IC Data Communications LLC Blog

One way businesses attempt to save money is through automating certain processes and tasks that have traditionally been time-consuming or monotonous for their workforce. When implemented appropriately, automation can cut costs, streamline operations, and improve quality of life for workers. However, just because a task can be automated doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be automated. Let’s look at the arguments for and against automation in these contexts.

With cloud storage so affordable and accessible, you have to ask yourself if it’s worth investing in it compared to larger-capacity hard disk drives. Which one is more ideal for your company’s needs? You have options, after all, and it’s important to consider them all before committing to a solution. Let’s examine the pros and cons of each, specifically focusing on the business model for both.

Nowadays, you can’t afford not to have some portion of your business’ budget set aside for cybersecurity. The question is, how much do you need, and what should you be spending it on first? Let’s take a few moments to dig a little deeper into this question and examine a few cybersecurity protections you should establish as your business’ baseline defenses.

It isn’t unusual for modern businesses to turn more and more often to “green” technologies, partially due to the reduced environmental impacts that come with their use, and partially due to the operational advantages that many of these technologies also bring. Let’s discuss some of the options that even smaller businesses can embrace that bring these kinds of mutual benefits.

Productivity is always a primary focus for a business today, which makes any effort to improve it a welcome one. We wanted to take a moment and introduce you to a simple concept to make it easier to develop productive habits: something called habit stacking.

A digital transformation can revolutionize the way a business operates. One of the technologies that make up for an across-the-board transformation is the use of digital storage in lieu of physical paper-based storage of data. Let’s go through a couple of considerations that go into going paperless, and how it can be a benefit for your organization. 

There’s no denying that running a successful business comes with its fair share of costs, and many would argue that some of these costs are anything but fair. As such, it makes sense to try and minimize your operating expenses by any sustainable means. Let’s go over one such cost-saving measure you can implement—Bring Your Own Device policies—and address how to do so without shortchanging your business’ security in the process.

Your business has to promote security whenever it can. In terms of keeping your wireless connections secure, the thought behind it is that if unauthorized people and machines can access your network without protections, they can do what they please with the data on the network. This is a big problem. Let’s go through a few things you need to consider to keep your wireless network secure. 

Microsoft Excel is an extremely capable spreadsheet creation and management tool, made all the more powerful through the inclusion of many handy shortcuts and features. We wanted to share one for a common enough function that you are effectively sure to find a use for it: quickly adding up the values in a single column.

As the boss, you’re in a position to offload many of your business’ responsibilities to your employees. That’s more or less why you have employees in the first place. However, there’s more than one way that you can delegate tasks, depending on your personal style of management and the work style of each of your employees.

We talk a lot about phishing. What it is, what it does, and perhaps most critically, what it looks like. However, have you ever expected a phishing email to look like… nothing? As in, a completely blank message?

If you answered, “no,” that’s exactly what today’s cybercriminals are counting on.

Businesses use all types of sayings to try to draw in customers. One of the core selling points of managed IT services is that “it pays for itself”. This is more than just marketing. The multiple services that make up managed IT services all help a business save time and money, but when added together, it can really help the bottom line of a business more than most services they can use. In this week’s blog we thought we would go through the core elements of a managed IT services agreement to show how it really does pay for itself. 

There are many ways that Google can be a hugely valuable resource for a business of any size. One way that you may not have thought of before: an automated insights collector.

Let’s talk about how you could be using Google Alerts to keep yourself up to speed on basically whatever you want.

There is a lot of misinformation and misperceptions out there related to network security, especially where small businesses are concerned. In particular, browser security is one aspect where many individuals’ knowledge simply falls flat, and they buy into myths that put their data at risk. Let’s clear up some of these misconceptions so you can go about your day in a more secure way.

Since the Windows 95 operating system, Microsoft has been separately publishing 15 free utilities to add significant capabilities intended to help a user make some small tweaks and adjustments in a relatively safe way, as compared to what would otherwise be necessary to make these changes. Microsoft PowerToys are still available today, so let’s discuss what some of them can do…and how you should go about getting these tools, if so you choose.

Television has come a long way since its inception, and entertainment is more accessible today than it has ever been before. Technology has played a large part in the dissemination of this entertainment, so we thought we’d take a look at how the cloud has contributed to making television the cornerstone of leisure that it is today.

If you are like many businesses, you use a lot of services from other companies to try and get all the business computing you need, without having to buy new servers and pay company IT administrators to look after them. This process is understandable, but are you really saving money by doing it? This month we will take a look at the myriad of services that businesses use and if it is, as advertised, saving them money.

We spend a lot of time working with the technology that businesses rely on, including the laptop workstations used by just about everyone in many organizations today. As such, we wanted to share some of our insights so that you know what qualities you should look for when you’re ready to acquire some additional devices for your business.

Doing more with less is one of the major benefits of using technology for business and there are plenty of different parts of a business that it can help address. This month, we thought we would discuss some ways the SMB can advance their business with the use of technology. 

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been picking apart procrastination as a concept and how it tends to manifest. To wrap up our discussion, we wanted to share a few ways that you might be able to greatly reduce your and your team’s tendencies to procrastinate so that more can be accomplished.