Horne & Benik Networks Blog

When the time comes that you have to make a big decision—one that could have some significant impact on your business, for instance—what does your thought process look like? Do you rely on data, or do you rely on what your gut tells you?

If it’s the latter, you’re literally relying on your least accurate information and hoping that you get the most beneficial outcome. Instead, why not rely on the other, quantitative and confirmed data your business has collected over the years and pair it with the analytical prowess of AI tools?

It’s official; Windows 10 is no longer supported by Microsoft. It was an incredibly popular operating system, which might give you a certain level of hesitation to move on and upgrade to Windows 11, but we want to urge you to do so now rather than later. Let’s take a look at your options and which one is best for your business.

We’ve all been given an impression of what artificial intelligence is or will ultimately become through pop culture. HAL 9000, Skynet, Ultron, and M3GAN each show their own form of calculated malice. 

However, in reality, the true potential of AI is more in line with the likes of Rosie the Robot, JARVIS, R2-D2, or Data, helpful companions who assist their cohort in generating ideas or completing tasks, often leaning on the soft skills that have been so valued in human relationships, things like curiosity, empathy, and resilience. Let’s consider how we can embrace these soft skills and better utilize the tool at hand.

Your IT project manager is the centerpiece at the proverbial table of project implementation. Without one, your project will be much more likely to fail, or at least more likely to get done incorrectly or inefficiently. Today, we want to break down some of the qualities that make for a great project manager and how you can find the right one for your business.

Let’s say, for a moment, that somewhere out there is a diligent employee—John—who works for a small business. While John means well, he has the unfortunate habit of using the same password for everything… including the marketing tool his employer has him sign up to use.

A year or two goes by. The company hasn’t touched that marketing tool in months. John has completely forgotten he has an account with it. Meanwhile, that tool experiences a significant data breach, and suddenly, the credentials to almost everything John has ever accessed are now available on the dark web.

Sometimes the best technology solutions will fly under your radar, and depending on your company’s preferred productivity suite, you might already have tools that are being underutilized. One such tool is Google Forms. Today, we’ve got a step-by-step guide that shows you how to create a Google Form for a variety of purposes.

How much would you be willing to pay to keep all of your business’ records from being locked away, or to keep them off the dark web? Hundreds? Thousands? More?

This is precisely what cybercriminals rely on when they infect businesses just like yours with ransomware. Let’s talk about ransomware a bit: what it is, why it’s so effective, and (most importantly) how to keep it from dragging your business down.

How much data do you think your business stores? How much of that data does your business need to operate? Regardless of your answers to these questions, one thing is for certain: you need to take action to ensure your business’ data is never put in harm’s way needlessly. It should be able to survive in the face of great adversity, whether it’s from a fire, weather incident, cyberattack, or simple user error.

You want your company’s technology to aid your employees in getting their work done, not hinder their ability to be productive. This might seem like a logical statement, but you’d be surprised by how many businesses struggle with implementing the right technology for the right job. If you want to increase employee morale, build a better company culture, and boost productivity, your company should consider the following technologies for the employee experience.

There are countless moving parts for any business, and if you don’t keep your operations organized, you could quickly find yourself losing grasp of your business in the worst ways. SMBs might use instant messaging, shared drives, and endless email chains to communicate internally, but there’s a better, less clunky solution. We’re looking into the intranet, a digital hub for your business that offers several benefits.

Here’s a fun thought experiment; can your team identify phishing scams and respond to them appropriately? It’s a skill that must be learned if you want your organization to be successful and safe. Today, we’re taking a look at the three big signs you’re looking at a phishing scam (and what to do about it).

Operational efficiency is pretty important for businesses. Wasting time, money, and resources can stifle growth and put you at a competitive disadvantage. Fortunately, technology offers powerful solutions used to eliminate common inefficiencies. Today, we want to go through five ways you can use technology to drive real results.

Data storage is an evergreen issue for businesses, and the best solution seems to change with every new innovation. That said, the principles behind effective data storage seem to be fairly cut and dry. Today, we want to share some data storage best practices that transcend time.

Learning a new piece of software can be challenging, even for the techiest employees out there. If you don’t provide enough support during this period, it could lead to frustration, wasted time, and a general resistance to change. Thankfully, you can address these issues by examining the psychological, organizational, and training-related factors at play when learning new software.

I have a question to ask you that is incredibly important that you can answer, despite its relation to a particularly sensitive business topic: how prepared and able are you to fire your vendors, especially the one currently handling your IT?

There are situations where you could find yourself having to make this call, but can’t without severely impacting your business’ operations. Let’s talk a little bit about these situations, and why it’s crucial to have an IT provider whom you know you could fire if necessary.

Ransomware seems to be everywhere. One can hardly turn on the news without hearing about a new ransomware attack—and that’s just the ones that hit the news cycle, not to mention the smaller ones that are either hidden by the companies or not considered newsworthy. Meanwhile, businesses are urged to invest in more security tools and IT-themed acronyms than ever. Is all this investment actually worth it? Is ransomware actually as significant a threat as it is made out to be?

The truth is, it isn’t. If anything, it’s even worse.

The more money you throw at something, the more you hope that it will eventually deliver on the investment… but if you’re not getting the results you hoped for, you might be falling into the sunk cost fallacy. You might find yourself making illogical decisions based on the investments you’ve already made, and that doesn’t help anyone—in life or in business. Today, we want to discuss how you can free yourself from the sunk cost fallacy to make better decisions for your business’ IT solutions.

A solid Wi-Fi connection is a necessity, not a luxury. To provide your team with the best possible wireless connection, you need to choose the right router and place it correctly. It's best for a business to buy its own modem and router, rather than renting a combined device from an internet provider. This gives you full control over your network and allows you to select hardware that fits your specific needs.

Depending on the sector your business falls into, you’ll want to implement technology solutions designed to help you be successful in the context of that sector. Part of that means investing in new solutions that can yield a satisfactory return on investment, or ROI. But how do you know if a solution can yield a good ROI, and most important of all, what kind of math goes into ensuring you’re not overspending on IT that doesn’t produce results?

AI is a game-changer, there's no doubt about it. From the value your business gets from streamlining operations to its powerful information retrieval, it’s changed, in a very short amount of time, how knowledge-based businesses operate. If you're thinking of handing over your entire customer support operation to an AI, however, you need to pump the brakes a bit. While AI offers incredible efficiencies, completely removing the human element could be a problem for your business.