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Insider 94 Navigator 2023
Resources & Advisors for Buying & Selling a Business
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Case Study – Healthcare – Skyway Behavioral Health
Start Up Requiring Robust Infrastructure – From Planning to Implementation
The 7 Irresistible Qualities of Cloud ERP
Learn why ERP tools are an critical component for many businesses.
Why a Business Continuity Plan is Essential
Learn why your company needs a business continuity plan.
Ransomware 101
If you’re looking for ways to stop ransomware dead in its tracks, the experts at CCS Technology are here to help.
How managed services make the difference
Learn more about the benefits of partnering with a managed services provider.
Cloud Services and the SMB Revolution
Learn more about how Cloud Services from CCS make your life easier.
Office 365 Migration Made Easy
Migrating over to Office 365 has never been easier with CCS Technology.
The Advantages of Working with I.T. Pros
Learn how working with a seasoned technology pro makes your work easier.
Closing Common Cybersecurity Holes
Learn several critical cybersecurity tips and tricks any SMB can use.
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CCS Technologies company brochure
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Our Services
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Five Tips for Working in the In-Between
/in Blog, Work From Home /by Chris HigginsWe’ve reached an in-between status of this quarantine. Businesses are starting to open back up (with restrictions), but a lot of employees are finding themselves in an awkward spot between working in the office and remaining at home. Doctors are utilizing video and tele-conference appointments but are holding office hours to see patients and perform “elective” surgeries. Companies are requesting that their employees work from home, if possible, but they’re relaxing requirements for coming back into the office. Other organizations are welcoming people back from tele-worker status to full in-office expectations.
With “in-between” operations, we’ve helped our clients through a few technology hiccups and wanted to help you avoid them too. Here are the top five things you need to know when working from wherever you’re expected to be.
1. The Power of the Web App
The majority of business applications have some type of web version. You don’t have to have the software installed on your system to be effective. While you may not be able to use every aspect of the software (higher processing functions may be limited to the desktop version), test out online versions. This is particularly effective if you’re trying to use a laptop or device with a much smaller hard drive in a remote working environment. For example, you can get to your current emails without storing your past five years of email history on your system’s limited disc space. When using a web app, install two-factor authentication wherever possible to maximize security.
2. A Note on External Hard Drives
First came the punch card, then tape and the floppy disc; now if you want portable physical data storage, it’s all about external hard drives (USB). They are a fantastic way to easily transport data from one place to another, but there are two precautions:
3. Maximize the Cloud
We firmly believe in the cloud for document storage, backup purposes, and accessing line of business applications. When it comes to document storage specifically:
Learn more in Why SMBs Should Upgrade to the Cloud.
4. Security
Your safety is our biggest concern whether you’re working in the office, at home or a mixture. In order to remain secure, invest in:
Learn more in Closing Common Cybersecurity Holes.
5. Backup, Backup, and More Backup
We have seen a surge in interrupted power and Internet connections, particularly with people working from home. Nothing is more frustrating than losing all of your work right in the middle of a project.
Deploy an effective network-wide backup solution so that you can restore data whether you lose a single file due to an employee mistake or lose a significant amount of data in the case of a disaster or breach.
Learn more about our disaster recovery services.
Additional Work From Home Resources
8 Practices for Safe Computing When Employees Work at Home
5 Tips for Successfully Working from Home
7 Necessities Before Sending Your Workforce Remote
How Do We Make This Work? 5 Ways to Adapt in this New Work World
/in Blog, Work From Home /by Chris HigginsYou’ve probably grown tired of hearing the words “adjusting to the new normal.” Unfortunately, though, there’s really no other way to say it. This pandemic has permanently changed our work environment, whether you’re already back in the office or remain in quarantine for several more weeks. We must create a new normal for how we work, manage network security, and maintain productivity across a more widespread team.
For example, a client earlier this week asked with their employees working from home, how are they supposed to ensure HIPAA compliance? What if someone innocently leaves the computer screen open, or takes a note with a patient’s name and walks away from the notebook? Here’s how we recommend redefining work parameters to create the greatest opportunity for compliance and security in all work situations.
1. No personal systems
If you allow your staff to utilize their personal systems to work, store company data, and interact with customers, you’re just asking for a data breach. First, you have no control over that system. You can’t log in to perform updates, ensure it has the latest virus definitions, or wipe it if they left the company or were terminated. Second, they are probably not running the strongest virus protection, intrusion prevention, and monitoring. Supply systems that meet minimum standards. Some companies have sent employees home with their work equipment. As long as it’s properly documented, this is a safer bet than letting someone go rogue (intentionally or unintentionally) on an un-managed personal machine.
2. Clear Expectations
There is a difference between working from home and lounging on the couch in your pajamas getting work done. If you’re expecting people to be effective remote workers, set clear expectations for their work setup and communicate clearly. For example:
3. Signed Employee Agreement
Whether you expect remote work to be a temporary situation or believe it’s a permanent shift, put in place a clear remote worker agreement. It should lay out all of the expectations that we listed above. If you’re expecting employees back in the office, reiterate the temporary nature of the arrangement. If it’s a trial, state that. Working from home is one of those things that seems really appealing at the beginning, but depending on the worker, it may or may not be effective. As the employer, you want to maintain the option to bring them back into the office, if necessary.
4. Regular Communication
We recommend touching base via video at least once a day and having one other scheduled touchpoint – video, phone, email recap, something that is scheduled and required for each and every employee, whether they’re on-site or remote. You cannot underestimate the power of water cooler conversation throughout the day, so you need to find some way to replace that in order to keep your employees engaged and effective.
One of the ways we do this is by opening each meeting with a “good thing.” Every team member shares something good (personal/professional) happening in their lives. When you’re in the thick of it, sometimes it’s hard to come up with something good; but it sets a positive tone for the meeting and allows you to get to know a little bit more about your staff. We also encourage shenanigans more than usual. Perhaps set up a chat feed for funny memes, allow people to use filters on their video calls, just something that brings a little levity and lets people connect outside of their daily tasks.
One of our favorite collaboration tools is Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams is cloud-based team collaboration software that is part of the Office 365 suite. It brings everything together in a shared workspace where you can chat, video/audio conference, share files, and work with business applications.
5. Effective Administration
Ultimately, adapting to this new normal is all about effective administration. Have the right policies in place, communicate the standards and expectations, follow-up with your employees, partner with an MSP that specializes in creating secure, remote workspaces.
Together, we’ll continue creating this new normal. That’s where we come in. Whatever your IT challenges, we bring 280+ years of experience and expertise. Contact us to learn more.
Additional Work From Home Resources
8 Practices for Safe Computing When Employees Work at Home
5 Tips for Successfully Working from Home
7 Necessities Before Sending Your Workforce Remote
Freedom to Grow: How True Cloud Scalability Empowers Distributors
/in Blog, Distribution Industry, ERP Software /by Chris HigginsIt’s hard to remain competitive in the distribution space. Whether you’re working to fend off the rise of Amazon’s recent B2B initiative or stand up to traditional competitors, your customers expect you to work faster, more accurately, and more effectively than ever to deliver their needs.
From Survivability to “Thriveability”
For many businesses, Spring 2020 was a nightmare, but as things slowly get back to normal, you’re coming close to a pivot—moving from survivability and stop loss to ‘thriveability’ and growth. Understandably, you’re not out of the woods—the lockdowns have changed customer expectations, reinforced Amazon’s brand, and likely resulted in shorter fuses for your customers.
That said, you might have big pants to fill, and meeting your customers’ needs may require you to grow into them. In the coming months and years, your ability to adapt to customer needs will likely require you to embrace a smarter system of growth.
Maybe you see an opportunity to acquire a competitor or distributor in a different market who was hit particularly hard in the last few months. Maybe you need to add a few new SKUs to meet the expectations of your customer base. Maybe you could buy up an empty facility to get closer to your customer base.
Learn more: How True Cloud Technologies Help Distributors Stay Future-Proof
Growing Needs for Growing Distributors
If you’ve been solvent over the past few months, you may have an opportunity to embrace cheap growth. But before you do, you need to ask yourself whether your people, processes, and systems are ready to handle this.
Not only will this require you to bring on the people to do the job, you will also need to expand the processing power required to manage the data generated from this expansion. What will that take?
Technology Needs to Scale with You
Unfortunately, for those companies who do have the money and motive to pivot, they may end up running into problems in other areas, namely technology. For example, if you’ve been using a legacy system for a while, are you ready to buy ‘perpetual’ licenses and physical servers, train new employees on the limitations and nuances of the software, and run inventory for the additional warehouses or SKUs?
Too often, those with legacy software have more trouble getting their software up at a new location than they do securing property and setting up the warehouse space. If you’re outgrowing your distribution product, you may look to the cloud. Why? For one reason, scalability.
Scalability refers to a solution’s ability to handle tomorrow’s needs—when you need them. Unlike legacy (or fake cloud) products, true cloud scalability doesn’t require you to anticipate your needs, it simply ‘grows with you’, adding or removing capacity as needed.
Acumatica: The True Cloud Product for Tomorrow’s Distributor
From new locations to SKUs, you can’t let outdated technology stand in your way. Luckily, Cloud ERP delivers. Acumatica is a true cloud solution, ready to grow with you, deliver the insights you need, and evolve when you need it to.
Not only does it grow with you, it doesn’t rely on growth-crippling per-user pricing either. Acumatica bills strictly on resources used, allowing you to add new users, suppliers, or customers without hassle. Not only this, but its true cloud architecture helps you do so much more. “Like what?,” you may ask.
If you’re looking to know this, we invite you to download the free whitepaper titled True Cloud vs. Fake Cloud: How Companies Can Tell the Difference in Distribution right now. It’s an invaluable resource for comparing your distribution management software options, including Acumatica Distribution Edition.
Acumatica and CCS: True Cloud Partners for Distribution Firms
If you’re looking for a flexible and powerful solution that doesn’t hinder your initiatives, it’s time to get rolling with Acumatica. Built in the cloud to deliver the adaptable, feature rich, and integrated enterprise resource planning software that streamlines your processes and facilitates your decisions, this solution is ready for the needs of distribution firms.
Get to know more about how this product has helped distributors like you by reading these case studies, reading 7 irresistible qualities of cloud ERP, and contacting leading Acumatica Partner CCS Technology for a consultation.
Additional Distribution Resources
4 Strategies for Smarter Inventory Control
Top Reasons for Installing a Warehouse Management System (WMS)
Recommendations for Selecting a Distribution ERP Solution