Are You Prepared for Business Downtime?

READ TIME: 1 MIN

March 28, 2019

Are You Prepared for Business Downtime?

Downtime is something many business owners don’t even think about. A Gartner study found that 40 percent of organizations rated their ability to recover from disaster as “fair” or “poor” and that the cost of just one hour of downtime ranges from $8,000 for a small business to $700,000 for an enterprise.[1] This statistic is troubling enough but doesn’t include other factors like the damage downtime can cause to a company’s brand reputation, and the possible impact to customer revenue.

We’ve pulled together this infographic on business downtime. This visual concept includes the following:

Causes of downtime
Types of downtime
A formula for calculating your business downtime cost

Download the infographic here: Business Downtime Infographic

The fact is, downtime is more common than you may think. The IDC found that 71% of U.S. businesses in a recent survey experienced less than 10 hours of downtime per year.[2] Considering the average cost in even 1.5 hours of downtime (Business Downtime Infographic), it has become critical for CIOs and CEOs to routinely re-evaluate their application and site failover capabilities. If your Disaster Recovery plan is not tested quarterly, you run the risk of having a plan in place that will not work in the event of an outage. Another significant statistic in the IDC study confirms that companies small and large do not test their Disaster Recovery plans at all or they only test once a year. Of companies with under 100 employees, 35% have never tested their DR plans.
Protecting your business from unnecessary financial loss takes a proactive approach. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) makes it easy to set your business up for success and not loss.

Give us a call at 877-470-0401 to set up a time to chat about your business downtime plan!

Share On Social

Current ECM Trends: Business Process Automation

READ TIME: 1 MIN

March 28, 2019

Current ECM Trends: Business Process Automation

The most common trend in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) today is Business Process Automation (BPA). According to IT research firm Gartner, BPA is defined as “the use of advanced technologies to automate complex business processes and functions beyond conventional data manipulation and record keeping.”[1] One important element of BPA, and probably most commonly referred to by operations professionals is workflow. Workflow is the ability to automatically route, classify, and store documents from a variety of different sources.

NexusTek’s ECM team is tasked with configuring hundreds of custom workflows to fit the business process automation needs of any department in any industry. For example, you need to enter data for a new account, onboarding a client, or submitting an employee application. With a solid configuration using ECM best practices, the process starts with an electronic form containing all important information that is then is routed internally for processing and stored within a secure document repository.

Another exciting trend within the ECM space is the ability to capture software using AI (artificial intelligence).

Using this new technology, we can automatically identify line item detail from invoices, purchase orders, and other common business documents. Once these fields have been captured, they can be assigned to metadata templates, pushed into accounting software or ERP systems, and classified for simple and elegant document storage systems.

Simply put, if you have a manual process that is a headache, and you want to find a better and more efficient way to operate, then ECM is the answer. NexusTek’s team has over two decades of experience with document management and process automation, we are here to help!

[1] https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/bpa-business-process-automation

Share On Social

NexusTek Enrich: Building A World-Class Talent Development Program

READ TIME: 4 MIN

March 28, 2019

NexusTek Enrich: Building A World-Class Talent Development Program

Successful talent development starts with the right candidates for the job and involves onboard training that aligns with business requirement. This is accomplished by offering new hires a program to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to do their job effectively. This practice gives staff a strong foundation to grow with the organization and approach challenges as an opportunity to learn.

It reduces employee churn, strengthens corporate culture, and improves the overall quality of services we deliver to our clients. At NexusTek, talent development means fulfilling our promise to our clients, partners, and employees that our focus is on being the best MSP serving small and midsized businesses in North America. The following outlines how we’re creating a world-class talent development program at NexusTek.

About NexusTek Enrich

From field engineering to accounting, sales to service desk, Enrich fosters a learning culture that gives staff the freedom to explore their professional interests, while fulfilling our mission to provide outstanding service to our customers.

Enrich Philosophy

Understanding Business Needs to Drive Learning Outcomes
This element is designed to improve service delivery to customers by aligning learning outcomes with our business needs. For example, our client care specialists understand software applications at the deepest level but must also be trained to properly route a private cloud ticket to best serve our customers’ needs. Enrich contributes to measurable improvements in NexusTek’s service delivery. Learning outcomes aligned to business requirements become an incredibly powerful tool to build a competent workforce.
Encourage Meta-Cognition
A rule of thumb in corporate training states that about 70% of learning in the workplace happens outside of training (e-learning, coaching, etc.,). Enrich improves the effectiveness of that 70% through meta-cognition. Meta-cognition, in the simplest terms, is building on a person’s ability to learn. It helps our staff to become more agile, more creative, and approach challenges as opportunities to develop skills.
Learning in Small Chunks
A buzzword in talent development today is “micro-learning,” but there’s nothing new to the idea that we learn best when given content in small, focused chunks rather than lengthy course study. A 2017 study at UC Berkeley[1], showed that students perform better when the instructor used the Pomodoro method – study in sprints of 25 minutes followed by 5-minute breaks. At NexusTek, this method improves employee satisfaction and the quality of service delivery to customers.

Promoting a Corporate Learning Environment

The company implemented LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) in early 2018. Field engineers can now pursues new Microsoft certifications or learn the fundamentals of good team management to advance their career aspirations. As well, LinkedIn Learning helps our staff satisfy continuing education requirements. For example, a CPA in accounting can maintain their professional credentials.
We’re defining positional standards that state the baseline knowledge, skills, and abilities required for any given role. These standards will be the foundation for implementing and measuring the effectiveness of training at NexusTek. At NexusTek, whether an employee in the Service Desk II role is looking to become an Escalation Engineer, or a Field Engineer wants to move into Pro Services, our staff will understand the clear expectations on career advancement.
Hosted training events with our top vendor/partners Barracuda, HPE, SonicWall, PlanetOne and Fusion have begun this year.
Enrich’s Foundations course will be taken by all NexusTek staff as part of their onboard training. Along with a role-specific course, Foundations will ease the transition of new staff into NexusTek’s culture, while also building the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to maximize job performance.
We’ve launched a Microsoft Stream channel (Stream is included free with Office 365) to host internal training videos. These include training for NexusTek’sUnified Communications, Electronic-Enterprise Content Management, Cloud Email Backup, and Microsoft/NexusTek 365 Security Assessment services. We’ve also used SharePoint Online, Flows, and PowerApps to deliver courses and keep our national workforce informed about upcoming training events.

To further advance this effort, we’re launching virtual classrooms and labs that include breakout sessions. Now our engineering staff across the nation will be able to learn together in groups while working through a lab assignment (example: Azure training sessions in a collaborative environment).

Promoting Managed Service Excellence

In the Managed IT Services Provider (MSP) space, when our staff achieves partner certifications it demonstrates a commitment to the knowledge-base we value where partner products are concerned. For our clients, it should signal MSP excellence that our professional services and IT support staff have completed certificate programs and exams focused on partner products. At NexusTek, our commitment is to exceed the minimum staff certification requirements for many of our partnerships. But we’re looking to go beyond. Enrich builds an even stronger relationships with our partners by promoting MSP excellence as a standard for NexusTek. Delivering on this practice, NexusTek was recently recertified Barracuda Premier Partner. Across all categories we exceeded the minimum requirements as a partner by as much as 600%.

Hopefully, this article clearly defines how we are working to build the best teams in the IT industry at NexusTek. As NexusTek’s Director of Technology Training, I look forward to an incredible year of delighting customers and providing enrichment for our team members.

About the Author

James D. Skee, PhD is Nexustek’s Director, Technology Training. Before joining NexusTek in October 2018, James worked in higher ed for nearly a decade. He earned his PhD and master’s from UC Berkeley, where he helped develop curriculum used in CalTeach, Berkeley’s K-12 “STEM” teacher pre-service training program. He has also taught at Hult International Business School’s San Francisco campus, and at Oakwood School in North Hollywood, California. Prior to moving into higher education James worked in IT for twelve years. From help desk to directing IT departments, James discovered an appreciation for business technology as a field engineer in the MSP space.

[1] http://gsi.berkeley.edu/revision-without-tears-in-class-writing-with-the-pomodoro-technique/

Share On Social

How the Right Cloud Offering Saved this Food Distributor a Bundle

READ TIME: 4 MIN

February 28, 2019

How the Right Cloud Offering Saved this Food Distributor a Bundle

Faced with an end-of-life server and storage solution, this company avoided a $100k refresh investment by finding a cloud platform that supports its MultiValue database needs.

A successful California-based regional food distributor and restaurant supplier has a supply network spanning 17 states, with distribution centers in Temecula, Stockton, Fresno, Denver, and Dallas. The company has over 300 employees and has been in business since 1977.

“We’re a 24×7 operation, and our IT has to be able to keep up,” says the company’s IT director. “Our mission as a company is to develop solutions that exceed customers’ expectations, and IT plays a pivotal role in our ability to deliver on that mission.”

The distributor’s customers provide a high level of service to their vendors, and they depend on the food distributor to do the same. “Our ability to print labels and ship orders on time relies heavily on the availability of our technology and our data,” he says.

The company’s ERP runs everything from inventory control and warehouse management to finance and purchasing. From the moment a pick release is received from a customer to when the payloads within that release are translated into an order, the ERP system manages the whole process—often running several orders simultaneously. And with the web service tools at its disposal, the company can generate and receive orders in a variety of formats that seamlessly integrate with its customers’ business systems.

A Legacy System Reaches Its End of Life

The distributor’s server, storage and other IT infrastructure was long overdue for an upgrade, and the signs were evident. “The equipment was almost 10 years old and components were failing all the time,” recalls the IT director. “Each morning I wondered whether I was going to come in to work and find our server dead on arrival,” he adds.

The IT director and his coworkers knew they had to do something different because daily server maintenance was consuming most of their hours. “After pricing a new server and storage appliance, I was shocked at the cost. Just to get a single IBM Power Series 7 server with adequate storage was $100,000—not including installation services,” he says.

Initial Cloud Offerings Not A Fit

While some companies can save money by moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud, that option didn’t seem to be a fit for the distributor’s business model. “We met with a number of different cloud providers to design a virtual environment in a colocation center, but each offering was cost-prohibitive, and I didn’t feel any of the providers understood our business needs,” recalls the IT director. His suspicions were further confirmed after he explained that his company’s ERP system utilized a MultiValue database and the cloud provider couldn’t support their environment.

The MultiValue database is a system that incorporates the features of multi-dimensional and NoSQL databases to store information. Like the relational database model, MultiValue databases store data in tables. However, MultiValue databases use a less rigid schema than a relational database, and with MultiValue databases a single field can have a list of values. This means that one table cell (i.e., a field) can have several values unlike relational databases where each cell can have only one value.

“Some of the key benefits of MultiValue databases is that they consume less disk space, memory, and processing time than relational databases,” says the IT director. “Also, MultiValue applications can handle complex data structures, and they make it easier for desktop applications (and their components) to work together, which is exactly why we use it for our ERP system.”

At one point, the IT director was close to signing a contract with a colocation provider. “They would provide the space, HVAC services and wide area network connectivity, but I would have had to pay for and provide my own equipment,” he says. “On top of that, they weren’t forthright in sharing information, including what their redundant systems were like or what my bandwidth charges would be for data. That level of service was just inadequate for our business needs.”

Finally, A MultiValue Cloud Solution Emerges

While attending an IT trade show a few years ago, the company was introduced to cloud services provider NexusTek, which offers innovative software solutions that enable customers to preserve decades of investment in custom applications, including MultiValue databases, while embracing modern features associated with cloud computing.

“Unlike public cloud offerings, which often have limited application support, we can do backup and monitoring at the database level,” says John Bramley, director, MultiValue Practice at NexusTek. “Plus, we can support on-premise applications and infrastructure, or we can move some or all IT resources to an Azure environment. Another differentiator with a MultiValue platform is that it contains both the database and development environment. It’s much more efficient than running SQL and connecting to an external database. And the data in a MultiValue environment can be accessed easily across different interfaces via a RESTful API.”

After learning that NexusTek’s cloud platform was optimized for high-performance business applications, accounting systems and legacy ERP applications, and that it was more economical than buying and managing new equipment on-premise, the IT director was sold.

The Right Cloud Solution = Cost Savings and Better Availability

Today, the distributor’s ERP system and web services run in the NexusTek Cloud. Not only are daily system restarts and repairs a thing of the past, but the new solution offers significantly improved throughput and performance. “I love the pay-per-use model because we only pay for the storage we’re using, our spot in the data center, and a monthly support cost which is far less than the $100K server refresh cost we considered previously,” says the IT director.

In addition to the labor savings and cost savings of the NexusTek solution, improved availability is a significant bonus. “We have customers who can’t tolerate us being offline for more than four minutes,” he says. “When our old infrastructure experienced an outage that caused us to be offline for an extended period of time, it seriously compromised our relationship with our customers and endangered our business.

“With NexusTek, we no longer have to worry about downtime, and we can give our customers the SLAs they need to trust us and grow their business with us.”

Share On Social

3 Secrets to Recruiting Top Talent

READ TIME: 3 MIN

February 28, 2019

3 Secrets to Recruiting Top Talent

If you run a small business without a recognizable brand name, recruiting top talent can present a substantial challenge. With more than a decade of experience in the role as Vice President of Human Resources, I’ve learned that attracting the best candidates begins with telling your company’s story more effectively. Here are the guidelines I use when speaking to job seekers.

Be Clear on Your Culture

Consider what you and your company represent. This starts with answering a few simple questions. What’s your company’s philosophy on serving the business community through customer service? Your brand isn’t just a logo and a font – it’s an identity. And it’s that identity that employees will be a part of when they come onboard.

At NexusTek, we enable the latest technology solutions for small to medium-sized businesses to power their success. That is our mission statement and our identity as a managed service provider. Understanding how you’re different and nurturing that difference can only lead to being better.

Highlight Your Existing Employees

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how valuable is a recorded employee testimonial? What better way to show your company’s impact on your people than through videos, photos, and quotes.

When embarking on this project, feature people with the education and experiences that you’re actively seeking in new candidates. Don’t be afraid to be very specific in your video content to identify with the candidates you’re seeking. Candidates want to know “hey, there’s someone just like me who works there.” They want to know what your organization values in their employees. At the end of the day, everyone wants to feel a sense of belonging.

When collecting employee testimonials that will draw the desired candidates, what questions should you ask? Here are some examples of the questions I’ve asked of employees:

What attracted you to this company?
Tell me about a typical day at work for you?
What are you currently learning, and what are you still excited to learn about?
What makes you proud to work here?

Ask your employees these questions to get some great quotes that will help you communicate your company culture.

When It Comes to Benefits, Go In-Depth

You don’t want to just recruit top talent – you want them to STAY! This is one of the main reasons you have a competitive benefits package that offers them financial and physical security.

Retaining valuable employees needs to be your mindset from the start of the recruiting process. Besides, can you really afford the time and effort it takes to recruit, train, and retain someone every 2-3 years? You want to focus on growing your core business, not hiring staff.

An excellent benefits program can create a compelling reason for a potential hire to submit their application. Offer a program with several benefit options instead of a “one-size fits all” platform. Make sure your company’s full scope of benefits and descriptions are easily accessible to the candidates through your website or recruiting module.

The story you tell during your recruiting process can attract great candidates to apply. In the battle for a competitive edge in your industry, you need top talent. It starts with understanding who you are as a brand, conveying that brand identity through your existing employees, and being transparent when it comes to differentiators like benefits.

Good luck recruiting!

Share On Social

Managing Document Processes When You’re Getting Bigger, Faster & Stronger

READ TIME: 2 MIN

February 28, 2019

Managing Document Processes When You’re Getting Bigger, Faster & Stronger

Every organization relies on repetitive tasks to accomplish business goals. And when you put the right information in the right hands at the right time, staff can make better decisions that impact your organization’s bottom line.

NexusTek’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution transforms how organizations control and process information, making it possible to:

Manage millions of documents
Retrieve what you need in seconds
Share documents with colleagues while protecting confidential information
Eliminate manual data entry, document naming and document filing
Provide staff with the information they need to quickly make decisions
Back up files and records for disaster recovery

With an ECM system, information is stored in a secure, digital repository, and accessible from any device by anyone with predetermined authorization. Robust full-text search and indexing allows users to find a document using keywords, metadata, annotations and file names.

When it comes to document-based processes like contract renewal, hiring, and invoice approval, there are many ways an ECM system can help your organization work faster and more effectively. Documents can then be automatically routed to the appropriate people for review or approval.

To simplify operations even further, you can implement electronic forms, which transform manual, paper-based processes by making forms digital from the moment they’re filled out.

ECM automation varies according to your business processes – saving money and time.

Reduce time spent processing invoices
Automate human resources and accounts payable processes and save on in-house hiring costs
Reduce time spent on closing contracts and opening new accounts from a few weeks to a few hours

We invite you schedule a free demo and consultation with a NexusTek ECM expert. Our expert advice can help your organization become more informed and more efficient than ever before.

Share On Social

Reclaim the Keys to Your O365 Kingdom with This Security Assessment

READ TIME: 3 MIN

February 28, 2019

Reclaim the Keys to Your O365 Kingdom with This Security Assessment

Cyber attacks can happen to any business, anywhere, at any time. Yet, despite the growing risk of an attack shutting down your network, only 1.7% of organizations with Office 365 have Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled for their global administrators. Essentially, the keys to some of your most vital data is now compromised. Needless to say, this makes IT professionals cringe.

Those same IT professionals know that hackers are smart and getting smarter. To answer the call of this trend, we are now offering a new Microsoft 365 Security Assessment that analyzes your environments and provides actionable security insights to provide the protections you need for your Office 365 tenant.

The Importance of Securing Admin Rights

If an employee has admin rights to your O365 environment, they can:

Change any O365 setting they want
Get access to anyone’s O365 data. This includes files stored in Microsoft Teams, Onedrive, SharePoint, IM conversations and emails

Why should you care? Every company has information they need to protect. Some companies have intellectual property or data that requires safeguarding due to regulations and compliance requirements. If the integrity of that data is compromised, it can hurt your brand’s reputation and present significant legal implications for your business.

From a security standpoint, you’re more likely to have data compromised by employees within your company rather than hackers. At the end of the day, admins are human – meaning they make mistakes. These mistakes can lead to data being accidentally deleted, or backups not being setup correctly. This puts your business and data at risk.

Assigning Admin Rights

There should only be a few users setup with separate accounts that have administrative permissions, and these accounts should only be used when administering the systems. This will prevent users from making changes accidentally. Their usernames and passwords should be well documented and you, as a business owner, should always have access to this information. Username and passwords should NEVER be emailed. There are a few best practices, both digitally and physically, when storing credentials of this level of sensitivity. We recommend speaking with your dedicated NexusTek Account Manager to ensure you know these best practices.

What Your Security Assessment Might Uncover

The goal of this specific cyber security assessment is to evaluate your security posture and providing the best solution strategy to keep your business secure. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know when it comes to protecting your assets. Your Microsoft 365 Security Assessment implemented by NexusTek includes:

60+ recommendations for securing your Office 365
10-points of inspection across Window’s EDR, AV, Updates and more

Don’t trade productivity needs for cyber security. Our assessment will reveal ways in which you can better balance the two with guidance on successful implementation of O365 security features.

Securing your environment is a critical part of moving your data to the cloud. Our team of experts will lead you through the process of identifying key elements to better secure your O365 and leverage a set of clear, proven processes, and recommendations.

When the average cost of a cyber attack for a small business is $120,000, why do only 1.7% of SMB owners say they have capital set aside to deal with remediation? A modern cyber security strategy is critical to your organization’s long-term success – and it starts with the right assessment.

Share On Social

NexusTek Makes Mission and Core Values Public

February 28, 2019

NexusTek Makes Mission and Core Values Public

Flexible corporate culture, social responsibility, performance and integrity exemplify managed IT services leader’s commitment to customers, communities, partners, small businesses and employees

Denver, CO (February 28, 2019) – NexusTek, an award-winning cloud, managed IT services and cyber security provider, today unveiled its company mission statement and core values to the public. Recently named 2018 MSP of the Year, NexusTek helps thousands of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across the country manage and optimize their respective IT environments for business continuity, productivity and efficient operations.

NexusTek Mission and Values:

OUR MISSION:

Allow our customers to focus on their core business without worrying about technology headaches, leaving every interaction with us delighted.

OUR VALUES

Passionate Customer Service
Hire and Retain The Best People
Treat People with Respect
Be Accountable – If We Broke It, We Will Fix It
Be Responsible Stewards of Our Business
Engage in a Meaningful Way with Our Community
Integrity – Say What We Do, and Do What We Say

“For small business owners and IT leaders at mid-market companies, NexusTek enables their success by providing technology services and solutions that eliminate performance-hindering inefficiencies, coupled with the scalability to support future growth,” said NexusTek CEO, Mike Jenner. “Having achieved record growth in 2018, we are very proud of our team’s performance and commitment to delivering better services. These results reflect a belief that success is not derived from any one source, but from an amalgamation of diverse contributions from the people with whom we work and the communities in which we operate.”

Through WOWSA, NexusTek’s employee engagement program, the company helps employees find fulfillment and purpose in the workplace. WOWSA is an acronym for, “Why Our Workplace Stays Awesome.”

“Business leaders often lose sight of the fact that IT personnel have the same needs as other employees. Programs like WOWSA are the foundation of a progressive, collaborative corporate culture and professional environment in which all team members are engaged, find meaning and a sense of purpose,” said NexusTek Vice President of Human Resources Suzanne Harris.

Corporate social responsibility is paramount at NexusTek. Exemplifying an adherence to its core value of Community, the company supports a myriad of philanthropic organizations across the country to help less fortunate members of society.

NexusTek’s Orange County team recently joined forces with Orangewood Foundation to pack over 100 backpacks full of school supplies for the organization’s annual backpack drive. Recently in Nevada, employees from NexusTek’s Las Vegas office teamed up with customer, PENTA Building Group to volunteer at Three-Square Food Bank to package lunch boxes. In addition, NexusTek’s employees, customers and partners came together at NexusTek’s annual client event, at The M Resort in Las Vegas, to pack 54,000 meals at the inspiring Kids Around The World Serve Event.

In Denver, NexusTek deployed a team from headquarters to participate in the Colorado Apprentice Fair in support of CareerWise Colorado. CareerWise Colorado partners with local businesses to offer three-year apprenticeships to high school students. As part of this unique program, NexusTek is sponsoring two students for apprenticeships that begin Summer 2019.

NexusTek also supports employees’ philanthropic efforts by matching their donations to charitable organizations. Each year, NexusTek’s community giving programs result in tens of thousands of dollars in contributions.

Since inception, NexusTek has championed the importance of “giving back” to the community, as evidenced by the thousands of hours personnel spend volunteering. With this public declaration of its new mission and core values, NexusTek conveys its relentless pursuit of both a positive corporate culture for team members and accountability as a socially-responsible community partner.

Share On Social

NexusTek’s CTO Dives Into Backup and Disaster Recovery with SMB Nation

READ TIME: 1 MIN

February 27, 2019

NexusTek’s CTO Dives Into Backup and Disaster Recovery with SMB Nation

Cloud-based backup and disaster recovery systems bring cost efficiency and flexibility of cloud computing to small businesses that are without in-house IT resources. NexusTek’s Randy Nieves, Chief Technology Officer and Senior VP of Product Management, is featured in SMB Nation’s, “Geek Speak” where he dives into security, compliance, and the cloud.

Share On Social

NexusTek’s CTO Shares Tech Insights with SMB Nation’s Geek Speak

READ TIME: 1 MIN

February 21, 2019

NexusTek’s CTO Shares Tech Insights with SMB Nation’s Geek Speak

Cloud-based backup and disaster recovery systems bring cost efficiency and flexibility of cloud computing to small businesses that are without in-house IT resources. NexusTek’s Randy Nieves, Chief Technology Officer and Senior VP of Product Management, is featured in SMB Nation’s, “Geek Speak” where he dives into security, compliance, and the cloud.