On the other hand, some things work better when you perfect them in-house. This week we thought we would take a look at some of the processes inside your business that you should seriously consider doing yourself. 

Unfortunately, the number of cyberattacks is consistently growing and many of those attacks target business end users. This means that any account that requires a password for access could conceivably be compromised should attackers gain access to its credentials. At BNMC, we promote the use of multi-factor authentication (also known as two-factor authentication or 2FA) to mitigate some of the risk inherent with the use of password-based accounts in business. 

The four-day workweek has seen no shortage of support in recent years. In fact, there have been projects dedicated to testing it out to see if it has any legs as a concept. One recent, very wide-scale study has concluded that the four-day workweek is indeed quite successful.

Business is hard enough even without having to manage your technology. There are plenty of people to manage, tasks to organize, and operations to streamline. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways you can leverage technology to make a big difference in the way you focus your time and energy throughout the day. Let’s take a look at some innovative tools you can use to keep your employees engaged while they go about their duties.

Let me ask you a question: how well can you multitask?

Regardless of what you may claim, I already know the answer, and it’s “not very well at all.” Multitasking just isn’t how the human brain is wired to work. So, why am I discussing the limits that our brain’s physiology places on it? Honestly, because it’s related to a major benefit that managed services provide that tends to fly under the radar.

Technology can resolve many issues for your business, especially when they get in the way of your operations. In fact, your technology plays a pivotal role in ensuring that your business can run at optimal efficiency without being held back by common pain points. Today, we want to discuss ways your organization can and should implement managed IT to solve common issues in your business’ operational infrastructure.

A successful business is a growing business, so you should be prepared to grow alongside your profit margin by accommodating for increased operations and resources. Otherwise, you could be putting your future on the line by remaining stagnant for too long. Let’s discuss the difference between scaling your business and growing your business, and especially why scaling might be more important than simply growing it.

Business growth is an almost ubiquitous goal for business owners, but without properly preparing for this growth in terms of operations and resources, unfortunately, that endeavor is doomed to fail. That’s why we wanted to touch on how you can scale your business and the technology it relies on.

A common framework for developing products is the RICE prioritization framework, but we might argue that you can apply it not just to products, but also to services you might offer and even project implementation. What is the RICE framework, and how might you leverage it to your advantage?

The modern business is heavily reliant on technology, perhaps more so today than ever before. In the wake of a pandemic that forced millions of employees to adapt to remote work, the need for technology and support has never been greater. Even as we transition back into business, as usual, it’s safe to say that remote technology is not going anywhere. Today, we would like to discuss how our organization was (and still is) helping businesses just like yours maintain operations through comprehensive IT support, even during the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

While it may not seem so at first glance, the concept of “productivity” has evolved significantly in the last few centuries—the amount of time it has been seen as a priority. Beginning once technology enabled the focus of life to be less day-to-day survival and more centered around industry and scale, the first whispers of our modern view of productivity started in the late 1700s. Let’s briefly examine how our view of productivity developed, and how many are looking at it today.

We’re not telling you anything you don’t know when we say that productivity is important for every business. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, there was widespread fear that productivity would drop to levels that would ruin the economy. Today, we’ll talk about the change in strategy that kept that from happening, by looking at the past year’s numbers. 

Amongst its many other time-saving simplification capabilities, Microsoft Word allows users to replicate text (including the formatting) across multiple documents. This capability also allows you to edit all copies of this text—wherever it appears—all at once. Let’s review the process.

Business analytics are quite popular nowadays, as businesses of all shapes and sizes are eager to use data to improve their processes and performance. Let’s consider how your technological strategy could benefit from such analytical considerations.

Windows 7 was once the best operating system ever made by leaps and bounds. Now, it’s unsupported and shouldn’t be found on any Internet-connected device. Unfortunately, this isn’t the truth as millions of people are still using Windows 7 for their businesses. Today, we will take a look at why Windows 7 is dangerous and what options businesses have to upgrade away from the unsupported OS.

More than ever, data fuels business decision making. To get the best use out of the data your business collects, automated tools can be used. This eliminates the (often impossible) task of manually getting the data together and then analyzing it. Today, we’ll talk about data automation and how rethinking how you look at your data can really help your business improve its operations.