5 Smart Ways to Invest Your IT Budget

1.) Upgrade Your Phone System (and Save Money)

With Allworx, you no longer need to be a slave to your phone company. Allworx features affordable, flexible, feature rich, reliable phone service. What’s great about VoIP versus traditional analog systems is that your monthly rate stays the same regardless of the number of calls or long distance calls you make.

Getting started is easy – no large investment in hardware is required. You could potentially save 20-50% off your monthly phone bill, depending on the number of local and long distance calls your company makes.

2.) Update and Test Your Data Backup

Investing resources in data backup is always a wise decision. When you consider the risk of losing your valuable data or experiencing days of downtime and hours of lost productivity, at minimum, perform a test to confirm your data backup method actually works.

We’ve covered data backup extensively in the past – because it’s that important! From data recovery solutions, to calculating the true cost of downtime for your business, contact Ontech Systems by phone at (262) 522-8560 or by email to discuss the best backup solution for your organization.

3.) Explore Microsoft Azure Cloud Solutions

If you’re new to Microsoft Azure, it’s definitely one area to consider when evaluating the best use of your IT budget. In fact, if you’re an existing Office 365 user, you’re already running on Azure.

Azure can help small to mid-sized businesses maintain compliance standards and put enterprise level technology within reach of those organizations who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

From analytics, to mobile networking and data storage, Microsoft Azure makes it possible for your business to adapt and scale your resources as needed.

4.) Migrate to Office 365

If your organization hasn’t jumped on the Office 365 bandwagon just yet, take a moment to consider this powerful suite of tools before the year is over.

Office 365 is a powerful suite of cloud-based productivity tools. If even a portion of your workforce is mobile based, the file sharing and collaboration tools within Office 365 can help you enhance employee collaboration and efficiency.

Did you know Office 365 can help you trim down your IT budget? In a recent study, 57% of businesses stated the greatest benefit of Office 365 was reduced IT support costs due to elimination of hardware or software.

If employees within your organization use multiple devices throughout their workday, they’ll love Office 365’s mobility-based email capabilities. For example, through Office 365, you could start typing an email on your desktop, head out to a meeting and pick up where you left off on the same email through your mobile device – no more lost emails or redundant email administration tasks!

Since Office 365 email is cloud based, you don’t have to worry about transferring a bloated PST data file from one PC to the next. If security is a concern, you can rest easy knowing this powerful software was designed from the group up with security in mind. Office 365 is reliable, secure and Microsoft guarantees 99.9% uptime.

5.) Infrastructure Refresh

Finally, the end of the year is a great time to assess your existing network equipment and replace outdated, aging equipment that has reached its end-of-life and become a security risk to your business.

If your network is running slow, consider an infrastructure refresh. Many organizations are taking full advantage of the cloud, and replacing outdated equipment with the modern convenience of the cloud.

Bulky servers, slow routers, and redundant switches can serve as a source of frustration. After all, your network is your workhorse – it’s the central foundation that helps your business seamlessly run from day to day.

If your network equipment is no longer performing as it should, request a free network discovery and one of our techs will come out to your organization and perform an audit of your current network, infrastructure, server(s), PC’s, backup, security performance, and reliability.

This 100% complementary network audit is followed up by a Q&A Session with our network consultant so you’ll be sure to get all your questions answered.