Tips for Choosing the Right Technology

Many businesses already accept technology in the work place.  Business owners use technology to get a competitive edge  but it is still a hard decision when researching the perfect technology for a company.  But how do you know when its the right technology? After all, the wrong decision can cost your company thousands. TVG Consulting, a computer support company in Los Angeles, gives five guidelines any businesses should follow when sourcing out for new technology in their new blog:

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/a-computer-support-team-gives-5-tips-for-choosing-the-right-technology-solutions-for-your-business/

2014 Trends in Business Technology

At the beginning of every year, business owners should check new trends that can help grow their business. An excellent example is technology trends.  Business owners can look at indicators like economic growth, key personnel movement and innovations.  2013 was a year of changes with business intelligence, and we are expecting that 2014 won't be much different.  Check TVG Consulting, an IT consulting firm in Los Angeles's, blog post to read predictions of the 2014 business technology trends:

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/an-it-consulting-company-reveals-2014-business-technology-trends/

The Problem That a Computer Support Company Will Fix

Ever think about the saying that is anything can go wrong, it will. Well this is very much true for computer systems. Many business owners don't realize how important it is to have a good IT company at their side, to service and fix any malfunctions that could go wrong. It is ideal to minimize the chances of anything malfunctioning, and TVG consulting can help do that.

 http://www.tvgconsulting.com/what-types-of-problems-can-a-computer-support-company-fix/

Fixed Fees Verses Hourly Rates

When your business is looking to hire and IT support Company, you should consider whether you are looking to pay a fixed fee or an hourly rate along with doing online research for companies in your area. This is important in order to hire the best candidate to assist your business with information technology. There is a big difference between paying an hourly rate and paying a fixed fee.  Learn the difference while reading this blog. 

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/why-is-a-fixed-fee-better-than-an-hourly-fee-for-it-services-in-los-angeles/

Improving Employee Productivity With IT Consulting

Are you contemplating hiring a information technology consulting company for your business operating in Los Angeles, CA?  You are not alone.  There are many companies offering this type of support in Los Angeles.  There are various benefits to hiring an IT company, like TVG Consulting.  The most noticeable benefit is reducing human resources and accounting costs, but did you know that you can also improve employee productivity? 

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/how-can-a-computer-support-company-improve-my-employee-productivity/

Reducing Your IT Capital Expenses

Among business organizations there is a concern about how they will run their business at low IT capital expenses. During tough economic times, the cost of running a business increases and leaves the business owner thinking about how they can save money.  In small to medium sized businesses cost cutting is a huge priority.  After all, you can't make money if you spend it all.  

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/computer-support-company-in-los-angeles-explains-will-an-it-consulting-company-reduce-my-it-capital-expenses/

How Effective Managers Use Information Systems

Check out this awesome article we found about the use of information systems!

Advances in computer-based information technology in recent years have led to a wide variety of systems that managers are now using to make and implement decisions. By and large, these systems have been developed from scratch for specific purposes and differ significantly from standard electronic data processing systems. Too often, unfortunately, managers have little say in the development of these decision support sysems; at the same time, non-managers who do develop them have a limited view of how they can be used. In spite of these drawbacks, the author found that a number of the 56 systems he studied are successful. And the difference between success and failure is the extent to which managers can use the system to increase their effectiveness within their organizations. Thus, the author suggests that this is the criterion designers and managers should jointly ascribe to in exploiting the capabilities of today’s technologies.

What can managers realistically expect from computers other than a pile of reports a foot deep dumped on their desks every other week?

Everyone knows, for instance, that computers are great at listing receivables. But what about all the promises and all the speculations over the past few decades about the role of the computer in management? While there have been advances in basic information retrieval, processing, and display technologies, my recent study of 56 computerized decision support systems confirms the common wisdom that very few management functions have actually been automated to date and all indications are that most cannot be.

Instead, my findings show what other researchers have reported: applications are being developed and used to support the manager responsible for making and implementing decisions, rather than toreplace him. In other words, people in a growing number of organizations are using what are often called decision support systems to improve their managerial effectiveness.¹

Unfortunately my research also bore out the fact that while more and more practical applications are being developed for the use of decision makers, three sizable stumbling blocks still stand in the way of others who might benefit from them.

First, managers and computer users in many organizations are familiar with only a few of the types of systems now in use. As a result, different types of innovative systems have often been conceived and nurtured by internal or external “entrepreneurs,” not by the system users or their superiors.

Second, and closely related to my first finding, these entrepreneurs tend to concentrate on technical characteristics. Too often, this myopia means that they fail to anticipate the ways in which such systems can be used to increase the effectiveness of individuals in organizations.

Finally, highly innovative systems—the very ones management should find most useful—run a high risk of never being implemented, especially when the impetus for change comes from a source other than the potential user.

Quite simply, my purpose in this article is to discuss, without getting into the technology involved, the high potential of a variety of decision support systems, the challenges and risks they pose to managers and implementers, and a wide range of strategies to meet these challenges and risks.

http://hbr.org/1976/11/how-effective-managers-use-information-systems/ar/1

Los Angeles Businesses and IT Consultants

IT technical difficulties from faulty equipment can happen at any moment.  Many businesses in LA rely heavily on IT technology.  When this technology malfunctions it can waste a lot of time and money.  In order to avoid losing your business's money you should hire and IT consulting company.  These consultants can prevent any issues from occurring, and if they do happen they can fix them at any time.  Most consulting companies are available 24/7/

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/the-importance-of-it-consultants-for-any-los-angeles-business/

Amazon website goes down for 40 minutes, costing the company $5 million

Read about how Amazon.com had an outage earlier this week:

Amazon.com’s website went down around 1 p.m. Pacific time today for as much as 45 minutes due to unknown causes.

The outage appears to have affected Amazon’s main website for all U.S. and Canadian visitors. VentureBeat was able to confirm that it was offline for at least 20 minutes, and the website Down For Everyone or Just Me also confirmed the outage for that time period.

Estimates differ on exactly how long Amazon was offline: Some reports have it at 15 minutes,  25 minutes, 40 minutes, and 45 minutes. At 40 minutes, the outage could have cost the company as much as $4.72 million in lost sales, the Puget Sound Business Journal estimated, based on the company’s average sales of $117,882 per minute. Of course, that’s an average rate, and sales at the online retailer might be expected to be much brisker on a Monday afternoon in the summer, when people are shirking work by ordering barbecue tools, Hawaiian shirts, boxes of cheap outdoor drink tumblers, or trashy novels to read on their Kindles.

Gigaom reports that Amazon’s country-specific websites were still online during the outage as were the websites of Amazon-owned companies like Zappos and Diapers.com.

It’s very rare for Amazon’s homepage to go down, although the company’s cloud service, the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) went offline at least twice last year, once in June and once in October, taking out partner sites such as Netflix, Instagram, and Reddit.

Curiously, Google’s home page was offline for about five minutes August 16, potentially costing that company about $545,000 in ad revenue.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/19/amazon-website-down/#kTYcyo0xekj84WiK.99 

How Much Will IT Downtime Cost Your Business?

Information technology and information systems is essential for most businesses now a days.  As an IT support company we get questions about downtime frequently.  People want to know how a system crashing would affect their company.  The answer to this question can be shocking:

• The median cost of information technology downtime for most companies across industries in the US was estimated at $5,600 per minute.

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/it-downtimes-and-support-what-will-an-it-malfunction-cost-your-business/

Businesses Beefing Up on IT Security Specialists

Read this interesting article we found about IT Security Specialists:

In the wake of increased high-profile cybersecurity breaches, new research shows businesses are beefing up on theirIT security specialists.

The 2012 Career Impact study by (ISC)², a nonprofit organization representingsecurity specialists worldwide, found that 72 percent of businesses hired new employees last year specifically for their information security skills.

Sixty-two percent of businesses reported they are looking to hire additional information security employees in 2012.

"This data reflects the increase in security breaches we saw throughout 2011 and the fact that organizations, both in the public and private sector, are finally realizing the importance of implementing sound security programs that should be run by experienced and qualified professionals," said W. Hord Tipton, executive director of (ISC)². "Even in tough economic times, information security professionals are in high demand by hiring managers and organizations who understand that their skill sets are not only paramount to their organization's ability to conduct business, but also give them a competitive advantage." As demand for IT security specialists increases, the research shows many organizations are doing more to reward the qualified employees they already have on staff. Nearly 70 percent of those surveyed received a salary increase in 2011, with 55 percent expecting another raise in 2012.

"While it’s a very positive sign that this field continues to grow and is somewhat 'recession-proof,' one of the biggest challenges that remains is finding enough of the right people with the appropriate security skills to fill the huge void that exists right now," Tipton said.  "We must continue to build this workforce at an aggressive pace."

The study shows the top skills hiring managers are looking for include operations security,security management practices, access control systems/methodology, security architecture/models, risk management, telecom/network security, applications/system development security and cloud/virtualization.

The research was based on surveys of more than 2,200 security specialists from around the world.

http://www.ittechnewsdaily.com/258-security-specialists.html

Should You Outsource an IT Service?

Outsourcing is a term that we often hear, but what does it really mean?  It usually refers to a company hiring an outside service, rather than hiring a full time employee.  Outsourcing definitely has its benefits.  It allows a company to use a service on an as-needed basis.  This way the company only has to pay for this service when necessary   Hiring a full time employee for a job that might not require full time hours, would be an unnecessary cost.

http://www.tvgconsulting.com/is-it-better-to-outsource-an-it-support-service-or-hire-some-people-in-house/