Most modern businesses now rely almost completely on some form of technology to get things done. This means they need an IT support system that can ensure problems are kept at bay, and even if they arise, they can be rapidly solved. Some companies choose to manage IT support services in-house, but it’s now more common than ever for organizations to outsource this work to an external IT help desk.

Here are some of the benefits of outsourcing your IT operations to a trusted provider:

Benefit from Industry Experts

Unless your core business is related to IT, there’s a possibility that you don’t have staff representing a broad spectrum of industry expertise. Even if you have a few staff members, they may not be able to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. Outsourced IT help desk service providers hire diverse staff with expertise representing various aspects of IT. They keep up with the latest developments so that you can benefit from the latest industry knowledge. Visit source to read more.

Contact Us:

Pathway Communications
Address: 95 Apple Creek Blvd.
City: Markham
State: Ontario
Zip Code: L3R 1C7
Phone: 416-214-6363
Email: anusha.parikh@pathcom.com

Four Best Practices for Endpoint Management

As cyber and ransomware attacks continue, many organizations no longer respond quickly to endpoint threats as they should. For instance, around 30% of all known breaches are because of malware getting installed on the endpoints. Today, IT security is more important than ever, and there are several best practices your company should follow.

Best Practice #1: Protecting Your Endpoints

The endpoints are doors that can lead to some of your most important data. Endpoint devices can help hackers since they often can’t get into internal networks from the internet. Usually, next-generation firewall protection keeps them safe, and content delivery networks let you access the data in the cloud. Along with firewall, anti-malware and anti-virus software play an important role in keeping the network safe.

Hackers often have to have access that is near-physical. If you do not have proper IT security measures in place, hackers can get to your sensitive, valuable data without the employee or company knowing about it. 

Best Practice #2: Having the Least Privilege Access

Currently, the best practices of managed IT services involve giving your users as few privileges as possible. When a common user accesses the endpoint using an administrator’s credentials, it is easy for malware to get installed. You should make sure that each user can do their job, but you should give them the least privilege access rights. Many users will not need software installation rights.Visit source to read more.

Contact Us:

Pathway Communications
Address: 95 Apple Creek Blvd.
City: Markham
State: Ontario
Zip Code: L3R 1C7
Phone: 416-214-6363
Email: anusha.parikh@pathcom.com

Do you Think Your Organization has a Secure IT Environment? Think again.

The past week saw the US Cyber Command warning organizations about a major security bug in PAN-OS, Palo Alto Network’s operating system that runs on firewalls and enterprise VPN appliances. The CVE-2020-2021 defect was given a 10/10 score on the CVSSv3 severity scale, meaning that the vulnerability was both easy to exploit and could be exploited remotely. Threats like this are becoming more and more common as technology evolves.  

It has become increasingly difficult to keep up with all of these technological changes and even more difficult to keep up with the evolving security threat landscape. Still, organizations must take the necessary steps to protect their data and improve their cybersecurity footprint, starting with the implementation of robust IT security policies. In the current threat landscape, it’s better to be proactive than reactive. 

Prevention, detection, and response should be the top priorities when organizations think about cybersecurity. Here are what organizations can do to create secure IT environments: 

Visit source to read more.

Contact Us:

Pathway Communications

Address: 95 Apple Creek Blvd.

City: Markham

State: Ontario

Zip Code: L3R 1C7

Phone: 416-214-6363

Email: anusha.parikh@pathcom.com

How to Keep Your Remote Team Secure at the Time of a Crisis

The unexpected shift of millions of workers from on-site work to remote workspaces has challenged organizations like never before. Now, organizations not only have to worry about motivation and performance, but also have to maintain the highest level of cybersecurity to avoid breaches.  

While the internet and cloud services providers have made it possible to transition to work-from-home operations, the number of cyber-attacks has increased considerably. Those that took precautionary measures early on and invested in cybersecurity systems have seen a smoother transition to remote work environments without compromising security. Still, the same cannot be said for those who didn’t. 

Reducing the Risk of Cyber Attacks

Every remote worker in your organization comes with potential cyber threats that are essential to account for in your overall comprehensive IT strategy. Securing a remote workforce means protecting your business from threats. Here are some measures you can take to keep your data safe: Visit source to read more.

Contact Us:

Pathway Communications

Address: 95 Apple Creek Blvd.

City: Markham

State: Ontario

Zip Code: L3R 1C7

Phone: 416-214-6363

Email: anusha.parikh@pathcom.com

Is Moving to Server Colocation from a Server Room a Good Idea?

Whether you’re a small, medium or large business, colocation is always an option that’s available to you. Essentially, colocation data centers allow businesses to seek benefits of a larger internal IT department without incurring any of the costs of a full-fledged data center. Besides costs, there are other factors such as space, power, cooling capacity, and IT support and maintenance that could influence your decision to move to a colocation facility.

Should You Consider Moving Your Server Location?

The moment a business considers purchasing a new or additional server is also often the moment when transitioning to a colocation facility is considered. 50 percent of businesses surveyed say company growth prompts a new server purchase while 38 percent cite performance degradation and maintenance costs according to the 2019 Spiceworks State of Servers survey.

It is usually a combination of factors, like the ones addressed earlier, that prompts a business to consider moving to a colocation data center. And of course, let’s not forget the many advantages a business can receive from choosing the right colocation data center provider.

Let’s review some of the advantages.

Enhanced Network Security and Privacy

Colocation data center providers have far greater security than an in-house server location. With data centers being ISO 27001 certified, SOC2, PCI, HIPAA compliant and having grade firewalls, onsite security, and many other safety measures, your data will be safe. Visit source to read more.

Contact Us:

Pathway Communications

Address: 95 Apple Creek Blvd.

City: Markham

State: Ontario

Zip Code: L3R 1C7

Phone: 416-214-6363

Email: anusha.parikh@pathcom.com

Customer Service is all About R.A.C.E

Business and customer service are undergoing changes that make the ties between business profits and customer service stronger than ever. This has created a business climate where the cost of poor customer service can mean the end of a business. The answer to this broad challenge for all businesses is to contact centre solutions to impact R.A.C.E.

This acronym is a simple way to break down the four building blocks of excellent customer service: Resolution, Availability, Cost Reduction / Control, and Efficient Operations. To improve these aspects of a business, you must improve how technology impacts people and processes to better serve the customer through IT support solutions.

According to a recent PwC Future of Customer Experience Survey, 32% of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience. But by looking at each aspect of R.A.C.E, businesses can turn loss to gain. In fact, 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in their revenue.

Resolution

By focusing on personalized service and fast resolution of customer fulfillment and queries, businesses can create a customer experience that drives loyalty and increased profits. Today’s customer services go beyond multichannel client communications to omnichannel via live chat, chatbots, SMS, email, social networks, and live video among others.

The goal is to move beyond multichannel communication approaches to omnichannel to eliminate silos that hamper fast customer resolutions. This requires customer service, communication, networking, and applications systems within call centers and network infrastructure enabling:

• First call resolution (FCR)
• Frictionless customer experiences
• Customer support and business process fulfillment 0% downtime.
  
  

That may require business technical support for contact center solutions and business systems that provide integration with IoT devices and technical products used by end-users as one example. Expert call center agent support is another way to drive fast resolution by augmenting internal services with third-party agent support services to meet growing customer service demands. Visit source to read more.

Contact Us:

Pathway Communications

Address: 95 Apple Creek Blvd.

City: Markham

State: Ontario

Zip Code: L3R 1C7

Phone: 416-214-6363

Email: anusha.parikh@pathcom.com

Approaches to improve your IT Help Desk Economics

With the advent of digital transformations, cloud migrations and IT systems becoming more disparate through SaaS and other online productivity solutions, the IT Help Desk has become vital for keeping organizations operating a peak efficiency. Having an outstanding Help desk isn’t a convenience any more, it’s a necessity. It has become a major factor for employee satisfaction within the organization and a key component to driving productivity. 

But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Many businesses fail miserably at their Help Desk operations primarily due to the lack of IT experts, limitations in hours service (or hiring lower skilled agents to offset the expense of staffing a 24×7 service), not having proper tools – or just not using them – and inadequate processes. A productive Help Desk not only requires skillful resources but also requires efficient processes, governance and quality reporting, and certified technical expertise and technology. Here are the six major considerations to optimize your IT Help Desk costs and transform them from being a cost centre to the growth engine for your business. 

Focus on First Call Resolution (FCR)

Users don’t want to log several support tickets and call the IT Help Desk staff multiple times to solve their issue. It’s expected that logging a single support ticket or call with the Help Desk will end their involvement in the issue resolution.  Your staff want minimal interruptions so that they can focus on their core business tasks. Deliver significant value by ensuring employees have the right solutions on the very first interaction.  By achieving a better FCR you’ll be improving employee satisfaction and driving down the cost per interaction within the Help Desk. 

Improve Service Quality

Not all issues can be solved in the first call.  Having a detailed understanding of your IT Help Desk’s service quality is crucial in sustaining a high satisfaction record. By diligently monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the service your Help Desk provides, you’ll be able to determine where your problems exist. For example, if you receive feedback that employees are unhappy with delayed responses and high wait times, your KPIs should pinpoint the issues and help you design a solution.

Better Process and Methodology

It’s not always easy to stay ahead in everything. You might be burdened with a massive ticket heap that runs from “Why don’t I have the internet connection?” to “why is my desktop running so slow?” Sorting them all might take time. Setting up a better process for categorizing, resolving and documenting fixes in self help portals will lead to faster resolutions and lower ticket volumes over time. Visit source to read more.