JS Business Solutions Blog

The biggest security risks to your business often come from within your own office. This doesn’t mean your employees are criminals; in fact, the problem usually starts because your staff is hardworking and helpful.

When people are determined to do a great job, they often develop habits that unintentionally put your data at risk. Here is how that happens and what you can do to fix it.

Most people treat office tech like a kitchen appliance: if it turns on, it’s "fine." But in business, a computer becomes a problem long before it actually breaks.

When you wait for a total failure, you aren’t saving money. You’re paying for lost productivity, emergency rush fees, and the risk of losing your data.

Running a small business is a lot like spinning plates while riding a unicycle. It’s exhilarating, but the moment one plate wobbles, the whole act is at risk. While many entrepreneurs worry about the big economic crash, the truth is that most businesses don't fail because of the economy—they fail because of internal operational leaks.

The old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” has long been outdated. Nowadays, letting your hardware slowly degrade over time without maintenance is a surefire way to create issues that ultimately increase your costs and frustrate your team members.

Let’s talk a bit about why it is critical to cycle through your hardware and how to do so efficiently.

The most talented employees on your payroll are subject to a specific kind of tax, one that saps their productivity and makes them feel like expensive data-entry clerks. That’s the tedium task, which is levied against employees of small businesses that use multiple tools that don’t integrate well. Ultimately, what happens is that these businesses have employees manually connect these apps in various ways, all of which waste time that would be better spent doing meaningful work.

Do you know which apps your employees downloaded to their work devices this morning? While it’s nice to imagine your team is sticking closely to your official tech stack, in reality, your IT infrastructure likely looks a bit more chaotic. In the world of managed IT, we call this chaos Shadow IT—the use of software, hardware, or cloud services without the approval or oversight of your IT department—and while it’s usually done with good intentions, it’s a serious problem you need to nip in the bud now.

Does the new year have your business relocating offices sometime in the next 6 to 12 months? One of the most expensive mistakes a business can make when moving is treating IT like the last box to be packed (or unpacked). Instead of running the risk that your IT won't work as intended in your new space, we’ve compiled the three most important IT considerations for your new office location so your team can hit the ground running.

In business, it’s often the case that you spend more time talking about work than you spend actually doing the work. How many emails have you sent recently that could be described as “email tennis?” We won’t mince words; this endless back-and-forth discussing meeting times, checking calendars, and re-typing the same responses day-in and day-out is increasing your administrative friction and wasting your time.

Today, we’re exploring three ways you can automate scheduling and communication to put an end to the emails and finally get back to work.

It’s common for business owners to view technology costs as an annoying utility bill rather than money that could be the first step in a strategy to rapidly grow their business. There is a massive difference between spending money to tread water and spending money to swim faster, however. To determine if your current IT budget is a drain or a driver, there are some questions you will need to ask. Here are some:

The hiring process is long and tiring, but hopefully by the end of it all, you end up with the perfect candidate for the position. While they might be eager to get to work, they might find themselves ill-equipped to do their job—a position you don’t want them to be in. Unfortunately, this is how many new hires start their tenure with a new employer, and while it might be tempting to claim that someone simply dropped the ball during the onboarding process, it’s more likely that the onboarding process itself is broken.

Chances are you get a lot of unwanted messages, whether it’s spam or messages from threads, feeds, or newsletters you no longer want to receive. Thanks to some nifty built-in features in Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, you can easily unsubscribe from pretty much any website that’s sending you boatloads of emails, and it’s as easy as clicking a link.

Resistance to new technology is a common challenge for businesses. The key to a smooth rollout isn't just about picking the right technology; it's about building a comprehensive strategy that addresses the human element of the change being made. As software is extremely important to any business, having a solid strategy in place to address the governance of your IT systems only makes sense. Today, we’ll give you a baseline on how to build one.

You want a return on your investment for business technology, right? Well, it’s not as simple as “buy the thing and profit.” Today, we’re looking at why you can’t always rely on information about modern IT solutions and how you can simplify your tech decisions to align with your business goals.

The moment when the technology you rely on suddenly stops working can be frustrating, but more than anything else, it can be expensive. If you understand these types of situations, you know that you need a plan to keep them few and far between. Let’s take a look at the costs of downtime and a few things you can do to keep it to a minimum. 

If you want to discuss the single most influential technology for the modern era, there’s a lot of competition—but the cloud is a serious contender. Through the cloud, your organization can pull off feats previously impossible for all but the largest and most profitable companies. Today, we want to look at how small businesses use the cloud and how you benefit from the various models.

AI is everywhere and it could be said that it is transforming the modern economy. With each passing day the technology is becoming an essential tool for businesses looking to boost their overall business efficiency. Small businesses can use AI in a number of ways and in today’s blog, we’ll explore how they can use AI to their advantage.

Technology has enabled us to achieve more than ever before, but with that progress comes higher expectations. Increased productivity demands can sometimes feel overwhelming, making it essential to find effective ways to manage tasks. There's a natural limit to how much we can do, however, and certain obstacles can push us to that limit more quickly. Today, we’ll explore two common productivity pitfalls that many face.

Decision-making is such a big part of business, and a lot of time the “gut feeling” may actually work against their stated aims. By incorporating back-end analysis into their strategy, business owners can get insights that they typically wouldn’t even consider. It can make their businesses more money through improved sales, customer relationships, and efficiency. In today’s blog, we will go through what the incorporation of AI means for businesses regarding their business intelligence.

Cybersecurity is necessary for businesses to function, but when it turns to overreaching and overinvestment—a concept called cybersecurity sprawl—it becomes a problem. Today, we want to highlight some of the many challenges that can come about from cybersecurity sprawl, as well as how you can avoid it.

Digital waste encompasses all the unnecessary data cluttering our storage systems until we decide to address it. This includes redundant files, outdated emails and chats, and forgotten photos gathering digital dust. While dismissing digital waste as a mere inconvenience is tempting, its implications are unfortunately significant.