Paul Lukach, Executive Director of the Crime Victim Center of Erie County, is the first to admit it: he and his employees don’t pride themselves on being technology savvy. That’s why the company needed a trusted IT provider to help it reinvent its operations and ensure that computers and systems work seamlessly, allowing thus 44-year-old non-profit to concentrate on serving people and protecting the community in times of crisis.
With so much at stake, they turned to NanoSoft Solutions to handle their IT needs. NanoSoft not only created detailed plan to upgrade MCMS systems, but when an old modem died over a weekend, putting in jeopardy the MCMS e-mail capabilities, it was NanoSoft who came to the rescue. As Christopher Bell from MCMS says:
“We don’t pride ourselves on being technologically savvy, our job is to serve people in times of crisis.”
It’s that 24 hour/7 day a week support and commitment to service that keeps the MCMS from worrying anymore about their IT.
Via: cmitsolutions.com
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Cyber security is something that is constantly on our mind here at Unit. This is because, according to Bloomberg, cyber security related issues costs companies around $400 Billion a year on average.
One of the easiest ways to curb these losses in your business is to train your employees to create a more secure email environment. Staff plays a crucial part in the security of your company, and employees who are unaware of the onslaught of cyber threats are a liability to the safety of your company’s data.
It is therefore of utmost importance that they are always up-to-date on the best procedures to keep the company safe.
In an effort to save you and your company from the horrors of a cyber-attack, here is a list of tips that help safeguard your business.
Never open links or attachments from unknown persons.
Don’t respond to emails that request a password change and require you to divulge personal information — no matter how official the source appears.
Ensure antivirus and anti-spy software is updated on your computer.
Encrypt any emails containing sensitive data before sending.
Don’t use your company email address to send and receive personal emails.
Don’t automatically forward company emails to a third-party email system.
Create strict standards for company-related Mobile Device usage
Mobile Devices have become an important tool of the workforce, and with them comes another wave of cyber threats. Making sure your employees have password-protected devices, encrypt emails, and download approved security applications to help keep the mobile data safe is very important.
Unit offers Mobile Device Management that will help with many of these safety features, including the ability to remotely wipe mobile devices. Contact us for all your security or Office 365 needs.
Beaumont Hospital is a large academic teaching hospital 5km north of Dublin City centre. They provide emergency and acute care services across 54 medical specialties to a local community of some 290,000 people, while employing over 3,000 staff.
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The Challenge
An inefficient filing system at Beaumont hindered healthcare workers who needed to be able to access patient records quickly and easily. Staff reverted to keeping paper records that were stored off-site. If a doctor or nurse needed to see them for a returning patient or if they were needed for a legal claim, then the file had to be physically retrieved from the archive and collected by courier; a time consuming process.
The Solution
With Ergo’s Scan & Index Manager documents were digitised and indexed in Microsoft SharePoint for easy search and retrieval. Implementation was risk-free and well planned because Ergo built the system at its headquarters first, replicating the Beaumont environment off-site before deploying it into the hospital.
“Ultimately, we wanted to get rid of the paper trail and totally trust Ergo to help us do it. Everything we have scoped and asked them to do they have delivered.”
The implementation of Ergo’s Scan and Index Manager system has delivered tangible productivity gains and cost savings for Beaumont Hospital. Doctors, nurses and administrators have robust systems that enable them to retrieve files in around 10 seconds compared to 30 minutes with the old system.
Via: ErgoGroup.ie
Berman Bedding, Inc. has been in business since 1912. But when this mattress manufacturer started producing medical pads in the 1950s, it realized the need for efficient technology solutions to keep its factories humming. Operations have changed drastically in the last 60 years, and when Berman President Robert Unger realized he couldn’t be the company’s IT guy anymore, he called CMIT Solutions
With so much at stake, they turned to NanoSoft Solutions to handle their IT needs. NanoSoft not only created detailed plan to upgrade MCMS systems, but when an old modem died over a weekend, putting in jeopardy the MCMS e-mail capabilities, it was NanoSoft who came to the rescue. As Christopher Bell from MCMS says:
“I called CMIT when I was no longer good enough to be the IT guy for the company”
It’s that 24 hour/7 day a week support and commitment to service that keeps the MCMS from worrying anymore about their IT.
Via: cmitsolutions.com
In a recent Indeed survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers and recruiters, more than half (53 percent) of respondents have hired tech talent despite candidates not meeting the job description requirements. That may be a good thing for businesses in need of IT resources to fill gaps in their talent pool. While that alludes to the fact that businesses are working hard to meet their needs for IT talent in what must be creative ways, here are five of those ways that businesses can employ to fill the gaps in IT resources and talent.
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#1: Training People with Transferable Skills/Hiring Recent Grads
Businesses can meet their IT needs by training people within the organization who have transferable skills: for instance, an IT-savvy employee who can learn a new computer language to meet the job requirement. Bringing interns into the organization is a perfect chance to feel out a cultural fit—their ability to learn and adapt and measure how they’d work with the existing team.
Another way that businesses can fill tech roles by turning to internal training to fill talent gaps is by hiring college graduates with two- or four-year degrees in computer science or even technical trade school graduates. This requires growing them into the level of mid-level techs who bring value, which can take a year or more.
#2: Support and Mentor Programs
Companies having a hard time finding tech talent should create a mentor program and work with more junior IT team members to put them on a skills track. The first six months of the mentor program is an investment, with team members learning new skills quickly. At the six-month or one-year point, they begin creating value for the company but still need the advice of senior leadership to grow and to avoid pitfalls.
#3: Internal Training, Certification
If you have competent IT generalists but need them to have specific training, it can pay to invest in the certification training that they need as long as they have the aptitude and ambition and are a good fit for the company long-term. The potential downside is that investing in IT personnel training doesn’t always continue to pay off, as they may leave at a certain point and take the training that you provided with them to another, higher-paying job.
#4: Sharing IT Talent with Other Businesses
Another approach that may be possible is that other, non-competitive businesses that you work with, such as vendors or businesses operating in the same building, may have part-time tech staff that you can work with and whose consulting-time costs can be shared with their employer. This may be feasible if your business is relatively small and its IT needs are basic.
It does present some drawbacks, as they may not be available when there is a problem, even though they may be on call. Other challenges are, they may be IT generalists rather than specialists, so they may not have the skills to handle more complex IT needs.
#5: Strategic IT Staffing Through Augmentation.
All of these solutions can be quite costly, and depending on your IT needs, it may be a long time before you see the return on investment at some type of break-even point. In today’s digital era, IT needs are a combination of current network and IT system maintenance, monitoring, and management. Additionally, it is about IT strategy development and implementation for technology solutions that will meet future business needs. This is true regardless of the size of your business, so with part-time IT staff or even in-house IT personnel, their skill sets and numbers may not be sufficient to effectively bridge the IT resources gap.
Gaps in IT can lead to major problems in terms of network downtime, slow business technology processes, and cyber attacks due to poor security patches and software update scheduling. With today’s deadline-driven IT demands and time-compressed project cycles, the ability to augment a core IT staff with on-demand advanced-skills professionals can dramatically increase a company’s competitive advantage.
By having an external managed IT services partner (MSP) to deal with day-to-day IT support, as well as long-term evolution, the organization can tap into highly skilled IT consultative support. The best of these MSPs provide a broad and interconnected suite of services that are bolstered by an understanding of how to develop and fulfill a defined IT strategy that is aligned with business goals and culture.
The support of an MSP can effectively bridge the gaps in IT personnel, as well as tool needs for monitoring, maintenance, security, and vendor relationships for the inevitable investments in new IT solutions. The right MSP can provide all of the specialized personnel you need, when you need them, under a set price contract that can be adjusted for expanding or temporary needs. You also get a consultant that can help you develop a sound IT, cybersecurity, and virtualization strategy to prepare your business for future needs in ways that foster agility, growth, and flexibility.