The evolution of phones and how we use them is forcing many business owners to make a tough choice; BYOD or COPE?
“Bring Your Own Device” vs. “Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled”
The Typical Solution – BYOD: According to the CDW 2012 Small Business Mobility Report, 89% of small-business employees use their personal mobile devices for work. But the headache involved here is how do you support and secure all of these devices? The scary thing is that most small businesses don’t even try! The CDW survey found that only 1 in 5 small businesses have deployed (or plan to deploy) any systems for managing and securing employees’ personal devices.
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Windows 8 is still not for business. Spruce up your Windows 7 productivity with these 11 keyboard shortcuts you probably aren’t using yet!
Each time you reach for the mouse, it costs you productivity. The more you can keep your hands on the keys, the better. The Windows Key allows you to do a bunch of time saving, mouse killing commands.
Here are the 11 best ways to use it:
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I just met with a potential client who shared a horror story about a server outage that locked them out of their data and kept them from accessing their X-rays for 7 full work days. Should they move to the cloud? Maybe.
A lot of people have been asking me about the cloud lately. They want to know if it’s right for them. It’s true, for some, the cloud can help you improve efficiency, save money, and create redundancy in your computer systems. But timing is the key to whether your business should make the switch or not. Let me share with you some of my findings over the last 6 months of helping customers navigate these changing times.
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We love new technology. We are computer geeks. We watch the Apple Press Events live and immediately order the new gadget that’s twice as fast as the old gadget.
We understand that most of you are not computer geeks, and don’t love spending money on computers as much as we do. If I had to guess, I’d say most of you hate buying expensive, un-sexy things like new servers, and you’d probably rather squeeze every last minute out of your old ones. But, the fact is, old technology runs slow, crashes, and gets hacked. Your business can’t afford to be run on old technology.
So, The Question Is: How can you get the tools your business needs without spending an arm and a leg?
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I’m sure many of you are also doing this, but I just completed my goal review for 2012. Now, I’m gearing up to make 2013 even more fun, successful, and disciplined!
One of DE’s biggest success secrets from 2012 was the introduction of a dashboard. It serves as a scoreboard for the entire team to see “how we’re doing” as a company. Based on this dashboard, we created a daily cadence for our team and clarified, measurable expectations.
So, what exactly is a Dashboard?
It’s a custom computer program that pulls data from different sources then calculates and displays our performance metrics. Basically, it’s an instantly updated “goal progress window” that we display on big monitors in our office for all to see.
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Is there ever a good time to spend money on computers? Maybe not, but there are certainly “better” times.
December is the traditional time when many businesses look for ways to spend some of the extra cash they made during the previous 11 months to minimize upcoming tax bills. If your fiscal calendar ends on 12/31, consider improving your team’s efficiency with new equipment by refreshing some of your business’s laptops, workstations, or servers.
January is actually the best time of the entire year to buy Dell equipment. Dell operates on a traditional retail fiscal year. That means their business calendar runs from Feb 1 to Jan 31 to capture all of the additional holiday spending in December. Dell devotes most of January to booking as many sales as possible to end their year strong. This means better deals for their customers. (This is based on my past 13 years of purchasing experience so I don’t think it’s just an anomaly!) If you have equipment over 4 years old, you should strongly consider some new equipment sooner rather than later and January promises the best deals. (Dell also has better pricing at the end of their quarters which are April, July, and October.)
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