Horne & Benik Networks Blog

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.

Some of the most versatile and useful technology out there might already be installed on your infrastructure. One such tool is Microsoft Excel, Microsoft 365’s spreadsheet building platform. You might be surprised to find out that Excel can be used in some interesting ways—including these three uses.

Diagnosing issues with your PC can be challenging, and that’s because an operating system is inherently a complicated piece of technology. If you’re looking for a way to isolate the problem and diagnose it, we typically recommend you work with a managed service provider (like us) to make it happen. If you’d like to try things out for yourself, however, you can use Safe Mode to examine your PC in its base form to see if you can find the root cause of the issue.

There is a seemingly infinite number of cybersecurity threats out there, but there are few threats more dangerous than ransomware. If a business hasn’t taken precautions against it, ransomware can (and will) find ways to extort money, hold data hostage, and threaten that organization’s continuity. Today, we want to cover what ransomware does, what you need to do to prevent it, and what to do if you’re attacked.

Are you tired of that afternoon slump, the achy back, or just feeling generally sluggish after hours of sitting? Well, what if I told you there's a simple change you can make that could improve your workday and boost your well-being? We're talking about the mighty standing desk.

We're all looking for ways to feel better and be more productive, and standing desks are quickly becoming a must-have for good reason. Let's walk around some of the awesome benefits they bring to the table.

Every business owner has heard the mantra: Data is the new oil. 

It sounds great, but for most, the reality is far from it. Your data is probably unrefined, messy, and sitting in a digital graveyard. You're paying to store it, worrying about a potential security breach, but you can’t point to a single decision it helped you make. It's an asset that performs like a debt.

How much does your business value communication and data security? The answer to that should be “A lot.” Microsoft SharePoint, a web-based platform for storing, organizing, sharing, and accessing information, can help businesses that use Microsoft 365 work more effectively. Today, we’ll cover three of its best features and what your business can accomplish with them.

I have two questions for you.

First: how many subscriptions do you pay for that pertain to your business and its software? Second, how many of those subscriptions are actively used in your business’ processes?

This kind of sprawl is too easy to fall into if you aren’t carefully paying attention to these agreements… but you must. Let’s explore why.

The more IT you use, the more conscientious you have to be to ensure that an action you—or your staff—takes doesn’t unwittingly put your business at risk. Today, we’ll go through some ways for you to do your best to stay secure. Let’s get started.

While many people have heard the saying work smarter, not harder, this approach only works if employees are engaged with the tools you’ve chosen to outfit your business with. Even though new gadgets and software are exciting for most workers, the true benefits come when these investments directly boost productivity, helping businesses succeed.