Can IT be green?

Large companies are, indisputably, at the heart of many environmental issues and need to make big changes to their sustainability as soon as possible to help combat climate change. And many have already done so.  

But with so many large tech companies going green, shouldn’t smaller IT companies, like ours, follow suit? 

Pearce IT has, for a long time, been committed to being a sustainable and environmentally positive company: 

Our telecoms gained carbon neutral certified status back in 2012 

Our hosted services provide energy efficient IT options for our clients 

Tech is a large contributor to environmental issues, from energy usage to polluting waste and manufacturing techniques.  

So how can tech companies improve and go green? 

One major way that large companies can reduce their carbon footprint is to offset it with positive actions, such as planting trees or making the big switch to green energy.  Renewable energy is, of course, the ideal way to reduce the carbon footprint of any company and the goal that we should all be striving towards. 

Here at Pearce IT, one of the ways we reduce our carbon footprint is by using electric vehicles for all of our customer visits. Before lockdown, we were on the road a lot, visiting clients, going to meetings etc.. Even now that we are limiting our in-person interactions to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, the amount of carbon emissions that we save by using electric cars over diesel or petrol is significant and helps to balance out our company’s carbon footprint.  

Whether you have already made steps to reduce your carbon footprint or not, there is always more we can be doing.  

If you’re interested in finding out how you could cut down on your emissions through effective and more environmentally friendly IT solutions, get in touch with Pearce IT today! 

Hosted Desktops - Keeping your Team Connected

With restrictions and guidelines in a state of constant fluctuation, figuring out the most appropriate IT solution to use for your business can be difficult. Trying to accommodate staff working from home, along with essential work that must be carried out in-house, can cause issues in a business’ workflow as people manually transfer data between various laptops, PCs and tablets.  

An all-inclusive cloud system to keep your employees connected wherever they are and allowing for a quick and easy transition to home working in the event of future lockdowns is an ideal solution. 

What are the benefits of a hosted desktop, cloud solution? 

The facilitation of agile working solutions is a large benefit of the deployment of a hosted desktop solution. It not only allows employees to be versatile when they work, but it also makes it easier for situations where location flexibility is required, for example – working with a phone, tablet or laptop whilst out of the home or office. 

An increase in productivity can often be seen with the implementation of a good, hosted desktop service. Users spend less time sharing files between devices and machines, as well as having automated back-up processes for their files, which frees up more time for important work. 

With more and more companies opting to make the switch to working from home permanent, rather than in-office work, they are not necessarily providing a dedicated desk for individual employees anymore. A hosted desktop solution would allow your organisation to utilise hot-desking, enabling staff to remain linked to their own desktop wherever they log in, with everything they need and are familiar with at their disposal. 

The benefit of a desktop hosted solution is that it is optimised to work with any computer. This makes the investment in a desktop hosted solution less of a risk, as it will remain in place regardless of any future changes in IT hardware and will continue to work efficiently and can easily be developed in-line with your business’ growth. 

You can be assured of the best data security precautions. 

Some people are worried about not having their data on a physical machine that they have access to. The idea of entrusting all of their data to the cloud is daunting and they have concerns over data breaches and cyber security. 

A hosted desktop provides you with a user-specific desktop that is freely available anywhere you need it. Only UK data centres are used to host the hosted desktops. 

You can rest assured that your data is in safe hands as security is the number one priority for the data centres that are used and, with disaster recovery and business continuity built into our solution, you can be sure that your desktop will remain fully accessible wherever you are. 

Also, as those of us in the IT industry know full well, a vast amount of security or data issues are not malicious and can be put down to simple user error. So, on top of other security measures put in place, our hosted desktop comes with 365 days of backups that you can restore your data back to, should you accidentally delete those important files. 

Is a hosted desktop solution worth investing in? 

Many people are concerned about the cost of using hosted desktop services, particularly those with small businesses. It is often assumed that hosted desktops worth it only when you are purchasing the system for tens to hundreds of users. 

On the contrary, not only is getting a Pearce IT Secure Desktop flexible in price and can be installed from as little as 3 users, but it is also easy to manage and upgrade, keeping your hosted desktop running fast, no matter it’s age. 

For both hardware and software, hosted desktop solutions provide extra security. You are protected from data breaches when work phones, tablets or laptops are lost during commutes or onsite working, as physical data is not being stored directly on the device. Backed up and stored data on hosted desktop solutions are protected by more advanced security measures than most in-house systems might have. A Pearce IT Secure Desktop is a cost-effective solution to provide your staff with flexible working, whether they are working from home, the office, on site or from any other location. For users, a Pearce IT Secure Desktop is almost indistinguishable from a local desktop on their computer. In fact, the only real difference to a local desktop is that any data accessed or stored by the user is done so via the hosting platform rather than the device itself. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the Pearce IT Secure Desktop and how it could benefit you and your business, get in touch! 

Reviewing Your Strategy; Single-Provider-Solutions Keep it Simple and Less Costly

Pearce IT have all your services in one place

Outsourcing is a staple of the modern age and means that you can make potential savings of both time and money. Perhaps your business is accredited and needs to use a proprietary platform, you may be expanding and need specialist staff, or you may need specialist hardware or software and cannot absorb the expense of training or employing a specialist staff member. Outsourcing can help you in all these circumstances, but when you’re dealing with multiple service providers things can get a little tricky to manage.

The same is true when you’re running a business with a digital infrastructure. You need things to run smoothly to ensure that your clients get the benefits of your cutting-edge offering, but misbehaving platforms or hardware can mean that your business runs like it’s the 1990’s until the issues are ironed-out. How long this takes can depend on how many different providers you must contact.

With Pearce IT, if you need help, or if there is a problem with your service you get a single number to dial. We offer all the software and hardware services of a traditional MSP, as well as providing complete networking and telecoms solutions. Our support team is the only point of contact you will ever need, and in addition, you will only receive a single bill, which is always a win for your accounts team.

Our one-stop solutions take the hassle and cost of juggling multiple suppliers out of the equation, and provides you with a fully functional, virtual IT department to ensure that your company is maintained, stable, and protected, proactively adopting established and new technologies to help streamline your business.

What our one-stop solution means for you

We cannot stress enough the main benefit of an IT review and one-stop solution from Pearce IT; that all services come from one company, with one point of contact. Here are some examples of the services that you can expect to receive from Pearce IT.

Email and Productivity

A full solution from Pearce IT is all about boosting your productivity, delivering reliability, and ensuring compatibility. As a Microsoft Silver Partner of many years, we are experts when it comes to migrating your business to the cloud, and provide top-notch ongoing support, both on-site and remotely once you’ve been migrated.

We can offer scalable Office 365 deployments and migrations, from small business packages of a few email addresses and office applications, all the way through to hosting fully virtualised servers in Azure, with hundreds of users collaborating via Teams and SharePoint on desktop, laptop, and mobile devices.

We’re even able to provide fully customisable Email Signatures that work with smartphones and tablets.

High Availability

The modern workplace is dynamic; working from home and then taking it everywhere with you is the new normal. Pearce IT deliver fully mobile, always-on solutions for you and your business. Cloud based desktop services enable you to access your data from anywhere with an internet connection, and as we provide VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), mobile telecoms, and 4G data services, this could be everywhere you go.

Store your data in online locations that are always available and can upload and download your data as fast as your connection allows. You can also work collaboratively on documents stored in cloud locations whilst on the move, as apps for mobile devices are fully supported.

Business Continuity

Reinforcing your systems’ durability and preparing for the worst is essential for anyone doing business in the current climate, and we can offer a range of solutions to make sure that if the worst does happen, such as an irreparable malware or ransomware infection, your data is safe, and your business can continue operating. Our services include online backup to make sure that your important data is backed up to a secure online location, or a secure drive on-site. You can also backup your entire Office 365 Tenancy, including emails, Teams chat and files, and SharePoint document libraries. Recovery is near-instant and highly granular; you can recover individual files or entire document libraries and user mailboxes, so you can keep your business running no matter how hard it gets knocked, and you can get back up and running with just a phone call to us.

Security

With many employees finding themselves having to work from home, or using mobile internet away from the office, the need for keeping data secure is greater than ever. The team at Pearce IT can assess your working from home arrangements as part of an overall strategy review, and suggest solutions to plug any potential holes in your teams’ working from home setup. The most basic and first line of defence for any device that needs to be secured is an antivirus and internet security suite Our team recommends and uses ESET Antivirus and Security, which is a market-leading security suite with many features to keep your machine clear of nasties, and your data out of the hands of criminals. We also offer drive encryption for those that need to guarantee data security in the event of lost or stolen equipment. This disk encryption service protects your business communications and files with an extra level of unbreakable security.

Speaking of communications, the most likely place you will encounter threats to your system and data security is through your email, and we can secure your organisation’s inboxes with Spam Titan,

a business-grade Spam and threat filter, that proactively checks your incoming mail for threats – even zero-day threats – without compromising mail flow.

VOIP and Telecoms

Voice Over Internet Protocol is the process of sending voice data between devices and is now how most telephone conversations happen in the workplace. VOIP has all the advantages of traditional telephone communications with all the advantages that come from communicating over the internet. If you need to work on site, at home, or if you need to relocate to new premises, you also own your number which moves with you. You can easily unplug VOIP handsets, plug them in at another location and carry on, same number, same functionality.

An amazing feature of VOIP is that your voicemails are sent to a selected email mailbox as a playable audio file. Much less hassle than trying to keep track of voicemails through a phone system, and it also makes sharing voicemails between colleagues easier. A further benefit of VOIP’s fully digital nature is that it can be monitored in the cloud, meaning that you take control of who is answering calls, where they are going and gives you the power to set your calls to follow you to your smartphone or an alternate number in case of network or power failure. VOIP packages can also be deployed without needing additional hardware, as laptops, desktops, and existing mobile devices can all function as VOIP devices.

If needed, we can also update your businesses mobile telephony estate with the latest iPhones, available on lease, and we also offer reasonably priced but extremely functional Android devices. All our mobile phones come with SIM deals that carry unlimited calls and texts to UK standard numbers.

Internet Access

One of the main ways that we can ensure that your business will only need one point of contact for your technical needs is ensuring that we can provide you with your telecoms infrastructure in addition to all the above services. We offer standard broadband and Fibre connections (to the cabinet and to the premises, dependant on availability) all the way up to leased-line fibre connections at speeds of up to 1Gb/s upload/download, so any size or type of business is catered for.

We also offer our Broadband-in-a-Box 4G data service, with a truly unlimited data SIM, through a true 4G router, allowing typical business router functionality, such as multiple SSID’s and traffic management. This is great for businesses that are in broadband-isolated areas but require a relatively fast connection.

We also provide our customers with the benefit of a UK helpdesk for all their support needs and a service that will not slow down during peak times, with a business grade link. It really is simpler to have all your telecoms services coming from one supplier. That is why we are excited to be offering broadband connectivity services, so you can benefit from having a single point of contact.

IT Hardware supplies

We offer all manner of IT hardware, from pre-installed Servers, PC’s (laptop or desktop) and Apple Mac’s, to peripherals, accessories, and mobile tablet devices. Normally, with an office full of IT hardware, or systems in multiple locations, it can be taxing to figure out where everything is from, and who to speak to if something is not working properly. With Pearce IT, you will have a single company to call and a single invoice to pay, allowing you more time to run your business.

IT Consultancy services

We offer advice on GDPR compliance, Disaster Recovery and Strategic IT planning. In addition, we can offer audits and certification for security standards such as Cyber Essentials.

IT hardware, from pre-installed Servers, PC’s (laptop or desktop) and Apple Macs, to peripherals, accessories, and mobile devices.

All that in one place?!

It really is possible to get everything you need to run the digital side of your business from one supplier, and the benefits of doing so are clear: lower combined pricing, a single point of contact, a single invoice per month, and a single, proactive eye overseeing all your services.

If you need a review of your business IT, and you feel that your services are spread out, then Pearce IT can help you by comprehensively reviewing and consolidating your services into one supplier, with one bill, and one number to call. Get in touch for a chat

Where will you be working this Christmas?

I’ve set up my staff to work remotely using company phones and IT equipment, but is it working efficiently? 

Under the current circumstances, remote working has become the norm for any industry that is able to accommodate their employees working from home.  

But, is your business working as efficiently as possible this way? 

Before the Christmas period hits, when most people will be wanting to spend as much time with their families as possible, now would be a good time to consider prioritising your business’s ability to streamline the remote working processes through technology. 

But won’t that cost me more money? 

Perhaps you’ve already made a large investment in your IT facilities to enable your staff to work remotely and are unsure if you want to, or even can, commit you and your business to even more costs just to improve its efficiency. 

Yes, increasing efficiency using technology can sometimes come with an increase in costs, but no, those costs don’t have to be steep and can even, potentially, save you money in the long run. 

By implementing and utilising next generation technology you can improve your systems and the efficiency of your business without breaking the bank. 

Ok, I’m paying attention – how can I do this without spending too much money? 

VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol. 

With a VOIP telephony system you can utilise the internet connections that your remote workers use to make and receive telephone calls for your business. Not only that but the number that you use for your VOIP system belongs to you and your business, and you can take it wherever you go – meaning it is not limited to use by any specific phone or location and can be moved whenever needed. Should you or a worker move location for the Christmas period, all you would need to do is take the phone, laptop or equipment used for making and receiving calls from its current location to the new one, reconnect it to a working internet connection and it’s back up and running and working from the same business phone number it was previously using. 

That sounds a lot like a normal mobile phone… 

Yes, it does. But, if your mobile phone loses connection, that’s it – no more phone calls. 

With VOIP telephony systems you benefit from business continuity. If the device you would normally use to make and receive calls suddenly loses its internet connection, you don’t suddenly lose your inbound calls – they follow you to any other device that you have that is enabled to use your business’s VOIP service. One of your workers’ internet develops a fault and goes down for part of the day? No problem, the VOIP service diverts to another workers system instead or to the workers mobile phone using the network providers internet connection. 

On top of this, you choose the type of number you want to use for your business, whether that is a non-geographical number or a regional number for satellite offices, and that number stays with you, wherever you go. 

Sounds great but what if I need to make any changes, add or remove workers for example? 

With VOIP, you can control it all from the cloud. VOIP technology has the ability to change and scale in line with your business. By utilising cloud technology you can install and control everything you need to from the cloud, allowing you to decide and control where your calls go, who answers them and, in the event of internet or power failure, you can set your calls to follow you to your mobile or an alternative number. You can upsize or downsize your system with no disruption to your business. 

Alright, but what if we’re closed for part of the Christmas period or have reduced numbers of staff? Won’t our customers get frustrated if their calls aren’t answered? 

They probably would, if that was the case. 

But with VOIP telephony systems, you can set a voicemail answer phone service for when you aren’t open or don’t want to receive phone calls. You can customise the time that it turns on and off too, so you can set it to come on at certain times of the day – between 5pm and 8am for example. You can relax, safe in the knowledge that at the end of the working day, your phone calls are being taken care of, allowing you to get on with socialising with your family and friends and enjoying your Christmas evenings. 

VOIPs answerphone service also automatically sends any messages it receives directly to your email address, allowing you to listen to them at a time that is convenient for you, wherever you are. 

Ok, that sounds quite impressive actually, but what if I run an ‘Out of Hours’ service, won’t I have to have a completely separate number and system to run that on? 

Not at all. With VOIP you can implement an auto attendant to answer, which will provide your customer with an option to ‘Press 1 for Out of Hours service’ for example, which, when selected, will automatically redirect the call to a designated mobile or number of your choice. 

So, if you offer an emergency service for customers over the Christmas period, you can simply enable that feature and any customers calling in while your ‘remote office’ is closed and select the out of hours service option will ring through to whichever mobile or number you have selected as the ‘on-call’ number. If they don’t select that service they are still able to leave a voicemail that you can listen and respond to at your own convenience via your email address. 

Meaning you do not have to miss a single business opportunity, even though you are closed for the Christmas period. 

This all sounds fantastic! But it also sounds expensive… 

It really isn’t as expensive as you’d think! 

A VOIP phone system can cost as little as just £13.49 per month – with unlimited land line calls (01/02 numbers) included along with free site-to-site calls, should you or your workers need to speak to one another over the system, so your phone bills won’t run away from you. 

You receive efficient call handling, call forwarding, time-of-day rerouting and voicemail services all included in your package as standard. Any business, no matter its size, can make use of the same features and functionality (e.g. voicemail, music on hold, hunt groups) all of which were once the exclusive preserve of larger corporations. 

And, want to know the best part? All of this can often be set-up and running, including the allocation of the phone number, in just 48 hours! 

Get your business set up with a VOIP telephony system in the lead up to the holiday period so that your business can run more efficiently this Christmas and you don’t miss a single lead or business opportunity while your ‘remote office’ is closed. 

For more details give us a call on 01452 222 000 and we’ll ensure you keep in contact with your customers this Christmas and well into the new year! 

Lockdown 2.0 is nearly over, hopefully...

Did it affect your business as much as the first lockdown?  

Were you as well prepared this time around? 

What can you do to ensure that, should another lockdown come into effect, you can continue to work effectively; transitioning seamlessly from the office to working from home? 

There are a few things that you can put into place, through the use of simple and cost-effective technology, to ensure that you can quickly implement the necessary measures for another lockdown without it impacting your business significantly. 

Here’s how: 

Hosted Desktop: 

You can implement a hosted desktop for each user within your business - meaning that wherever you are and whatever device you are using to access your login, your desktop will look exactly the same, with everything in the same place across all the devices that you could use.  

You could have the latest version of Microsoft Office, your e-mail, your spreadsheets and your Microsoft Teams discussions, available and accessible on every device you use – fully backed up to the cloud. And what’s more? You can have all of that for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day for each user! 

E-mail: 

Email is one of the most important tools for any business and you don’t want to risk missing that very important email, just because you’re out of the office or onsite with another customer, do you? 

Email is like a jigsaw; there are many pieces of information within an email that can be scattered around and it’s not until you, or your software, put all of the pieces together in the same place and in the right order, that it begins to make sense. 

It’s great being able to access your email on your phone! But can you see your sent items, contacts and calendar too? All in one place? 

By using Microsoft’s Online Exchange (Office 365) you can both have your cake, and eat it! 

Online File Access: 

What about your need to access your business’s files and programs that it has stored on the server in the office? There’s little point in working from home if you or your employees can’t access the important documents they need to do their job! 

At Pearce IT we can provide you with our Cloud service - ensuring that not only are your PC’s and Servers backed up as often as you require them to be, but that you also have access to them via a web browser. By making them available to you whenever you need access to them via a web browser, it means that all of the files, documents and folders stored on your PC’s and servers are able to be viewed and edited on almost any device, at any given time. 

And, with our Briefcase option, you can also have all of your files on all of your devices synchronised locally on PC’s and Macs; giving you offline access to essential documentation you need whilst out and about. 

VOIP: 

Voice Over Internet Protocol.  

Sometimes, even though we converse with lots of people via the internet and on our phones using e-mail, text and chat functions, it is nice to hear another human being on the end of the line, have a discussion with them and get business done. 

VOIP telephony technology has come a long way in just a few years and, with the latest technology, we can make and receive calls just by taking our phone with us, wherever we go, and ensuring it has access to an active internet connection. 

With a VOIP system installed you can call your clients using your business’s telephone number, and using the free call allowance that you’ve already paid for, as if you’d never left the office! 

There are a number of packages available for phones that include unlimited calls and even cheap overseas calls. 

Remote Access: 

To some, using cloud-based systems can be a daunting prospect – it is a fairly recent concept to be taken up by mainstream businesses, after all – and, while it is as safe a place as any to store your companies documents and data, you may just need, or prefer, access to a bespoke application or service that runs only on your desktop in the office. 

At Pearce IT we can create a VPN (Virtual Private Network) by joining your remote device (i.e. your laptop, tablet or home PC) to your corporate network, enabling you to connect to your office resources, safely and securely, without the use of cloud technology. 

These are just a few ways that Pearce IT can help your business run as usual. Give us a ring today to find out what your options are. 

Defend yourself against IT terrors

Halloween can be a scary time, and every year there seems to be new and inventive ways to scare the living daylights out of fully-grown adult business owners!

But even though it can seem daunting with the sheer weight of security software out there to choose from, cybersecurity software for your business need not be scary. Whether you are looking for protection for just one device, or an entire Enterprise datacentre, modern security suites deliver complete security without significantly impacting machine performance.

We’ve been protecting business machines and networks for many years, so we know how business owners feel when they hear about the latest virus or ransomware threat doing the rounds. We’ve gathered up a ghostly list of desirable security features, so you’re not left in the dark as to how to choose a software solution that can help you, your team and your systems.

Get the Skeletons out of your boot cupboard

Most AV and security software has a feature known as a start-up optimisation, which forces certain applications to stop opening on start-up, improving PC boot speeds and generally meaning that you can get your team into full productivity faster, with the minimum amount of application bloat.

If your PC is shuffling like a zombie from a George Romero movie, then you can view programs that automatically load on start-up in most Security software consoles, and can then tailor your start-up options and delay -or disable completely- the loading of any applications you don’t need on boot, enabling your PC to start up faster than an evolved and mutated Zombie intent on devouring some brains!

Payment Protection

Payment Protection features are a good idea if you use business finance services or even if you just buy thing online with the company credit card. Your payment details and online purchases are safe. Most payment protection features work by disabling any screen recording processes running at the time, and your payment data is heavily encrypted in transit (between you and the vendor). In short, the only way your details are getting stolen is if there’s a ghost peering over your shoulder (but they can’t make online purchases anyway, they’ve got no-body to buy for).

File Shredder

With the right knowledge and skills, it is all too easy to recover deleted data from a computer. What File Shredder features do, however, is allow you to securely dispose of, and permanently delete, your sensitive information, and banish it to the next world; a far realm of nothingness… NOTHINGNESS!

VPN – Virtual Private Network

Using a VPN masks your IP address from others while online, and there can be benefits to hiding your PC’s location. Hackers are a lot like vampires; allowing them access to your personal information is a lot like inviting them into your home, and once they’re in they can do untold damage. With a VPN it makes it extremely difficult for unwanted parties to get hold of your IP address, meaning they can’t access your personal data. Unfortunately, VPNs do not protect against actual vampire intrusions… for that you’ll need a Vampire Protection Network.

Password and Recommendation Features

Many suites now incorporate a feature that automatically makes recommendations when it ‘thinks’ a password you’ve selected is too weak. We’re not saying that your password needs to be made up of unpronounceable, ancient elder runes that’ll summon Cthulhu if read aloud, but let’s be honest, your birthday isn’t really secure. This feature will suggest you make changes to passwords that aren’t ‘strong’.

A good modern security suite should have its functionality password protected, which will stop any viruses that manage to break through your defences from disabling your antivirus software, which is one of the first things that they are programmed to do. It is like protecting the antidote to the zombie outbreak so that if one of the horde breaks into your bunker, it can’t reach and destroy it!

Automatic Updates

Security tends to fail when your operating system or your security software isn’t fully up to date. Setting time aside to ensure updates are installed properly is essential to keeping your system protected. Keeping an up to date operating system is like keeping your ‘Scooby Doo’ inspired traps fully operational, to capture those gruesome monsters. Most AV and security software now keeps itself fully up to date with very fast response to Zero Day threats, by checking into a central database for definitions, rule sets, and suspicious system behaviours as soon as the system comes online, to absolutely minimise your systems’ vulnerability window.

Not all websites with malware on look sketchy; many are designed to seem completely legitimate so that you let your guard down and start exploring. So, make sure your anti-malware software is up to date and fully operational. It’s like letting a new, lone apocalypse survivor into your base without checking them for zombie bites first!

So which software to choose?

We’ve worked with and supplied many security software solutions to our clients in the past, but at the moment, there’s a clear front runner in terms of having all of the above features and more, and that is currently Bitdefender.

Bitdefender has some of the most comprehensive anti-malware and anti-virus protections on the market, and what’s more, you can also get a free version if you only require basic protection! It’s perfect for business use, as there are many features geared toward rolling out updates, rules and profiles across whole organisations-worth of machines, and each installation can be managed from a central cloud portal, giving real time threat data and the ability to issue remote scans and updates.

If you’d like to discuss any of the features listed above, or you want a comprehensive system check carried out to ensure you are fully protected, then get in touch with Pearce IT today!

We’re off to have a lie down now, all this Halloween stuff seems to have gone to our heads.

Should I lease my IT equipment rather than purchase outright?

Investing and ongoing costs

No matter the size of a business; investing in the right IT equipment that will not only do the job it needs to do efficiently but will also provide the computing power your business needs for an acceptable length of time can become costly.

On average, IT equipment equates to around 20% of new businesses start-up costs, which is a hefty chunk of the budget needed to get a business off the ground.

Even after the initial investment in your IT infrastructure you may then need to make further investments, periodically, for upgrades to keep up with the rapid pace of IT development; replacements for failing or obsolete hardware, for the cost of servicing and repairing the equipment, your organisation may need a platform that your existing hardware does not support… the list goes on!

With computing being pretty much ubiquitous within modern business, it can be much more cost-effective to lease the equipment rather than purchasing outright. There are many advantages to doing this, and indeed, it’s not always best to own a thing; certainly not if it will be behind the curve or obsolete in a matter of years or even months.

So what’s the cost?

The initial investment required to lease IT equipment, such as laptops, PC’s, servers, printers and even keyboards and mice, can be minimal or even non-existent, with the cost being spread over the course of the contract.

Not only is the initial investment minimised but, more often than not, the cost to repair or replace broken, damaged or obsolete equipment as well as regular servicing of the equipment to ensure it is still performing optimally is absorbed within the monthly, quarterly or annual contract costs.

So, you have no added or unexpected charges relating to the maintenance of your servers or IT infrastructure and computers because they form part of the lease agreement between you and your IT leasing company.

And, once the lease agreement comes to an end you have the option to swap the existing equipment for newer, which most often means improved, equipment!

But how long should I lease for?

Hire or lease contracts can vary in length and, whatever your needs, you can likely find a lease agreement to suit.

You may have a short-term project coming up that requires the use of multiple high-powered desktop workstations, or laptops, but the cost to purchase them outright may not be justifiable for the short space of time they’ll be needed. In this scenario, it would be much more cost-effective to hire the extra required items on a short-term hire contract and merely return them once the project has completed, after erasing all the data on them first, of course! 

In other cases, as in the start-up of a new business, you may require a full hardware stack, Local Area Network cabling, Wireless Access Point’s, Routers, Firewalls, multiple desktop PC’s, monitors, keyboard and mouse set-ups, along with large standing office multifunction printer installations, which, to purchase outright, could cost tens of thousands of pounds, depending on the required number of units, size of the server or storage, specification of the hardware and the space in which the networking requires installation. That’s not even taking into account racking units for storage and safe operation of large equipment, for larger enterprises.

In this situation, it could be much more beneficial and cost-effective to obtain a long-term lease agreement for the equipment, that would include a service, and repair or replace package on an annual renewal basis.

This way, the cost of your IT infrastructure is spread out over a much longer period. A maintenance plan is taken care of, and you have that extra peace-of-mind knowing that, should anything go wrong, you won’t be caught out by a large repair bill or the cost of replacement for expensive equipment; the lease company will provide all of this as part of their agreement with you.

What’s more, if you like the equipment you’ve been leasing and want to add it to your company’s assets, most lease agreements offer end of rental/lease purchase options.

And, even better, you know what to pay and when, making it much easier to include and account for in your company budgets.

Working from home

Let’s get real for a minute.

In the current climate it makes much better business sense to enable your workers (those that can, at least) to work from home.

However, this can turn into an extremely costly exercise if you plan on purchasing the equipment they need.

You’ll need to raise the funds to purchase laptop computers, keyboards, mice, any ergonomic arrangements they require as part of their workplace rights, access to the company network via a VPN, possibly phone lines linked to their IT equipment along with the possibility of having to provide them with desks or sit-stand units, the list goes on!

And, in these uncertain times, who knows how long this arrangement may be required to continue?

Would it not make more sense to lease the equipment required by your staff to enable them to work from home as effectively as if they were in the office?

Especially if the hope is to get everyone back into the office when the argument for this becomes much more tenable?

Why spend thousands in one hit to get everyone set-up remotely and then worry about added costs if someone spills tea on their laptop at home, when you can pay a set monthly fee for the duration of working from home, and then return the equipment at the end of this period?

Additionally, many leasing companies will set up all of your equipment to the specification and software requirements needed to enable your staff to carry out their work, so you don’t need to worry about that part of it too.

You could also opt for a rolling contract, if applicable, meaning that once we are all out the other side of the current climate on back on safe, level ground again, you can give notice to terminate your lease agreement to cut your ongoing IT costs.

Peace of mind

Not only does leasing your IT equipment mean less of an initial outlay for your business but it can also offer you and your stakeholders much needed peace-of-mind in this climate, with the knowledge that remote working, equipment maintenance, repair and replacement, and set-up and installation can all be taken care of for you under one, affordable contract cost that you can plan and budget for accordingly.

Sounds like good business advice, right?

Obviously, making this kind of decision is solely dependent on your business and your unique requirements.

If you’re unsure of whether you would benefit from leasing your IT equipment or if purchasing it would be the best route to take, don’t worry.

Get in touch with PearceIT and we can talk you through your requirements, the benefits to each avenue along with the costs and work out which route would be best for you and your business.

When did you last review your business IT?

When did you last review your business IT? 

The continuing events surrounding COVID-19 and the responses worldwide have been numerous and varied, but one thing has been evident everywhere; there was a large scale lack of preparation for this situation, and much of it was in the realm of business IT. 

Many businesses simply shut down overnight, as there was no way for people to do their jobs from home. Many workers simply had no equipment, or (even worse in the eyes of many IT professionals) used personal equipment, to perform vital work tasks. This left a great many businesses non-compliant on GDPR regulations, as well as facing operational and financial difficulties. Some could not deliver their services to customers until they had delivered a physical fleet of machines or set up methods to bring their internal systems to the cloud, or allow them to be shared remotely. 

But it’s all sorted now, right? 

 There are a great many businesses across the UK, and the world, that have been playing catch-up since the outbreak of COVID-19, and many are still struggling. This rather poignantly demonstrates just how important it is to regularly review your IT strategy, and ask whether it continues to accurately reflect the strategy of your business. Recent legislation and guidelines around device sharing and hot-desking in light of the UK response to coronavirus has meant that many businesses have had to radically change the way they distribute hardware and working areas to their staff, with entire offices simply out of action if they are unable to meet new health and safety guidelines brought in after the pandemic. 

Currently it’s vital to make sure that if there is any way you can keep employees distanced, then you should. Ideally, if they can undertake all their work from home, then this is the best action to take. If your staff members access shared resources on a server that is ‘On-Premises’ then access to these files and resources can be pushed over the internet. If you’re closing offices or no longer sharing a central workspace, then you can also migrate a server from a physical machine to a ‘VM’ or Virtual Machine in the Microsoft Azure platform, removing the need for a machine entirely.  

If your server runs your domain, and you use Microsoft Office 365, Windows 10 Pro and Office 365 can be configured to run your domain user accounts anywhere through Azure Active Directory, giving you an easy to administer, centralised control point for all of your machines and user accounts. Server files can be migrated to SharePoint, for ease of access and control, and anywhere-availability. 

What about supporting my workers?  

Azure Active Directory works with Office 365 to ensure that you just need a single sign-on for  your Office apps, as well as to log into your Windows 10 Pro machine, so a single password reset via your IT department or Managed Service Provider ensures you have access to everything, or that access to everything can be denied, at the click of a mouse. 

Microsoft Teams is another revolutionary part of Office 365, and can be used as a central hub not only for your chat and file-sharing functions, but also all your favourite project management and productivity apps. It can also integrate with certain VoIP services, meaning that you can have all of your chat, files, phone-calls and meetings in Teams, and you don’t need any hardware other than the machine that it’s installed on. No phones, no hot desks, no need for the office = no COVID risk. 

All this functionality is great, but it still needs to be secured, and if you still aren’t using a modern business antivirus suite like Bitdefender, then it really is time to get licenced and get everything protected to the same standard. That’s only the first stage of protecting yourself of course, there’s email filtering to keep the attachment-nasties at bay, and now you can even backup all of your Office 365 data to ensure that you have protection against ransomware, as well as have the ability to restore and fix potentially expensive mistakes, like losing files or deleting documents. 

Crikey. Is that all? 

This all sounds like a lot to take in, but in reality, these services represent the minimum investments for running a business that takes protecting its productivity seriously. If you aren’t looking into migrating to some or all of the types of service mentioned here, then you should be. Fortunately, many Managed Service Providers now have a very mature approach to migration and wholesale change of services, and can consult on building a better strategy to support workers remotely, and optimise your business to take advantage of the best parts of the ‘new normal’.  

If you need an experienced team to assess your IT strategy, or you’re looking for a service provider that is able to supply all the above services and more, then get in touch with Pearce IT today. 

Why you need extra protection on Office 365 emails.

Why you need extra protection on Office 365 emails.

Between 2016 and 2017 the number of emails sent globally containing ransomware increased by 6000%.

Think about that for a moment... not 100% or even 600%.

6000%.  

That’s a pandemic increase in email-based threats, and unfortunately, due to its practically ubiquitous nature in the world of business, Office 365 has become a profitable area for hackers to exploit. As more and more organisations onboard to Office 365, so the need to “hack-proof” the O365 environment becomes more essential. We’ve seen this manifest itself in the availability of cloud backup products, and our offering by way of example that now offer backups of entire Office 365 tenancies, with version control, redundancy, and granular restores to mitigate the damage caused by ransomware attacks.

Hang on, don’t I have a filter?

Office 365 has a built-in spam filter, and has kept many an inbox clear for a long time, but despite recent updates and dedicated efforts to improve its performance against malware and phishing, it can be a rather basic solution when ranged against the mind-boggling array of cyber-threats which now use email as a preferred attack vector. Right now, it’s more important than ever in business to ensure that your data is safe, not just to avoid embarrassing breaches or expensive thefts, but with a continuously growing focus on the security and the privacy of the individual online, anyone who

handles data and deals in certain geographies is bound by law to safeguard that data, or risk working outside of compliance, resulting in the possibility of big fines. Very big.

Office 365 offers two levels of security, Exchange Online Protection, or EOP, and Advanced Threat Protection, which uses some heuristics to look at email behaviour, can block filetypes and attachments and monitors mail accounts for SPAM-related markers. this level of protection is in the low-middle of the market. But new malware can often get through tried and tested email protection technologies. While Microsoft’s EOP can detect 100% of all known viruses, and updates every 15 minutes, it is not as effective at protecting against new or unknown malware threats, and of course, zero-day exploits.

Zero-day? Sounds scary…

A zero-day exploit is a type of cyber-attack that occurs on the same day that a weakness is discovered in a certain piece of software. At this point, the software weakness can be exploited before a fix or patch is made available from the software author. It is so called because zero days have passed since the weakness was discovered. If an email is infected with malware which then takes advantage of this newly discovered security hole, then obviously there will be no way of a spam or email filter that depends on a library of known threats to stop the attack.

So, what’s the answer?

The way to offset this is to anticipate the attacks by using email filtering systems with predictive techniques. Machine learning and advanced analytical tools such as Bayesian analysis (building an iterative approach to the probability of a threat as more information becomes apparent) and looking at the behaviour of an email; it’s content, links and attachments, addresses, SPF records and a whole list of other features.

Using these techniques, the software ‘learns’ to block new varieties of phishing, and zero-day attacks before they cause damage. There is no longer a requirement to have met the threat already.

Office 365s email security features don’t really measure up to these dedicated tools, as developing these software tools can be expensive and best left to niche security providers.

One such tool that we are using at Pearce IT to great effect, is SpamTitan.

What’s SpamTitan?

Spam titan, in addition to enhancing spam blocking, also adds an additional layer of data loss protection. It also includes powerful data-leak prevention rules to prevent data loss such as social security numbers, bank details, data containing tagged keywords and other pieces of Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

Advanced phishing protection includes whaling and spear phishing by performing real time inbound scanning on emails. Spam titan will search for key indicators in an email’s header, contents, or domain information, that suggests that it may be a phishing attempt. It can also perform reputation checks on links within the email.

When considering email safety and security it may seem counterintuitive to scan outgoing emails. SpamTitan provides outbound scanning, helping to prevent your organisations sender domain from being blacklisted due to circulating SPAM emails or emails containing malware. If your account or domain becomes blacklisted, it can be costly to reverse for your business.

Additionally, Office 365 does not come with full-tenancy protection and backup enabled as standard. Getting changes undone, or restoring data that has been lost to leaks, malware, malicious editors, or even total lockout due to ransomware, can be time-consuming, costly, and sometimes impossible to achieve. When you are thinking about putting locks on the doors, you should also make sure the house doesn’t flood, so fortunately we offer full-tenancy or individual user account Office 365 Cloud Backup solutions.

So, we’re safe?  

Well, it’s certainly advisable to use some sort of dedicated filter software if you’re in the business of staying in business. The more you can protect your data, and that of your customers, the better, and If there’s one thing we’ve learned recently, it’s the importance of not spreading viruses.

If you want to secure your email using the award winning SpamTitan email security, then get in touch with Pearce IT today.

MS Teams; What’s all the fuss about?

If you’ve never heard of Microsoft Teams, then you’re obviously from a galaxy far, far away, but Microsoft’s collaboration, communication and file-sharing app has been transforming workplaces all over the world.  At Pearce IT, we’re a big fan of Teams, and we’ve been helping our customers migrate their infrastructure to Teams, as well as provisioning Teams for organisations caught on-the-hop by the Coronavirus outbreak. 

Teams is now Microsoft’s fastest growing app ever, with over 500,000 companies using it globally at the time of writing. Microsoft estimates that 75 million people are using Teams daily, and its list of features just keeps growing. Whereas the number of Teams users assuredly got a boost due to the COVID 19 situation, the ‘stay-at-home revolution’ introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a great many organisations into operational territory they previously didn’t occupy, and weren’t really ready to. This being said, the number of organisations that have adopted and stayed with Teams is a testament to just how easy it can be to provision and implement, and how effective it can be when deployed in your organisation.  

Getting on the Team 

You can start using Teams with a free version from Microsoft, but full-fat Teams comes bundles with most of the Office 365 business licences, so if you have an Office 365 Business Premium, Standard, or Enterprise licence, then you probably have Teams bundles included with your licencing. If you need assistance with this, then we can help you get the right licencing to kick off your Teams journey. 

Teamwork and collaboration being the cornerstone of modern organisations, it’s natural that these are central tenets within Teams operation. If you have an existing Office 365 security group infrastructure then this will simply translate to Teams, as an individual user groups or ‘Team’ is constructed using the Office 365 security framework. You can add or remove members of a team at any time, transferring ownership or permissions within a team is equally simple. Microsoft have a very simple ‘how-to’ on how to set up Teams and channels for your organisation here. 

Collaboration and teamwork are the cornerstones of modern workflow, and since its launch, users have been finding new ways to use Teams daily. But if you’re not currently using Teams, here are some reasons why we think that you should get involved. 

More than just chat 

You can use the chat window in Teams to have quick conversations with your colleagues, but there’s so much more to it. If you need to share a file, then you can just drag and drop the file to the chat. If you need to discuss the file, then you can make a video or voice call straight from the chat window. Once you have finished discussing the file, you can schedule a review meeting without leaving the chat. Teams’ chat function integrates beautifully with other Microsoft products such as Office and OneNote meaning that switching between apps throughout your conversation is no longer an issue. 

Power up your meetings 

Meetings can be a challenging. Making sure everyone is in attendance, that they all have the agenda and access to any required files (or have had them delivered by email beforehand) can be difficult. If you have set up a meeting in Teams it’s very easy to check attendees, conference everyone via video or voice, share documents and screens and even chat via text with attendees whilst in the meeting. 

The recordings of the meeting are immediately available to you in the same tab, so if you missed the meeting, the recording is right there, plus any notes and documents. 

Reduce email, increase oversight 

One great thing about Teams is that it has replaced a great deal of correspondence sent via email in the workplace. If you have a chat conversation that is on a particular subject, you can search that chat using keywords, which will bring out any relevant chat entries related to your search term. Furthermore, everything you do in Teams is recorded by Microsoft if you specify this as a security preference; great for administrative oversight and Human Resources requirements, but also essential for backing-up and securing your data and workflow.  

Integration, integration, integration  

Teams has very tight integration with Office 365 (as well as a whole suite of 3rd party apps), so you can create Word, Excel or PowerPoint document in Teams, and share these for co-authoring without even leaving the chat. Add comments, discuss, and amend versioning in-app.  

File storage for Teams is created under a Teams folder in SharePoint, so users can also view these files using the SharePoint User Interface if they should wish to. Each team can be configured with its own file-sharing and storage allocation or can be built to share files and folders across the organisation; It’s up to you. 

Anywhere-connectivity 

With the Teams mobile app, you have access to your calls, meetings chat and documents on the move, or at home via a smartphone or tablet device. The Teams mobile app gives you the same functionality as the desktop client or the web app, so you can have the same experience regardless of where you are.  

The most exciting connectivity function in Teams is the ability to integrate VoIP packages, allowing the app to receive calls from and make calls to the Publicly Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Right now, we have the ability to roll out Teams with a dedicated VoIP package, meaning that you can make calls from the app to colleagues without Teams, and even include them in meetings with other users. Call-queuing and hunt-groups can also be implemented, and we have specialist handsets that use the Teams app user interface, making it uniform across your organisation.  

Of course, you don’t have to have ANY hardware to run VoIP using Teams, as the mobile, web or the desktop app will just use the integrated VoIP service over mobile data or fixed Ethernet to make calls to the PSTN, effectively meaning that all your workflow can be geographically fluid; you don’t need an office, and you don’t need specific hardware. A user with a mobile phone and a laptop can answer mail, share files, chat, review documents, make calls, take calls, schedule meetings and tasks, all just as they would if they were sitting in the office. 

If you’re looking to harness the power of Teams and you need some advice, or you want to power up your existing Teams infrastructure with VoIP, get in touch.