With the start of a new year always comes new goals, habits, and ambitions for people. Whether you want to diet and excise more, get a raise at work, or buy a new car — everyone has something they want to accomplish in the New Year. What shouldn’t be overlooked though (especially if you own your own business), is upgrading your technology you have in place at the office. This can be something as simple as changing your email to a hosted exchange, or something as complicated as taking the entire office remote, and setting up a whole new server. Whatever your ideas for upgrading may be, here are five ways I think everyone could upgrade their office this year.

1. Security

There is a security option for everyone in this day and age. It does not matter if you are one employee or if you have 500 employees. Everyone needs cybersecurity. Hackers are only getting smarter, and data is only becoming more and more valuable. Something to consider could be setting up a firewall, or installing managed antivirus on all your computers.

2. Cloud Migration

Today, more and more applications and software are going cloud based. What this means is that you no longer need to install hefty software onto your systems and run it locally. Now you can simply opt for cloud versions of these programs that are accessible via the internet. You should check to see what programs and software you are using and if they are available in the cloud. You’ll be surprised just how much money you could save!

3. Hosted Email

Traditionally, email has often going through desktop programs that you install on your computer. These programs save all your emails to your hard drive, which, given enough time can start to take up a lot of space. Hosted email is similar to a program that is in the cloud, except that now it is your email! You may already use some sort of hosted email whether it is through an exchange server or through the Google G-suite. Free yourself from the burden of email program updates and storage by going hosted!

4. Automate

This one is a lot easier than it seems. A lot of people already have antivirus, updates, or patches installed on their computer… but when was the last time you checked how old they were? You can automate all of your computer updates to happen overnight (once a week/month/ etc.), and then you will never have to worry about keeping things updated again!

5. Speak To a Managed Service Provider

MicroAge, as you know, is a Managed Service Provider (MSP), this means that we can take all of these tasks, and more, and manage them all for you so that you no longer need to worry about a thing! Whether you’re unsure about the status of your hardware, software or your entire IT system, we can help!

As a business owner, keeping your technology up-to-date should be a major concern for you. Now that it is the beginning of the year, it is the perfect time to consider a tech reboot. If you have any questions about what you should be doing, or how you should do it, feel free to send me a message! We are always here to help!