How IT Support Services Ease Your Life [4 Methods]

In 2016 and the coming years, the companies will be focusing more on IT support as per the survey that was conducted in December last year. The businesses have now realised the importance of money and the ways it can be saved by upgrading the quality of the IT support in terms of resolving the issues and enhancing the response time. Below, we will discuss the attributes of IT support services and how it helps in making the life easier:

Improves Employee Productivity: To increase the productivity of the employees, you need to promote the IT support team. This usually brings faster response time, an improved infrastructure, experienced specialists and the techniques to handle the tickets. In other words, the employees can quickly come back to work since the network, and other IT related issues will be managed by the services provider.

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Enhanced Client Experience: For any company, positive client experience matters the most. Every business invests a hefty amount so it can improve the customer experience rather than lose them. Enhanced IT support is the best way of improving the experience from the initial level. Remember that whenever issues are resolved in a faster way, it always indicates that the employees can deliver better services and response to the customers that reduces the hold time and increases the happy customers that will stick around for years. Old customers always worth more than the new ones because the new customers cost more while it’s easier to retain the existing ones.

Developed Company Culture: Hiring new people frequently seems costly to the companies while their turnover appears to be more expensive. The cost of continuous turnover of the employees is far more than improving and managing the IT support. Keep in mind that your company culture must be developed. Culture is not only limited to the office environment but the technology that is being provided to the employees at the work place.

Pre-Defined Metrics and Intelligence Related Issues: You must have pre-defined systems and standards in your company. Being a business owner, you need to understand how rapidly the staff’s request is being resolved, which technology is slowing down the employee’s productivity and what improvements can be made in the technology to lessen or eradicate the tickets of the help desk.

Appropriate IT support can help a great deal in running the organisational processes effectively. It’s quite obvious that if your employee will operate at 50% capacity, they will be unable to provide the services properly which in turn lose your clientele. Instead of losing customers, you can adopt a proactive approach to attain a better managed IT support in order to enhance the response and resolution time.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/4-ways-quality-support-makes-life-easier-01505583#RxEyyTJeisZGLLjX.97

How to Resolve Major Windows 10 Issues

There is no doubt that the operating system of the Microsoft has gained true and much applause in the shape of Windows 10 because it has taken some big forward steps from Windows 7 to fix the wrong move of Windows 8. Though Windows 10 also have some imperfections, and we have to live with them for a few months, yet here, we will discuss those frustrations that are usually faced in upgrading the Windows, log in at extra screen and many more and how to fix them:

Problem in Upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8

Most of us would have observed the problems in upgrading to Windows 10 on perfectly compatible computers. Either the app doesn’t appear in the first place, delayed for any reason or failed to download. If Windows 7 or Windows 8 is already on your computer, you can try these fewer steps:

• Keep the PC up to date. Open the Control Panel and run Windows Update. If updates don’t work, run the Windows Update Troubleshooter.
• You can also use the Media Creation Tool. There is no need just to rely on the GWX. You can visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10, then click Download Tool, save the tool where you want and run it on your PC to upgrade. If still, it doesn’t work, try it again because the tool will have been enhanced at that time.
• Ensure that hardware Disable Execution Prevention (DEP) must be switched on in the BIOS that refers to the motherboard manual for assistance if you require it. If still, the issue prevails, you can use the Start Menu in order to search for the performance, run Adjust for appearance and performance of the Windows, click the Data Execution tab to On for all the programmes and services, reboot and then try again. 

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Windows Update Is Not Working

While updating, many people have reported the problems in Windows 10. It is necessary to upgrade to Windows 10 Fall Update (that we have discussed above, number 2). If the problem prevails, you can download and run the Windows Update Troubleshooter. System Restore should be configured, and you need to create a restore point. After this, reboot the system and try to update it again.

Deactivate the Forced Updates

It might happen that for the previous Windows releases, you would have opt that it won’t install the updates automatically. Microsoft Windows 10 can efficiently manage the post-update reboots, yet we will still be in its control from the onset.

From the Start Menu, you need to look for the “gpedit” and run the Group Policy Editor. From the left-hand pane, you can expand the Computer Configuration and then navigate to Administrative Templates\ Windows Components\Windows Update. Now, you need to double click the Configure Automatic Updates in the list to choose the Enabled radio button and in the left-hand box, choose 2. Then select Notify for download and notify for install. Whenever there are updates, you will be notified.

You can take assistance from any IT services provider as to how to resolve various issues of the Microsoft Windows 10.

Source: http://www.itpro.co.uk/operating-systems/25802/ten-windows-10-problems-and-how-to-fix-them

Outside the Usual Disbelieves – Seaward IT Services

There is no doubt that people always look for the companies from where they can get the best IT services. This is the reason why the UK like previously, is again one of the best places for providing seaward IT and BPO services.

Offshoring IT support services is a common practice nowadays. Most organisations select various criteria to choose a specific destination that extends beyond the cost. While some companies prefer to get the advantages from numerous locations for distinct services in order to enhance the benefits of outsourcing.

It might happen that the UK based company have call centre services that they are providing from the UK due to the lower costs while the digital software development is being taken on from the Ukraine, application development and provision of services from any Middle East country to enhance the corporate responsibility.

Soviet Inheritance in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the region that is putting up a fight besides many other countries like Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova. The result of this fight has impacted most companies, for instance, the IT services firm T-Systems’s which was the UK based company, its former head Sam Kingston is now the COO of the Ukraine based Ciklum.

What Ciklum is aimed at is to assist the companies in finding and recruiting the IT staff in the Ukraine that has a huge software engineering skills set and offers office space to the clients in the operations at Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Spain and Belarus.

As per the statement of Kingston, the biggest market of Ciklum is the Denmark, US and Germany while its business in improving in the UK. According to him, the former Soviet Union used Ukraine to do a space research that benefited the IT industry. Several computer scientists and mathematicians have been reproduced, and now most of the Ukrainians are computer literate. Such an investment in people is enabling to deliver the potentials to meet the clients’ needs.

Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500271215/Offshoring-IT-services-Beyond-the-usual-suspects

Steel Orca Managed Services Provider Busted

Steel Orca Inc. is a Pennsylvania based managed services provider is planning to file for the bankruptcy since they have failed to transmute the defunct steel mill on the state border with the New Jersey into a new data centre as per the reports.

Steel Orca, which is providing a facility in the Princeton, New Jersey has willingly filed for the Chapter 7 bankruptcy at the start of the December. This information has been given as per the documents observed by the Data Centre Knowledge. Filing for the Chapter 7 bankruptcy means that the complete company’s assets will be transferred to a trustee before distributing them among the creditors.

In the Steel Orca’s case, New Jersey-based Atkinson & DeBartolo firm’s Bankruptcy Attorney Bunce Atkinson has been appointed as the trustee even though the officials had refused to talk about this.

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In spite of the fact that the company was making several interesting moves in the last year, still the Steel Orca’s bankruptcy has been faced. Strategic partnership with Avaya Inc. has been proclaimed by the Steel Orca because they aimed to create the next generation software using the fabric based SDN architectures as defined by the data centre.

The company was also facing a high demand for the Linux and Oracle as a service solutions as explained by the Steel Orca’s CTO Larry Hess during the IBM Edge 2015.

Steel Orca had many big plans for its intended facility in the Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The old steel mill involved around 300, 000 square feet where the facility would have to be fueled by numerous local, renewable energy sources through which water from the Delaware River had been reserved for use in the cooling system.

Initially, the project was delayed prior to being cancelled completely for unexplained reasons. Keystone NAP LLC, another company, where Data Centre Knowledge has claimed that it had links with the Steel Orca’s President John Parker is currently creating its own data centre at the steel mill site.

Source: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2015/12/29/managed-services-provider-steel-orca-goes-bust/

Echo Managed Services Picked PR Agency One to Aid Business Growth!

Engaging more than 650 people and with a turnover of above £30m in the last year, Echo is consistently growing with full strength.

PR Agency One, a consumer and B2B PR consultancy has been chosen by the Echo Managed Services so it can strengthen its brand awareness while exploring and penetrating into new markets, thus improving the overall online visibility.

Echo is a renowned name in the UK that works with all kind of businesses whether related to regulated or non-regulated industries. It provides outsourced multi-channel contact centre services, revenue management solutions and an end to end debt recovery services. It also offers the UK’s leading water market billing and client information software.

Echo Managed Services has employed more than 650 people while it had a turnover of above £30m in the last year. This has shown how Echo is constantly growing with its full strength.

Managing Director of PR Agency One, James Crawford stated that there is no doubt that Echo Managed Services is in a period of growth. They are excited to work with the business like Echo as its booked agency by choice. James informed that for the next 12 months, their job is to improve the market share of the business (Echo) by building a trustworthy and reliable voice while aiding it in breaking into new sectors.

James further narrated that their dedicated and experienced team will work hard to create a good reputation of Echo, improve brand awareness and help the Echo in gaining the vital links for its website that will, in turn, aid in increasing its online visibility.

Source: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/media/pr-agency-one-appointed-echo-10858501

Can Mid-Market Businesses be benefitted from Bimodal IT Success via Managed Services?

IT experts are bustling about understanding the newly invented term by Gartner “bimodal IT”. It is a technique of delivering services in a way that allow the IT teams to rip their emphasis into two distinct, clear and logical models that are stability and agility. The second one involves day to day IT operations that are vital and meant for the security and reliability for an IT environment related to an organisation. The previous one is focused on innovation to let the IT teams to research and identify the new techniques of utilising the technology in order to meet the rapid changing demands of the business.

As per the information provided by the Gartner, around 45 percent of the CIOs use bimodal IT service management strategies and this percentage can increase to 75 percent by 2017 where the companies will execute the bimodal IT strategies.

Bimodal IT and Managed Services

It has been observed that some companies prefer to outsource essential IT functions like helpdesk so to let the IT group to play an all-inclusive role in the business. There is no doubt that the nature of IT sourcing has changed. Gartner is of the view that smaller IT suppliers will be capable enough to respond to the demands quickly and providing faster solutions by using the cloud capabilities.

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Outsourcing the IT functions to managed services provider enable the internal staff to invest time in IT innovation so to assist the business in remaining active and responsive in the competitive marketplace. In order to have a successful relationship with the IT managed service provider so that the business’s future progress does not detract, the companies should ask the following questions from the managed services provider:

Do MSPs Can Assist in Current and Future IT Needs?

Managed service providers must have experience of providing assistance in the particular functions that are going to be outsourced. For instance, if the services are being offered in the helpdesk, then IT support services provider should have engineers that are capable enough to repair equipment including new technologies.

To What Extent, the Support Can Be Offered?

We know that IT issues can disrupt the IT teams from new projects, so the companies should contract with the MSPs as to how much they will promise to resolve the IT issues. Usually, MSPs provide varying degrees of assistance, like 24/7, remote or on-site support. In the case, if a package in terms of budget and support coverage do not meet the needs of an organisation, the companies can ask for the customised solutions.

Source: http://www.itproportal.com/2016/02/02/can-managed-services-be-the-key-to-bimodal-it-success-for-mid-market-businesses/

Alstom Will Be Provided Developed IT Infrastructure from HCL!

On Monday, January 25, 2016, a new IT infrastructure deal has been signed between the HCL technologies and the French multinational firm Alstom. Throughout the France and Benelux, the engagement of the Alstom would be the HCL’s largest infrastructure services engagement as narrated by the Corporate Vice President of the HCL Technologies Ashish Gupta. According to this agreement, the HCL Technologies will influence and control its IT infrastructure support services capabilities in order to deliver the workplace engineering services, roll out PC as a Service (PCaaS) to 30, 000 clients across the world and allow the local client support services all over 360 locations in 62 countries.

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Furthermore, multilingual global service desk offers will be given to the Alstom in 11 languages that will be established by the HCL in which more than 50 percent of the French-speaking users will be involved. HCL has three global delivery centres that are situated in the Brazil, India and Poland while the services will be offered by controlling these centres. Being a part of the partnership, HCL will also establish the Services Integration and Management (SIAM) as an organisational function with a concept that will allow the Alstom to accomplish the multi-sourcing service integration.

As per the statement of the Alstom CIO, Christine Heckmann, they wanted continuous and smooth IT operations and it was their priority. Alstom needed an IT Partner that could easily define, develop and implement the roadmap involving the IT transformation for the following five years and HCL has been proved a right partner for them.

Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/hcl-to-develop-it-infrastructure-for-alstom_5153901.html

How to Know Your Business Is Not Cut Out For IT Managed Services

When we talk about companies, we should never forget that there are different flavours and kinds of businesses, for instance, there are entrepreneurial businesses, startups, small or medium sized and lifestyle businesses. Each business has different goals that are targeted to be achieved, so the business owners set distinct priorities depending upon the financial plans and the growth rate. Some companies have high technology involvement so they prioritise their routine operations according to the internet. If an internet connection, email server or phone line is down, their business has to face a shrieking pause. Specifically, when it comes to technological businesses, they require an IT managed services provider that could assist them in maintaining the security, designing and managing the strategies along with providing assistance to the employees. Still there are some small and medium-sized companies that need to focus on the devising of the strategies that involve an adoption of the managed services. A concise self-analysis can help you to understand which businesses are not cut out from the managed IT services.

Technology is Not Used to Enhance Client Experience: You need to analyse what kind of services you are delivering to the clients. You need to consider whether technology is involved in it? Whether some software interface, app or web portal is included in accessing the client records or booking their appointments? Are the client services delivered via the email or a phone? If the above elements do not have any involvement, then probably, there is no need to get the managed service solutions to get the client service experience.

Replacing of an Equipment is Waited Till the Last Possible Second: We should always remember that the workstations must be in warranty and at least, they should enable the companies in supporting the operating systems and the software updates that appear. Workstations always represent the employees’ efficiency and productivity. So it is necessary to refresh, repair or replace the equipment immediately in order to boost the staff members’ efficiency so it can match with the IT services.

You are Not Considering Technology as a Means to Appeal Customers: Efficient and talented employees always require technology that can be operated at a high speed. Slow connections, sluggish networks and obsolete technology usually frustrates the employees. Expert professionals always need technology that could help them in boosting their efficiency.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/5-signs-business-not-cut-managed-services-01430729#UpFwi8rvIzdrLSD6.97

Opera Application Support Services – IGMAS Extended Hospitality IT Services for Its Inclusion

A proclamation for the inclusion of Opera PMS Application Support has been made by the IGMAS Technologies to their current collection of Hospitality focused Service and Support Services. Hotel Systems Solutions’s (HSS) founders, Scott McGraw and Erik Strom will grow the team of IGMAS. Both the founders have brought decades of experience of the Micros Systems to the new-fangled Application Support Services division. Complete and customised application solutions along with the training and support will be particularly provided for the Opera Property Management System (PMS), PMS Interfaces and a diverse range of Oracle’s other Hospitality products. The HSS’s Micros-trained hospitality will have experienced professionals that would be dedicated with the additional hospitality support resources so they can provide on time training, configuration, assistance and troubleshooting to hotels and resorts that either use or intend to use the Opera. IGMAS support team, when joined with the other forces, will let the HSS grow continually their national and international growth efforts in the field of Application Support and Services.

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Michael Breindel, President of IGMAS Technologies, stated that IGMAS has created a group and providing industry-changing application services for more than a year. With HSS that have 20 years of hospitality and Micros experience, they can now deliver an international single source solution that would be completely independent and exceptional in the hospitality industry.

According to the Scott Mc Graw, the HSS founder, IGMAS Technologies holds proficient, innovative and technology experts that have the capability to deliver the hospitality community, the assimilated solutions and assistance so that the industry can grow and improve its market size that it serves.

IGMAS provides entirely different customer support services in a timely manner while inexpensive software solutions are delivered to the clients that lead to valuable property savings, enhanced financial controls, improved productivity of the staff and perfect guest experiences to the clients.

Reference: http://www.pressreleaserocket.net/igmas-expands-hospitality-it-services-to-include-opera-application-support-services/391533/

What Businesses Must Know About IT Infrastructure Services

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Everybody knows that Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides effective and simulated computing resources throughout the network connection, usually via the internet. Just similar to the cloud computing packages, IT infrastructure holds an extensive range of cloud services that are used by most businesses. These infrastructure service packages vary from company to company but normally include storage, servers, hardware, security elements and system maintenance. The businesses that have limited budgets find it difficult to buy and maintain their own hardware so they feel it interesting to attain the services provided by the cloud service providers. Still it involves the risk so the businesses must make sure about the services they are going to get prior to making any decision for hiring the services.

It is necessary to understand how the IT infrastructure services provider differentiates between the IaaS, SaaS, DaaS and PaaS. Infrastructure as a Service varies from the cloud services in a way that it offers hardware components so that the businesses can generate their own applications and cloud platforms. Organisations that implement cloud solutions allow the suppliers in terms of the third party to provide the IT resources, thus shifting the intricacies and expenditures to the cloud vendors. IT infrastructure is mainly used to provide applications, preserving the data, hosting the websites on computer servers or making a virtual data centre.

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Benefits of IT Infrastructure Services

Reasonable Cost: Similar to the other cloud packages, IaaS is offered through a subscription model to assist the businesses to evade huge costs in terms of periodic or annual payments. Getting the services of the IT infrastructure support helps to save large amounts that may otherwise be incurred while getting the hardware equipment. Before signing any contract, businesses should always make sure that there are no hidden costs and that the partnership with the service providers should be flexible.

Scalability: In order to update the hardware by means of purchase, the businesses should initially assess the IT infrastructure so to know how much the business will grow. The businesses must make sure that their resources can manage the business growth and the hardware will be appropriately utilised.

Flexibility: Usually, most IT resources are judged through the internet connection. With IaaS, the employees and the businesses are mobile. With online access and user login details, the work can have greater flexibility. It can help the companies to become geologically independent.

Consistency: The infrastructure service providers offering managed services offer consistency and greater reliability as compared to the on-premise IT. This is so because the resources can be spread across various platforms, multiple servers and data centres. In case, if the hardware components fail or the data centres go offline, the company’s infrastructure won’t be affected.

Reference: http://www.itproportal.com/2016/01/06/infrastructure-as-a-service-iaas-what-businesses-need-to-know/

Why Microsoft Has invested in New Managed Service Strategy

Microsoft has integrated the security approach throughout its software and service while a new managed services group and cyber defense operation centre has been announced according to the briefings of the Executives.

Over the past year, Microsoft has invested around $1 billion in security so to double the number of security executives and make thorough research and development in security. Now, it has broadcasted the launching of a new cyber defense operations centre and the managed services security group in which the security is integrated with the products and services.

Microsoft executive Dark Reading explained how the new strategies related to the security had been established inside the internal network of the company and throughout the Office, Windows and cloud services offered to the clients.

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The primary aim of the Microsoft is to secure, detect and respond to threats. The executives have pointed billions of services, endpoints and systems from where the Microsoft has drawn threat intelligence so to use the Intel for detection, fortification and respond to the security issues.

In addition, Microsoft has bought three security firms in the last year that involves cloud security firm Adallom, behavioural learning and Active Directory security firm Aorato and most recently, data and file protection firm Secure Islands.

One thing that should always be remembered is that Microsoft wouldn’t reveal how many security executives it has again hired for the managed services security in the last year. Microsoft Enterprise Cybersecurity Group (ECG), a new managed services arm, emphasises on sales and services particularly the cyber defense. This group is intended to work with the Microsoft’s security partners, Office 365 and the Azure teams.

Reference: http://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/microsoft-invests-$1-billion-in-holistic-security-strategy/d/d-id/1323170

How Managed Services Can Secure Your Business

To whatever business it is, everybody needs the best services so it can serve its clients in an appropriate way. The success of any company usually depends upon the services it offers to its clients. Getting the managed services mean that you can customise the services for your skills to reassure that they will help in achieving the organisational objectives. Make sure that the managed services company in London you are hiring must provide you appropriate services, not something like just help in plugging to the internet and then walk away without protecting from any potential threats.

Getting the assistance of managed services provider help a great deal to interact with the people. This makes the companies feel as if the service providers do care and work for the clients. Providers offering the managed service solutions care that the company’s important confidential info must be safe and secure and should in no way be in the hands of the hackers. There are numerous benefits that the businesses offering the managed services provide to its clients like:

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Consistency: Managed services provider in the UK offer services that are not only reliable and consistent but also quick. Service providers usually offer services in a way that improves and guarantee the uptime.

Assistance: Hiring the appropriate companies for the managed services mean that they will always be ready to provide assistance whenever you want. Whether you contact via emails, phone or live chat, you will always get help for managing the systems.

Backup Support and Services: Whatsoever is the nature of your business, every business needs a backup of its important data. Providers offering the managed services provide backup services, and disaster recovery plans to help the clients in the time of need.

Integrated Tools: According to the needs of the clients, the service companies’ offer integrated tools for use. Use of integrated tools helps the businesses to save a lot of their valuable time which can be spent at other work to enhance the productivity.