Benefits When Switching to A Cloud-Based Phone System

We are living in uncertain times. Flexibility is even more critical for businesses these days. Your company needs to be able to effortlessly and seamlessly scale down or up when necessary, such as when hiring new employees or allowing remote working. Because communication is critical to collaborative and productive teams, having a cloud-based phone system makes more sense.

Why switch?

On-premise, traditional telephony systems are typically expensive to set up and maintain. They require the installation of hardware on-site, which means more wires and devices to accommodate more users. This could put more responsibility on an IT team, too. You do not have to worry about those things with a cisco cloud web security, which has the potential to be flexible for all types and sizes of businesses looking for a way to communicate cost-effectively in an agile and streamlined way.

The benefits

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A cloud-based phone system makes sense for small, medium, and large businesses for the following reasons:

• Access to high-end communication solutions – With this phone system, even small businesses can use communication tools, which are initially available and affordable only to larger businesses. These include auto attendant, call center solutions, and a virtual assistant.
  
  
• Fully integrate a communications system – Integrating the communications system with your daily applications, workflows, and processes can boost efficiency. When business tools are in the cloud, they are easier to deploy and use, so you and your team can remain connected no matter where you choose to work, even while on the go.
  
  
• Mobility – Is your working arrangement mobile? Do you allow people to work from anywhere? A cloud-based phone system can let you and your team log in no matter where they are, so they can remain productive.

• More control – The cloud-based phone system gives you more control over the features you require. It also gives you and your employees a more flexible way to communicate using a softphone, smartphone, or desk phone, while having real-time access to business software. It is easy to scale up or down, too, so you can add or remove features as necessary, and pay only for those that you need.

• Enhanced customer service – Some systems have an automated feature that can direct calls to specific departments or users.

Digital Signage Trends in 2020

You see them almost everywhere now, and they undoubtedly made you look to see what they have to say. We’re talking about digital signage, and it’s about time you understand how incredibly effective they are as tools for education, advertising, and sharing information. The technology continues to evolve and improve, resulting in more ways to use digital signage. That said, here are some of the digital signage trends we are likely to encounter in 2020:

• Analytics – With the right software, digital signage could provide important data for analytics, which can be useful in creating better, highly targeted, personalized, and dynamic content down the line. Screen metrics can give you an idea on what people like about your existing digital signage content. By providing a more personalized experience, customers are more likely to purchase your product or sign up for a service.
  
  Some solutions allow you to identify how many people would actually stop to watch what is being displayed on the digital signage, for how long, and at what specific time of the day or week are they likely to do so.
  
  
• Digital boards for internal communication – Digital signage is not just for advertising outdoors. It can be used indoors to disseminate information that is critical to a business or an organization. This means setting up digital screens in shared areas within a building, such as the lobby, reception, or pantry. That way, employees can easily see them as they come in or leave the building or while having a break.
  
  
• Share dashboards securely – Digital signage can make a business more data-driven as it allows the sharing of critical data through cloud-based dashboards, which eliminate the need to make them public or spend for additional licenses.
  
  
• Mobile interactions – Allow your customers to interact with a digital signage using their smartphones. This is possible by displaying a QR code, which they can scan and use to gain access to your special offers or any information you want to share with them.
  
  
• Shifting to brand design – Digital signage may encourage your company to create unique guidelines for your brand to ensure proper content transfer from channels like messaging systems and employee portals to the screen, while maintaining a clear, brand message. Digital tools make it possible to set your brand or a theme, or use templates that can effectively showcase brands.

Cisco Jabber and Its Various Benefits

Is your company shifting to working from home? Then it’s more important than ever to have reliable and robust communication tools your team can use to make phone calls, send instant messages, and do video conferencing. From Cisco comes Jabber, the all-in-one communications solution designed specifically for businesses. It fulfills the most critical functions a business needs to stay in touch with teams, such as calls, collaboration, and video conferencing, while providing a means to manage contacts. The platform runs on Windows Desktop, Mac, iOS, and Android, so it can be available to most users regardless of their device.

Want to learn more about Cisco Jabber and how it can improve team collaboration? Here are the benefits:

·        Easy to use – Users can easily learn to use and get used to it with its intuitive interface. You and your team will be able to send and receive messages in no time. Enter your recipient’s name in the search bar, pick them from the list of contacts, and you will be good to go.

·        Personalize your message – Change the color and fonts of your message, mention a user, send a screenshot or screen capture, or add emoticons to express yourself better.

·        Make calls with ease – Use Cisco Jabber to meet and call others. Simply choose the call icon from the contacts list or the active conversation window.

·        Schedule meetings – Meet or talk with a lot of people simultaneously by creating a meeting space. Pick the contacts you want to join and add them to your meeting, right-click, and start.

·        Keep track of meetings and events – Integrate your calendar with Cisco Jabber, so you can view and explore events and meetings within the app.

·        Share a screen – The Cisco Jabber app on a computer lets you share your whole screen or an application. There’s a pop-up toolbar you can use to access features, such as annotations, granting controls to another user, or stop sharing the screen.

Benefits of Managed IT Services

Regardless of your industry or the size of your business, it needs a competent and qualified IT team to oversee its network and protect your computer system against anything that could compromise your security and privacy. Outsourcing managed IT services will ensure the highest quality solutions and support your business needs to boost operational efficiency, alleviate downtime and security risks, and simplify the technical processes cost-effectively. Here is a more in-depth look at the benefits of managed IT:

• Minimize labor costs – A small or medium business might find it expensive to hire and maintain its own IT team or department. Outsourcing lets you save on overhead costs and lets you provide your human resources to other important areas.

• Manage IT costs – Managed IT services could reduce your IT budget because you only pay for what you need and when you need it.

• Boost efficiency – IT services providers are dedicated and focused on what they do. They invest in their people to make sure that they are up-to-date with research, training, and development, so they can deliver and implement solutions correctly and on time.

• Access to highly qualified professionals – No need to spend time verifying the credentials of IT professionals when you hire them. By outsourcing your IT services to a qualified company, you know that their team already bears the relevant certifications required of them to prove their efficiency and knowledge for the job.

• Experience – Reputable managed IT services providers have extensive experience to back up their qualifications and build your confidence in trusting their expertise.

• Access to the latest technologies – High-quality IT companies will apply their years of experience to bring the most cost-effective and essential technologies to your business. Their solutions could further reduce your risk, as they also understand compliance and security issues, and the unique technology needs of your business and industry.

• Focus on what matters – Hiring a managed IT services team allows you to focus more on your business without worrying about complex decisions concerning your computers and network.

The Importance of Data Center Visibility

Imagine being given a tight-sealed container and being instructed to guard the package with your life. Clueless of what’s inside, how could you possibly protect it? Without knowing whether the contents can be damaged by any number of forces, be it movement, noise, heat, or changes in atmospheric conditions, you simply will have no way of knowing how to protect what’s inside. The same dilemma is experienced by many data centers.

This may be hard to believe, but many IT heads usually have little to no idea what’s going on within their data centers. Take Cisco, a leading IT company for instance. Out of their 800,000 customers, they believe that less than 1 percent of them know or have a quick view of their system processes and what these systems are doing—no one has meaningful visibility into the inner workings of the data center. This ignorance is often a result of IT heads quickly filling up their data centers with all kinds of programs and software from different users once their storage assets are on. There is often very little control over the said process, not to mention the complexities that merging on-premise assets with cloud-based hardware creates.

Not knowing exactly what’s going on across these data landscapes can make it extremely difficult to secure them and even more worrying, what could happen should a breach occur. Fortunately, there are systems in place for IT heads to get a best view into data centers, among which is CMDBs or Change Management Databases. These databases contain all known details and information about a data center’s hardware and software. However, CMDBs only give users but a partial view of a data center’s inner workings, which is why more robust systems must be out in place to help IT heads and professionals see into exactly what’s going on within their data center.

The Future of 5G

Will 2020 truly be the year of 5G? For years, experts and tech-savvy end users have predicted 2020 to be the year when 5G becomes the golden standard for connectivity and where hyper connectivity becomes more real and stronger. While the hype is proving to be real, network rollouts for 5G are still not up to par with people’s expectations. Still, many mobile carriers are working hard to expand 5G services to even more cities, while ensuring that devices can still run on much older generations of wireless technology in addition to their 5G networks—this brings the world closer to a future of ubiquitous connectivity.

With Wi-Fi-6 and 5G working together to make this hyper-connected utopia possible, people are now experiencing the benefits of greater responsiveness and performance within their digital devices. It is safe to say that we are in the threshold of the 5G era, and the future is bright for this next-generation network set-up, especially with more stakeholders investing in its development.

While 4G technology allowed speeds within the 10s to 100s Mbps bracket, 5G technology will allow you to enjoy speeds as fast as 20 Gbps. This means a significant transformation in digital experiences not limited to things like faster and clearer video conferencing and online gaming.

Another interesting development in 5G is Cisco’s unveiling of a brand-new networking portfolio, which aims to build what they are calling “The internet of the future.” This technology is being built upon their Silicon One hardware, which is proving to be an ideal foundation for a programmable silicon architecture. This particular project is also aimed at reducing the cost of establishing and operating 5G networks.

Unlike other tech developments, 5G domination is likely to be a gradual process, much like other generations of network systems. As more and more companies race to make 5G a part of people’s daily lives, this domination can be sooner than expected.  

New Scam for iPhone Users

There’s a new phishing campaign that is targeting iPhone users with the use of a range of scams aimed at defrauding victims. While email scams are not new in the world of cyberthreats, attackers are getting craftier in the way they approach phishing through mobile email. Here are the telltale signs that the email you have received via your iPhone is a scam:

1.      The sender’s name is suspicious. If there are discrepancies in email sender usernames and addresses, think twice about opening the email. Anything that comes from an unknown sender—especially one that look’s suspicious should be handled with much thought.

2.      There are invalid recipients. Another telltale sign of an iPhone email scam is the presence of invalid recipients or email addresses that are undisclosed.

3.      The email body is a picture. Emails that contain photographs as the message body prevent you from copying content and pasting it elsewhere. They also force you to click on malicious links within the image or the message body.

4.      Subscription renewals. If you are not subscribed to whatever the email message is referring to, you should certainly not feel obliged to accept their invitation to “renew” your subscription, especially since there isn’t a subscription to renew in the first place.

5.      Shortened or clipped URL. Another telltale sign of a scam email is a shortened URL, which when copied and pasted elsewhere reveals a link behind the URL, which typically load in a background preview window, enabling the scam to unfold.

Apart from phishing emails, there are even newer breeds of scams that specifically target iPhone users, like dating app scams, slot machine scams, and free VPN app scams. Arming yourself with good knowledge of these security-threatening schemes is your best defense against the damages they can do to your online accounts and your device.