WatchPoint Solutions Blog

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If your business is still living by this mantra, then you’re far behind your competition, who have likely already embraced the concept of proactive > reactive IT. You aren’t going to get ahead when you’re dealing with hardware that’s aging before your eyes, and the increased costs and frustrations caused will impact your business in ways you can’t imagine.

Countless businesses out there rely on patchwork systems of spreadsheets, sticky notes, and emails to keep their customer relationships in an acceptable state. The problem is that this is no way to conduct customer relations, and the more you rely on manual systems like these, the more organizational debt you accumulate over time. Poor customer relationship management will cost your business hundreds of hours of lost productivity, and with that comes lost sales and opportunities. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The money you throw at anything to do with your business can work as one of two things: a fix or an investment. Obviously, the latter option is the better one, but how can you tell if your spending is actually helping support your future successes?

Here, you’ll find four questions that will act as a sort of litmus test to help you answer that question.

While remote work presents many benefits, it has also created challenges, particularly due to the lack of visibility you have over your employees—at least physically. While you hope that trust is enough to carry your business, hope is not a plan for employee productivity. You’ll also need tools and methods to monitor your team so you can hold them accountable. We’re here to deliver the fix to your employee productivity needs.

If you’re the type of person who would like the boss to think of you whenever they think about who the most valuable member of their team is, you’ve come to the right place. We often say that we’re all about helping the businesses we work with accomplish their goals. The way we see it, the people who work for the business count too… which is why we wanted to share some handy tricks and tips you can use to look good for your employer.

Let’s review how your technology can help you work smarter, not harder, to look good in the office without giving up your work/life balance.

Productivity is among the most highly prioritized metrics in modern business, as it impacts so many functions and directly influences your success. This makes every moment precious…meant to be spent progressing toward a goal, not simply doing busy work.

Let’s go over some ways you can manage your time using some proven and trusted frameworks.

Stop me when this sounds familiar: you have 15 browser tabs open, each with its own, specific username and password required to log in. Despite what you’ve been told, there’s the infamous sticky note on your monitor, reminding you of your most utilized passwords.

From the business owner's perspective, this mess always results in frustration and missed deadlines, and honestly, it’s hard not to blame your team members. Before you jump to conclusions, however, you should consider something.

An IT project manager might be the most important cog in the machine that is project implementation, and you want to make the best decision possible for the project’s future. We recommend you look for specific qualities that make for an excellent project manager. 

What are these traits, and how do you find them when they matter most? 

When a team works well together, it feels like magic; but, for a myriad of reasons, collaboration can sometimes go off the rails. It takes a lot of effort to get a team to work in harmony, and it's easy for things to go sideways. Here are four ways your collaboration efforts could be heading for trouble.

You want the money you invest into your business technology to come back in the form of productivity and value, but how often would you say this is true for your business? If the answer is “less than I’d like,” then you might need to reexamine your IT spending and adjust it in a way that makes a difference for your business’ needs and goals. Today, we’ll examine what your infrastructure is trying to tell you and how you can make better spending decisions to make the most of your budget.

When you hear the words “digital transformation,” what do you envision? SMBs might be intimidated by such a buzzword, especially if implementing new technology is something they avoid due to the perceived price tag. But digital transformation is something all businesses can afford and benefit from, and we’ll show you how.

When you have a business with employees, things tend to get a whole lot more complicated, especially when tracking time for hourly employees. The sad fact is that some individuals are not going to invest their full effort into making sure they’re following operations and procedures as intended. This can bleed into your bottom line. What are you going to do to stop time theft?

Have you ever been met with resistance when you implement a new IT policy or solution? You’re not alone; countless CIOs and business owners experience this issue any time they go to implement an innovative new tool that can have a significant impact on operations. Here’s how you can have a rock-solid approach to taking the friction out of new IT initiatives for your organization.

It sure seems that, very suddenly, artificial intelligence is everywhere you look… including many of the tools that are available for your business to use and—most likely—the ones you are already using. It can certainly be intimidating, to say the least. Have these kinds of feelings prevented you from incorporating these tools and capabilities into your workflows?

That would be a very fair reaction to the influx of promises that AI seems to come with, which is why we wanted to hit the reset button, so to speak. Let’s get back to basics and talk about some simple benefits that AI-empowered tools can bring to your small or medium-sized business right now.

The cloud is a powerful tool that helps modern businesses seize exciting new opportunities, but what exactly are the specific benefits of implementing a cloud solution for your SMB? Today, we want to explore how your business’ operations can be markedly improved by an appropriate cloud infrastructure. Here are just a few examples.

The last thing you want when you’re trying to solve problems for your business is to hire an amateur. Not only will a novice take longer to solve your problems, you’ll also spend more money to redo their work when it’s done incorrectly. This goes for IT as well, which is why it literally pays to work with professionals.

Oil well firefighter Paul “Red” Adair said, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” 

The reasoning behind this statement—the idea that a novice will take longer and make more mistakes than someone with more experience—is particularly applicable when it comes to your business technology and its management. Let’s explore a few reasons why this is.

Keeping your business technology running can sometimes feel like being on a treadmill—you work hard to keep things moving, but eventually, something breaks, and you’re forced to fix or replace it. You should try a technology needs assessment to avoid surprises and stay ahead. This process can help you figure out what’s working, what’s not, and how to plan for the future.

Some businesses feel pressure to get the newest, most advanced technology. It sounds like a great idea, but just because a tool is available doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for your business right now. Here are some smart strategies to help make sure your business gets a good return on any tech investments.

Downtime is the not-so-silent business killer, as the second operations go down in a meaningful way, all hands are on deck to figure out what’s going wrong and how to fix it. But wouldn’t it be great if you could prevent all of that chaos in the first place? That’s the end result we hope you take away from today’s blog.