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How Not To Be Overlooked If You Are Responsible For IT Support

Sara S. Salazar IT Support No Comments

It is now clear that with the adoption of the cloud in companies, the need to effective it support boston services is increasing.

Users demand more flexibility, and more application services and will generate more and more requests. IT service management has to evolve. All of this translates into more service requests, more complexity, and more need for responsiveness on the part of the business. IT services need to adapt to offer more for less with greater business transparency.

How secure is the cloud?

According to some research reports, 86% of security breaches in 2013 were due to the use of stolen passwords and users, making this a priority for company entry policies. By 2015, 60% of IT managers’ budgets for systems security will range from 30% to 40% to fund enterprise threat assessments. Consequently, we will see an increase in demand for private cloud deployments and private editions of the public cloud.

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Who will be the IT Support Boston winners?

Companies capable of managing information effectively will be able to understand and know their customers better, be more efficient, effective, and competitive, and have greater control. The challenge is to develop an organizational culture where everyone has access to and is nourished by this information to act in accordance with the interests of companies and their users.

The challenge in the public sector will be to automate many of its institutions, give citizens access and integrate the state function to their needs.

A constant and insatiable demand will grow which requires more data storage capacity. However, the need is not just for more hardware to meet raw capacity. Instead, users want automation, automatic storage management, scalability, rapid provisioning, great performance, and the highest levels of business continuity.

Mobile phones will surpass PCs in access to internet tools, while by 2015 more than 80% of portable phones will be smartphones.

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How To Hire External Services For Some Functions & IT Operations

Sara S. Salazar IT Operations No Comments

Currently, companies have multiple options for hiring external services, from highly industrialized offers such as cloud services to more personalized engineering services for analysis and consulting, hardware integration systems, application development, and technical support.

The reality is that companies are at a time where they must invest more than ever in IT solutions for multiple areas of their business, including hardware, telecommunications, software, and of course IT services. For this reason, they must know well which activities should be outsourced and which should not.

In this situation of multiple knowledge, activities, and facets necessary in the daily operations of an IT department, the process of finding, selecting, evaluating, and hiring an external service can be very complicated and requires a set of good practices to achieve the best service.

From a practical standpoint, IT O&M service contracts are generally more applicable to existing installations, particularly if the IT manager is planning to use contracts for most operations.

FOLLOW ALTERNATIVE METHODS:

1. The IT Facilities Manager can keep operations and maintenance employees working on these tasks, both day-to-day and during peak loads, and outsource some specialized work.
2. The IT manager can have operations and maintenance employees perform day-to-day tasks and hire external services to handle the highest workloads, ie emergencies, reviews, etc. In this case, the contractor’s workers would be specialized engineers responsible for making changes, improvements, maintenance, and repair tasks.
3. The IT facility manager can have its small internal operations and maintenance workforce handle a portion of the day-to-day tasks and can employ outside services to balance daily work and take care of peak load needs.
4. The IT facilities manager may choose not to have assigned operations and maintenance staff and is entirely dependent on the service company’s employees.

TIPS FOR FINANCIAL MANAGERS WHEN SELECTING AN IT OUTSOURCING:

• The first thing is to analyze the demand for IT services by the company and define clear objectives on what outsourcing should achieve.
• Analyze the new alternatives offered, especially those of the Cloud type.
• Request success references with previous similar clients in a) types of problems that need to be solved, b) people, c) processes, and d) technologies. You must pay close attention to qualitative and quantitative details.
• Analysis of return on investment and long-term viability.
• Ask other financial managers and their degree of success. You can use social networks like LinkedIn for this.
• Ask the equipment manufacturer.
• Ask if the outsourcer has adequate insurance coverage, and try to make the coverage involved part of the contract.
• The contract awarded must guarantee during its validity that the contractor will correct the faults due to its workmanship. verifies that a penalty clause exists. verify that your commercial contract is adjusted to the success metrics of your business.

TIPS FOR IT MANAGERS WHEN SELECTING AN IT OUTSOURCING:

• Evaluation and selection. Evaluates providers’ capabilities to deliver quality services, operational efficiency, consistency, process expertise, and appropriate pricing. Choose those providers that are most likely to meet the operational needs of your business in the short and long term.
• Verify that they have adequate personnel to support the project. Check if this person has experience in contracts for IT operations and maintenance projects in your industrial sector.
• How big and deep is the outsourcing experience?
• What does it offer in terms of supervision and the skills of specialized engineers and their assistants? This is a very important consideration.
• The negotiation of the contract. The first step in negotiating the contract comes long before the contract agreement is put into writing. More specifically, the IT manager should try to express IT needs before starting negotiations with outsourcers. In fact, it would be a good idea to spell out those needs in writing. The objective is to offer the outsourcing your expectations about the service. When negotiating the price, you should seek to compare your internal costs of doing that work with what the contracted service represents.
• You must have a good understanding of the tasks and responsibilities of each of the parties: For example, who will have to provide the ancillary equipment and services. Establish very well what the costs will be included in the agreement and what is the extent of the labor included.

It is always a good idea to specify the scope and nature of contract performance monitoring in order to avoid potential problems.…

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Reduce Your IT Headaches with Regradar

Sara S. Salazar Headaches No Comments

Stress in the work environment triggers a series of physical and psychological symptoms. Stress at work can be caused by various factors, such as the boss’s authoritarianism, mistrust, pressure and charges, lack of growth prospects, and lack of leisure time, generating negative effects on the professional such as headaches, digestion and appetite problems, insomnia, palpitations, gastritis, allergies, physical exhaustion, weak memory, lack of motivation, irritation, apathy, isolation, among others.

The information technology area has always been one of the most stressful in the market, and today it plays a fundamental role in the world, this stress has increased, even more, causing more than half of the professionals in the area to feel unhappy with their functions, according to research carried out in the USA.

The complexity and deadlines to be covered by the IT area mean that the worker is always under pressure, on some occasions it usually works as a motivator. However, most feel discouraged, which generates health and personal problems. To reduce stress Regrader has taken necessary within the company to reduce or minimize major IT letdowns.

Control of hours worked

Most associates work overtime to resolve urgent customer issues. All customers have issues that are urgent and need to be resolved right away. It is important for a leader to determine the degree of urgency of each requirement and scale it so that the professional can maintain focus.

Rules for work and leisure

The IT professional must be firm with friends and family who ask him to fix their computers during his off hours and for free. You will not have to do it when you are resting and when you decide to do it, there must be a cost. Rest is essential, when you are at home, it is a time to rest. In addition, rest in your work environment is also important: five minutes for coffee, or to disconnect from work, make activities resume with more focus, relieving momentary stress.

How to act before customer complaints

Many times the client unloads all his disagreements with who is giving him support during his problem. It is necessary to implement a tool in which all claims and requests made by the client become product requests. Through this request, the support staff will be able to help the customer without having to deal with the customer’s frustration and anger directly.

It is good to remember that the client is just irritated because something he is paying for is not working. Those who work with IT are always faced with disaster resolution. Therefore, not taking the client’s relief to the personal area is something that will avoid more stress for the worker.

It is the role of the manager to share important information with the workers, so that there are no doubts about the projects and that each one knows their responsibilities. Finally, professionals who achieve their proposed goals should be praised so that they always feel motivated.

4- Investment in good equipment

It is important that superiors understand everyone’s work and that they understand that it is necessary to invest in good equipment, since charging the professional to meet the goals with a short budget and without support, makes the work much more stressful.

5- Plan, always

Finally, good planning of the activities that will be developed is needed to avoid stress in the IT work environment, thus avoiding falling short of deadlines.

For this, it is necessary that the requirements that are requested and their priorities be very well analyzed by the person who will define these priorities, in order to avoid any alterations and that the work is done several times. With this, fewer mistakes and less pressure on the professional will be achieved.…

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10 Essential Support Tips For Your Business

Sara S. Salazar Business No Comments

Here’s how to keep your IT team running. To be successful in today’s fast-paced world, companies need an IT department that can help them meet changing market demands and stay ahead of their competition. A mediocre or subpar information technology (IT) team will not only limit your company from achieving success but also reduce customer satisfaction as well!

The best way to improve performance in an IT department isn’t by cutting costs, it’s through motivating team members. Motivated employees have been shown time and again as being crucial for galvanizing sleepy departments into action!

1. Communication

It’s important that you communicate to each staff member the state of the business and how the work they’re doing will contribute to advancing the overall goals of the business.

Keeping IT team members in the dark is a fundamental moral killer. IT leaders can start motivating team members just by being honest. Many IT leaders get up in front of groups and make presentations full of analogies and charts when, really, all they need to do is explain what’s going on in the business and clearly show why the project is important.

To ensure your team members are continually improving and engaging, goals should include training and other ways to develop technical and/or business skills.

2. Equipment

Equipping an IT staff with inadequate and/or outdated software and equipment guarantees poor performance. Forcing team members to waste time on monotonous and easily automated tasks is also detrimental to long-term success.

IT leaders are using tools like Bamboo, Jenkins, and Team City. They also use automation to keep the staff from doing repetitive mundane tasks that can be automated so they have more time for innovation in a changing environment

3. Attention to performance levels

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial for monitoring overall IT performance. Many IT departments, however, focus on the wrong metrics.

Choose performance indicators on what is important to the business and not just IT. Thomas prefers to stick to critical success factors that are tied to the overall company goals as well as the needs of the stakeholders. He feels the approach ensures that measurement tools will be narrowly focused on collecting, analyzing, reporting, and responding to specific key vital signs.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be used as key risk indicators that will alert your IT management team if they are emerging risks in need of attention.

4. Monitor depletion

Hard work is great. Overwork invites frustration, mistakes, and decreased productivity. The best approach to combat burnout is to make sure it never happens. To avoid staff burnout, there have to be easy weeks to fit into each staff member’s schedule, having celebrations for small wins during these times could also help.

Go for a walk with colleagues, have lunch together, and stop for a quick coffee. These simple breaks together can foster a much closer collaborative team environment that will have a positive impact on performance.

5. Keep staff engaged

The art of cascading goals is not new, but it’s a key principle for governing and managing performance in an organization. A goal cascade starts with the manager describing contributions that his team members can make to get results from one level up until they reach their desired outcome at top management levels- this process also creates accountability along all points between!

This allows each person to recognize the value of achieving goals and how their contributions affect the realization of benefits.

6. Stop micromanaging

Leadership and management teams need to be involved in projects, but it’s critical that they do so with a gentle touch.

7. Encourage staff to expand and deepen their knowledge

By energizing and motivating staff members, an IT leader offers skills development opportunities to offer team members the chance of attending professional conferences or events. This not only allows them to experience new ideas but also helps break routines which can improve morale in this process

It’s not so much that IT leaders are opposed to empowerment; it is just the first time something goes wrong and they feel like their hands need to be held steady.

8. Consider new approaches and methods

The biggest boost to IT performance has been the advent of agile methods and DevOps, which help bring business and IT teams together.

This gives the business team more say in the priority and direction of the delivery team, often leading to simpler solutions that align better with business processes and are much easier to implement.

Organizations need to stop thinking of work as a machine that you can optimize by pulling a few levers. Instead, think holistically about the environment teams work in and how the vision for that work can best be communicated.

9. Use the latest proven management techniques

Many IT leaders are pushed into their roles solely on the basis of their technical expertise, receiving only limited management training. They tend to follow Management 1.0 or maybe Management 2.0 practices. Either they think of their staff as resource widgets (1.0) or that management processes (2.0) like 360 feedback are the solution. Management 3.0, on the other hand, recognizes the complexity of today’s operating environment and the power of empowered and motivated people to solve problems. Embracing Management 3.0 and actually implementing it requires a great deal of confidence and courage on the part of management and leadership.

10. Seek outside opinions from a trusted advisor

IT leaders are often so close to the technology issues at hand that they can’t see or appreciate the full scope of their department’s impact on other business areas. Having outside eyes can help recognize these [effects], as well as offer valuable insights into industry trends and tools that could be effective in helping improve performance management.

Sometimes it’s good to seek outside advice and support in the same way that a coach helps an athlete see his performance in a different way. But a coach can only, at best, provide interesting insights into the working practices of an organization. Only the people who make up the organization can create change.…

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Why IT Support Is Essential For Businesses?

Sara S. Salazar IT Support No Comments

IT support is a service that is responsible for providing technical assistance, hardware or software, to an organization and its customers. In other words, IT support solves problems, difficulties, or questions related to applications, contact networks, platforms, and everything related to information technology; within the technological area of the organization.

Through IT support, customers can be guided to solve problems; but he also has the responsibility to solve problems that may arise in the organization around technology. This includes applications, software, web pages, computers, and smartphones, among others.

Likewise, it is important to note that IT support not only provides a face-to-face service; rather, it makes use of a variety of means to obtain the solution of a problem in the most convenient and effective way possible. Therefore, through IT support, guidance is provided by telephone, email, and chat, among other means. This is essential for saving resources.

Area functions

IT support represents the primary avenue of assistance when technology-related difficulties arise. Among the main functions of this service, the following stand out:

• Actively assist customer queries related to the technology area.
• Assist customers with technology configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting; even remotely.
• Efficiently diagnose problems and carry out the necessary actions to achieve a solution in the shortest possible time.
• Manage the products and services of the organization related to the technological area.
• Monitor the proper functioning of the technological platforms of an organization.
• Delegate the treatment of the different situations that arise before the most appropriate instance.

In general, the function of IT support is to ensure that the operation of the technological sector of an organization is appropriate to favor its activities.

IT Support Levels

Depending on the requirement, a specific type of assistance is necessary.

That is why, there are usually different levels of support; in such a way dedicate more resources to those situations that require more effort, which represents an adequate use of resources.

It all depends on each organization, but usually, there are 3 levels of support, which have the following characteristics:

• Level 1: is responsible for the attention and resolution of simple problems such as configuration, customer orientation, and simple incidents, among others.
• Level 2: face situations that could not be solved in the first level. Difficulties of greater difficulty are diagnosed and solved.
• Level 3: is responsible for diagnosing and finding solutions to highly complex problems that require detailed work. At this level, staff has highly specialized knowledge and experience in solving specific technical difficulties.

Skills of an IT Support

IT support is an area that requires the implementation of certain skills that will allow it to fulfill the functions of the area and its objectives. In essence, they are the following:

• Communication skills, both to understand and transmit the information that is desired.
• Extensive knowledge, both general and specific, of technical matters that allow problem-solving.
• Skills for problem-solving.…

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10 Signs You Need To Outsource Your IT

Sara S. Salazar IT Outsource No Comments

Entrepreneurs are able to focus on other aspects of their business that they might not have the time for otherwise. The entrepreneur gains complete control, avoiding the hassle and worries associated with developing software!
The outsource developer team takes responsibility for choosing which technologies are used in order to provide optimal results without worrying about spending nights coding-they just have faith knowing there will be someone else who knows what they’re doing behind closed doors when it comes down to deadlines

Technical challenges are often the bane of any business. Developers have toiled long hours just so that you can reap your rewards in this life, but it is not without its struggles as technical performance might become a burden if left unchecked by those who understand these issues firsthand – stakeholders!

1. Nature of the computer program

Knowing your company’s core competency is the first step in deciding if to outsource software development to another party. Your skills and knowledge should be able to represent what you do best, so it’s important that this factor represents an accurate reflection on how good they actually are at creating solutions for clients who need them most

Is it creative or operational software? Only operational products, such as reservation systems or process automation – which can be complicated but not critical – should be outsourced. Do it in-house for innovative products like chip design programs, consumer games, architectural designs, and more.

Also, is the project a software product or a software service? When it comes to delivering software products, most developers will believe that they don’t need a significant amount of effort and expertise.

The outsourcing of software services is a popular decision for many businesses. However, this approach typically does not deliver the expected results and must be managed with extreme care in order to avoid major issues down the road.

2. Experience

One of the main benefits of outsourcing is gaining a high level of expertise that your in-house team does not currently possess. It is essential to take into account the experience they have had and their connections with previous clients.

Look for opportunities to check out your previous work and authenticate the quality of previous work from a software development company. You’ll get a bird’s-eye view of their actual service offerings in action.

3. Technological standard

What exactly are you looking for in a software development company to build your product? It is not just a technical choice. Technology decisions have a business side that can influence time to market, product stability, and budget.

Beware of generalists: If a software development company tells you, “You’re not limited to a certain development technology or stack; you can do all stacks and technologies, or you can do everything.”

What they mean is: “They are not specialists in any particular technology.” The ideal would be to collaborate with dedicated software developers who are specialists in web or mobile application development and specialize in a specific technology, such as JavaScript frameworks o Java.

You’re looking for a team of techies with extensive experience in a few technologies/stacks, not a development team that jumps into the next hot framework while leaving the old one half-baked.

4. Cost

It’s important to consider the cost of any service or product when making a decision about outsourcing. Think carefully, as there are many factors that go into this decision including short-term versus long-term operating costs for your company (you should know what kind you’re getting).

Outsourcing generally provides better costs in the short term, but may not in the long term. In general, outsourcing tends to improve costs in the short term, but this is not always the case in the long term. You have to know what the other hidden costs are to see if outsourcing is a viable option.

5. Piracy

When preparing to outsource your software development to another independent company, keep in mind that legal systems have little or no regard for software intellectual property rights. For example, you may know that about 90% of all software used in Vietnam and China is pirated.

The importance of protecting your intellectual property can not be understated, which is why it’s important for you to draft software development contracts and non-disclosure agreements.

6. Type of employment

Many businesses require the involvement of a wide range of resources and talents, which you may not be able to acquire on a full-time basis.

The impact of outsourcing is that it allows you to use resources when and how often you need them.

However, when your startup doesn’t have enough money to pay for software architects or designers it may be worth considering outsourcing. Not only will they help build our products but we might need their expertise in other areas too such as testing which would bring even more value than just having them on staff permanently.”

7. Lean/Product-Centric Approach

A lean software development company will probably suggest removing features from your initial list. When discussing with a software development company the possibility of reducing the scope, it is clear that you can trust them. This shows that they are more serious about their goals and have a clear vision of what they are going to create.

In addition, it shows that they are not “salesmen”, since, to put it simply, they set a low budget (contradictory to their financial objectives). However, if a software development company claims to cut back and cut features, give it one more star.

8. Time, roadmap, and process

Are they simple in terms of their operation? The development of any software is always a difficult task. If you want to outsource a development agency, it must have a solid structure and be completely open. They must communicate in advance the software development process and how it is carried out.

9. Effective communication

When hiring an outside company, it is essential that they are able to communicate effectively with you to understand the needs of the project. This is the step where you can find out if they will be able to complete the project successfully. It will also let you know that they are accessible, making it easier to troubleshoot in the future.

A critical point to avoid is not understanding the scope and characteristics of the project and the possibility of misunderstanding it. This will greatly influence the planning and budgeting of the project.

The user story approach is one that many product companies use to build their needs into effective prototypes. This ensures you avoid feature proliferation and keep things simple in the design process, which will lead to a better final product for your customers!

10. Scalability and flexibility

If you don’t want to experience the burden of managing your staff, consider using an outsourcing agency that can adjust your team size and time allocation.

Don’t fall victim to an overly strict one-sided contract. Commit to small sprints and deliverables first, then outsource for months or years.

When you commit to a smaller, project-based working relationship, there’s no real pressure to stick with it long-term, allowing your company to hire “as and when” needed. This makes everything more adaptable and reduces expenses.…

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How Regradar Provides Fast and Efficient IT Support

Sara S. Salazar IT Support No Comments

Most organizations approach IT support management reactively (perhaps the phrase “fighting IT fires” sounds familiar to you). But in this world of high expectations and quest for instant results, it’s no longer enough that IT just fix something once it breaks To stay ahead, the helpdesk must take a proactive role in service delivery While immediate response activities are often performed, services can be planned and managed in a timely manner Make requests less frequent.

When agents are given the right tools and resources, they can process requests more efficiently. This not only relieves stress from end-users but also helps improve the company’s reputation by making sure customer service standards stay high in spite of increased workloads or changeable weather conditions

In this article, we share how Regrader provides fast and efficient IT support to optimize your IT help desk.

Create a system to monitor requests

Users want a quick and easy response to their requests, and technicians want to quickly see the problem in order to provide a quick and efficient solution.

We assume that you already have a service desk system, (that is, a set of both technological and human resources dedicated to managing incidents), but if not, it is a good time to start thinking about having it. With a request management system, requests are uploaded by an identified user and prioritized for an agent to respond to. The goal is to design a way to assign categories to requests, select who can respond to them, automate processes, and do whatever it takes to resolve the request as quickly as possible.

At a basic level, what is needed is to establish clear communication for agents and end users throughout the lifecycle of the request, while also tracking its progress.

Create a knowledge center to encourage user self-service

Resolving queries and preventing common requests is the goal of IT support. When end users can troubleshoot and resolve their own requests, this of course reduces the workload and backlog for the IT helpdesk.

By anticipating common requests and allowing users to easily access self-service articles and information to solve their own problems, user satisfaction increases, and resolution wait times decrease.

To do this successfully, users need to have access to a knowledge base where they can quickly and intuitively find solutions to their problems, and even have the option to suggest a solution when uploading requests. The knowledge base can host internal articles for reference by support staff and external articles through the self-service portal. Simply put, the better your knowledge base, the better you can anticipate requests.

Manage your workload

Providing quality support means managing your staff as efficiently as possible to better respond to service requests. The goal of support is, as mentioned above, to meet the expectations of end users while taking care of pending work requests so they don’t pile up.

One of the ways to guarantee success is to track the historical backlog, that is, accumulated pending requests, this will serve to see the complete picture and take the necessary measures to resolve the requests. Analyzing the accumulated historical backlog is key to better staff efficiency and fewer delayed requests.

When in doubt, measure, measure, and measure

When deciding what actions to take to optimize the support provided, it is necessary to measure what we are doing, that is, waiting times for users requesting a response from agents, and vice versa, changes in the priority of the work, usage score of the Knowledge Base for resolution of requests, number of collaborations between support agents, etc.

To make the best decisions, it’s important to have accurate data. Data can be collected quickly and easily with just a few clicks of your mouse or taps on an app screen – this way you don’t get lost in all those numbers!

Therefore, it is very important to have a support tool that allows you to obtain personalized graphs and reports in real time.

Any IT manager wants their department to run as smoothly and efficiently as possible, and the only way to know what’s working and what’s not is to go back and look at the data.

Identify who is in charge of resolving a request at any given time

When a customer reports an issue with one of our services, we take their feedback seriously and work hard to resolve it as quickly as possible. We know that not every problem can be solved immediately so in order for us to help you find what’s going on here at [sincerely mention company name], let me ask some questions…

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