by Lauren Nowenstein/42u

Remote system management is an increasingly important issue facing many businesses today. As corporate consolidation integrates additional locations within the same infrastructure, IT professionals face a more demanding environment. Recent surveys show that as many as 95 percent of branch offices operate without on-site IT personnel (1). Additionally, other surveys indicate that while spending on corporate IT staff still constitutes the largest component of most IT budgets, it continues to decline–from 42 percent in 2005 to 37 percent this past year. (2) These trends require IT professionals to do more with less and determine more effective ways to perform critical tasks. These changes in IT staffing often result in non-technical personnel performing standard tasks, such as data backup, patch management, and system maintenance. Not only do these tasks detract from an employee’s primary responsibilities, it is difficult to assure that best practices and procedures are followed. In addition, failure to perform these tasks could result in vulnerabilities related to data loss and security.

(more…)

by Renee Cloud

If you are a professional, executive, entrepreneur or small business, outsourcing can be a great benefit to your business or projects. If you know when to take advantage of outsourcing or make it a part of your day-to-day business operations it can prove to be very beneficial to your business. You don’t have to outsource all business operations or tasks. Many companies choose to outsource everyday.

(more…)