The Michigan IT Experts

First, let’s take a look at what are known as upstream and downstream activities. Upstream activities provide businesses with the ability to create and produce goods or services, and they include gathering staff, resources, and logistics. Downstream activities are those that go into the facilitation of creating a product or service, as well as what goes into selling them.

Upstream Issues Complicate Things

As a result of the global pandemic, many organizations experience shortages and inconsistencies with their supply chains, making it difficult to procure equipment or components to produce quality products. Additionally, “the great resignation,” did not help at all, solidifying many peoples’ decisions to leave their jobs over health and safety concerns, issues of pay, and straight-up burnout. With so many moving parts in place, it’s no wonder some companies struggle to manage operations.

It’s not easy running a profitable business, as building better processes and hiring top talent requires funding that you might not necessarily have. Enterprises have an easier time with this, as they have more resources at their disposal for research and development, but small businesses need to find ways to keep up, or their return on investment suffers.

Marketing Taking the Place of Consistent Innovation

There is always money to develop and research products, especially when compared to the amount of funds typically designated for marketing and advertising. The latter is generally one of the smaller items on the SMB budget list. To stay competitive and to keep things fresh, SMBs have to grow their offerings, but the trick comes in how they do so. Enterprises can make do by spending extra on development and marketing of products, but SMBs often find themselves in the impossible position of spending money they don’t have to develop new products or to focus on what has brought about their current level of success.

With the costs of business increasing ever-higher, SMBs are trying to make up for the lack of innovation through marketing and advertising campaigns. Furthermore, SMBs are spending less on the sales processes and administrative costs of maintaining operations, like IT and HR, something which leads to shortcomings in processes and talent acquisition that is detrimental to their success.

People are Paying More for Less

Ultimately, what these trends lead us to notice is that consumers are paying more for less. Eventually, this trend will lead to products or services no longer being viable for customers purchasing products from SMBs, as the price point increases while the value proposition remains the same. SMBs depend on the customer-first mindset, and without the funds to make sure this happens, their customers and even their workforce might not stick around to see what the future holds.

How We Can Help

You may have noticed that the IT costs for small businesses have started to rise, so now it’s time to ask yourself if you are getting what you pay for. NuTech Services prides itself on reducing your technology costs and expenses, and it’s all thanks to our managed IT service model. We can monitor and maintain your technology so you can focus on operations and providing value to your customers. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Use the 3-2-1 Method

The 3-2-1 rule focuses on the number of backups you have stored at any given time, as well as how they are stored and accessed in a pinch. This rule argues that you should maintain at least three copies of your data, two of which are on-site for easy access and one in a secure off-site data center, accessible through the cloud. You want so many copies of your data so that you aren’t completely ruined if one or more copies of it are corrupted or destroyed. You’ll always have a working copy of your data that you can rely on in a worst-case scenario.

Consider RPO and RTO

Two of the most important metrics to consider for your backup system are RPO and RTO, or recovery point objective and recovery time objective. RPO examines how much data you need to get your operations back to an acceptable level, whereas RTO concerns itself with how long it takes to get back to that point. If you can identify these metrics, you can optimize your chances of recovering from a disaster.

Utilize a BDR System

With a comprehensive BDR system in place, you will have access to all the tools you need to keep your operations running even under the worst possible circumstances. The traditional method of taking data backups using tapes was a manual nightmare that pales in comparison to the more modern and effective BDR systems which can be automated to save time and resources. You can take snapshots of your data for more frequent backups, ultimately resulting in less data loss and prioritizing business continuity. A good BDR system can also act as a temporary server in the event your infrastructure is damaged, minimizing downtime while you search for replacement hardware.

Get Us On Your Side!

If you want to ensure your business doesn’t suffer needlessly from data loss or downtime, NuTech Services can equip your organization with a high-quality backup and disaster recovery solution. We can protect your business from all of the issues that involve business continuity. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

The most important part of procuring any new technology solution is how it will impact your workflow. With so many technology solutions out there, you need to implement those that make sense for your business. To ensure this happens, consider the following four suggestions.

Consider Alternative Costs

Implementing a new solution is wonderful, but only if your staff know how to use it. If you try to implement a solution to enhance productivity, you’ll need to also consider the return on investment in terms of how much time you’ll have to spend getting your team on board with it, along with the time spent training and testing your staff on its use. It might not seem like an immediately apparent cost, but we assure you it is a very real one.

Involve the Right People In the Discussion

When discussing new technology implementations, it’s important to get the perspectives of the people who will be using it. This might mean asking your staff, particularly experienced employees, or other stakeholders and management. With these valuable perspectives on your side, you’ll be able to make the most educated decisions possible about any new technology implementation project.

Choose Your Partners Carefully

When it comes time to add new solutions to your infrastructure and processes, you’ll want to work with businesses that have your company’s best interests at heart. In other words, the vendors you work with should be invested in your company’s success rather than just looking for their next big sale.

Remember to Set Achievable Goals 

Without realistic and achievable goals, any new technology implementation will be doomed to failure. Big changes might be a big deal for your business, but only if they have direction. Otherwise, you could wind up being mired in the processes that drag your business down and prevent it from making any forward progress. With clear objectives and goals, you’ll be able to optimize your chances for success.

When it comes to implementing new technology, it’s best to leave this important task to professional technicians with years of experience and expertise. NuTech Services can consult your organization on the best path forward. To learn more about what we can do for your company, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.