BAT transforms its employees’ workplace experience with Microsoft

Check out this short video outlining British American Tobacco’s transformation project and how Windows 10 and Office 365 has transformed its employees’ workplace experience.

Want to discuss your Microsoft requirements?

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

Position your financial services business for success

No sector has felt the pressure of digital transformation more than financial services. New and emerging technologies fueled by huge private equity investments are challenging centuries-old business models, and existing businesses are rushing to keep up. In our research into digital transformation, a third of financial services executives felt their industry will be disrupted by new entrants (significantly higher than other industries we looked at).

Whether you’re a large, established enterprise, or a small FinTech challenger looking to disrupt the industry, there are three things that your business needs to be able to do effectively: access and interpret data in real time, create agile and collaborative teams, and stay on top of rapidly-changing regulatory compliance. The companies that can do these three things well stand a much better chance of surviving and thriving in a digitally transformed world.

Data is the new currency:

The proliferation of mobile devices and cloud technology has brought about exponential growth in the amount of data we create – everything from an increase in the volume of mobile banking transactions, to the variety of customer service channels for insurance companies.

For many financial services companies, the data of a transaction is becoming as valuable as the pounds and pence themselves. Being able to access, make sense of and collaborate on that data in real-time on any device is essential. Microsoft Excel offers cutting-edge tools like Power Query to gather data and Power Pivot to model, analyze and transform it into meaningful information to make informed decisions. Add-on tool Power BI gives users the ability to pull in data from internal and external sources to build custom dashboards for a near anytime, anywhere view of the health of your business. Because it’s available as part of Office 365, firms of any size have access to powerful analytics capability of Excel.

Agility at the heart of transformation:

As financial services firms ramp up the products and services they offer to customers, the higher the expectations of those customers for quick answers to their questions. The whole industry is speeding up, as traditional, manual processes get replaced by faster and more sophisticated digital solutions. As a result, financial services companies must be able to access and collaborate on information better than they have before. Fortunately Office 365 provides a tightly integrated platform that builds powerful collaborative capabilities into these tools. In addition to file sharing in the cloud, teams can access, edit, manage and share files and data from any device using OneDrive, SharePoint or Skype for Business, and engage in enhanced coauthoring. Users can collaborate with the videoconferencing, messaging and content-sharing tools of Skype for Business. Files and people remain synced.

Compliance is Crucial:

As noted before, organisations are facing significant data overload due to exploding amounts of increasingly complex electronic data. Regulatory compliance is a crucial part of financial services, and it impacts every technology decision your company makes. But with the proliferation of data, it becomes increasingly difficult to make sure your decisions are compliant. Microsoft’s solutions can be invaluable in compliance.

Want to find out more?

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back. This handy infographic from Microsoft also outlines succinctly how its solutions can assist your organisation’s GDPR needs.

Get a business processes and CRM makeover

Ask any business owner their main challenges in running a business and they will likely tell you that finances, people and time (or the lack of it) are what keep them up at night. Is your business in the same boat?

Most small to medium sized business owners find it difficult to adequately plan their finances and attempt to predict with pipeline and cashflow planning, which can be tricky. Often, employee productivity levels are stretched due to unstructured operating processes that have been bolted on as the business grew. And owners frequently waste time working between siloed customer data, financial spreadsheets and business information in multiple locations. There’s one thing linking all these challenges – multiple, disparate business packages. And they’re holding your business back.

But now you can get everything in one place, on one platform, with Dynamics 365 Business Edition. This cloud-based suite of intelligent applications is designed and priced for small to medium sized businesses, combining business process management and customer relationship management software into one powerful solution. It connects your people and processes, making financial management, sales, service and operations less of a challenge. And, because it’s cloud-based, it’s easy to scale and grow as your business needs evolve.

Check out this short video to see some of the benefits.

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

3 simple steps to protect your business on ‘world password day’

It’s one of those niggles in life that only becomes a reality when something goes wrong. And passwords can be irritating. But they really are highly essential, so we’ll allow ourselves a brief nag on it!

World Password Day is an annual event that takes place globally on the first Thursday of every May and aims to raise awareness of the importance of having strong passwords and providing best practices for online account security. The day is supported by hundreds of organisations including the National Cyber Security Alliance, Intel, Microsoft and more.

Why have World Password Day?

The importance of strong password security may seem rather obvious and/or boring. However, research shows that despite the huge rises in data breaches in recent years and the well known consequences of these, poor password habits are still surprisingly common.

TeleSign’s 2015 Consumer Account Security Report found that 70% of users lack the confidence that passwords are able to adequately protect their online accounts. And this concern is justified – Verizon’s 2016 Data Breach Investigation Report showed that weak, default or stolen passwords caused 63% of all data breaches in 2015. A big part of the problem lies in the reusing of passwords. A mind-boggling 73% of online accounts use duplicated passwords, which can create a “domino effect” whereby all accounts with the same password are affected when even just one account is breached.

What can you do?

Here’s 3 simple steps you can do to protect your business and personal data and online accounts.

Toughen up your passwords

The first step in ramping up your online security is to strengthen your passwords. 123456 may continue to be a popular choice, but that also makes it one of the weakest. Updating your passwords goes a long way towards protecting your digital accounts, and is something that should be done on a regular basis (nag nag!).

As a guide, you should look to update your passwords every 90 days and make sure you are creating passwords that are long, strong and unique for every account. Intel and National Cyber Security Alliance have created some great social images to help you remember and share these important tips, which you can find at www.passwordday.org.

Consider a password manager

The second step recommended by many cyber security experts is to utilise a password manager. These relieve the burden of trying to memorise different and complex passwords by managing them all in one “vault” and locking that vault with a single master password. There are many great password managers out there and PCWorld has a great list of four strong options to get your started.

Turn on two-factor authentification

The final step, and perhaps the most important, is to protect your passwords with two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an additional layer of security that combines something you know (your password) with something you have (your mobile phone) to keep hackers out of your account even if they obtain your username and password. Many of the world’s largest and most popular web platforms offer 2FA today, and you can find simple step-by-step instructions for how to turn it on with over 150 sites at www.turnon2fa.com.

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So there you have it. Following these three simple steps today will help you step up your digital security and better protect your business and its data.

As your trusted IT partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on cyber security solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

Request a call back you can do so via this link or call us on 01274 396 213.

5 latest tech trends to give SMBs the edge

Small and Medium Enterprises accounted for 99%* of all businesses in the UK in recent years, with 76%* of those only employing the owner. With increased pressure to deliver a top quality (often immediate) service, the people at the top already have a lot of hats to wear.

Until someone invents a time machine that allows more than 24 hours in any one day, passion and hard work only get you so far. That’s why successful businesses are turning to tech to boost productivity and improve competitiveness – and Complete IT Systems can make the transition even smoother for you.

Make sure you do…before your competitors do!

Base decisions on accurate data

Man working in shop

It sounds obvious, but it’s not easy. Entrepreneurs make a lot of good but gut-based decisions. As your business grows, however, so does the need to shift decision-making to base it on solid data.

Fortunately, technology and cloud services can help you turn unfiltered data into useful insights. Free tools such as Microsoft Power BI turns raw data into rich visuals that can help you spot trends, and can pull in data directly from many of today’s popular cloud apps. This can help you understand your market properly and, when it comes to expanding or diversifying, not make assumptions that you’ll later regret.

Maximise your billable time

Audio and web conferencing tools are becoming more sophisticated, making it more acceptable to use apps like Skype for Business to stay in touch with clients without having to travel for face-to-face meetings. That travel time can be turned into productive work that is better for your clients and their customer experience.

Get out from behind your desk

Woman getting in car

A critical capability for today’s businesses is the need to stay productive away from your desk. The ability to quickly respond to emails, update and share documents and manage calendars wherever, whenever is a game changer for many small businesses.

Technology such as Office 365 gives businesses the freedom to work in whatever way is best for them, while remaining connected to their customers who expect fast and highly digital interactions. It also makes it easier to be part of company-wide conversations. Team chat tools such as Microsoft Teams keep everyone in the loop via the same team workspace – from sales people out in the field to the people responsible for the yes/no decisions. Using virtual workspaces can also help you free up physical desk space, and office overheads too, both of which can stifle growth in the early stages of establishing a business.

Trouble-free transformation

Transformation does not have to equal business disruption and change management challenges. Thanks to the cloud, IT that was formerly the domain of large company budgets is now accessible for SMEs.

Moving to the cloud also cuts the reliance on your own servers, putting you in a better position for backing up data and disaster recovery. A power outage at one of your locations or a stolen laptop no longer means a critical loss of business or security. In the long run, this doesn’t just save money it also improves reliability.

Learn from what they wish they knew

Technology is a great business enabler, whatever your size or maturity. Are you taking advantage of the latest tech innovations? Staying as connected to your customers as your competitors?

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

Microsoft solutions for GDPR compliance

As you have almost certainly heard by now, the GDPR regulations come into force this month.

The question for many business owners is how do you cut across the noise to implement to achieve GDPR compliance but keep your company running how you need it to at the same time?

Microsoft solutions can help your business with GDPR readiness, and as an accredited and specialised Microsoft partner, and Complete IT Systems can help you select and implement them.

Microsoft’s Office and Office 365 solutions have in-built industry-leading security measures and privacy policies to safeguard your data in the cloud, including the categories of personal data identified by the GDPR. Office and Office 365 can help you on your journey to reducing risks and achieving compliance with the GDPR.

One essential step to meeting the GDPR obligations is discovering and controlling what personal data you hold and where it resides. There are many Office 365 solutions that can help you identify or manage access to personal data:

  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in Office and Office 365 can identify over 80 common sensitive data types including financial, medical, and personally identifiable information. In addition, DLP allows businesses and organisations to configure actions to be taken upon identification to protect sensitive information and prevent its accidental disclosure.
  • Advanced Data Governance uses intelligence and machine-assisted insights to help you find, classify, set policies on, and take action to manage the lifecycle of the data that is most important to your organisation.
  • Office 365 eDiscovery search can be used to find text and metadata in content across your Office 365 assets—SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Skype for Business Online, and Exchange Online. In addition, powered by machine learning technologies, Office 365 Advanced eDiscovery can help you identify documents that are relevant to a particular subject (for example, a compliance investigation) quickly and with better precision than traditional keyword searches or manual reviews of vast quantities of documents.
  • Customer Lockbox for Office 365 can help you meet compliance obligations for explicit data access authorisation during service operations. When a Microsoft service engineer needs access to your data, access control is extended to you so that you can grant final approval for access. Actions taken are logged and accessible to you so that they can be audited.

Another core requirement of the GDPR is protecting personal data against security threats. Current Office 365 features that safeguard data and identify when a data breach occurs include:

  • Advanced Threat Protection in Exchange Online Protection helps protect your email against new, sophisticated malware attacks in real time. It also allows you to create policies that help prevent your users from accessing malicious attachments or malicious websites linked through email.
  • Threat Intelligence helps you proactively uncover and protect against advanced threats in Office 365. Deep insights into threats—provided by Microsoft’s global presence, the Intelligent Security Graph, and input from cyber threat hunters—help you quickly and effectively enable alerts, dynamic policies, and security solutions.
  • Advanced Security Management enables you to identify high-risk and abnormal usage, alerting you to potential breaches. In addition, it allows you to set up activity policies to track and respond to high risk actions.
  • Office 365 audit logs allow you to monitor and track user and administrator activities across workloads in Office 365, which help with early detection and investigation of security and compliance issues.

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back. This handy infographic from Microsoft also outlines succinctly how its solutions can assist your organisation’s GDPR needs.

How Microsoft helps Wirral Council enable employees and secure data

Check out this short video to see how Microsoft has helped Wirral Council to enable its employees and secure its data using Windows 10, O365, Sharepoint & Skype for Business to facilitate a slicker, more user-friendly approach to provision of public services.

Want to discuss your Microsoft requirements?

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back.

Chocolate bars or ransomware attack?

According to new research by Sophos, a whopping 54% of organisations were hit by ransomware last year, and on average companies reported two attacks.

Within the companies that do get hit, the attack is not only limited to a small number of employees either, with 46% of a company’s devices on average affected by each attack.

And on to the key question – how much financial impact can a ransomware attack have on a business? According to Sophos it’s around $133,000 USD, which is the cost of around 150,000 chocolate bars.

If you’d rather have the chocolate bars, pay off some of your mortgage or buy new car(s) than face the prospect of a ransomware attack, you can download your copy of the Sophos infographic to read more ransomware facts and figures and why your company should consider an antivirus solution.

As Sophos Gold Solution Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

Request your no-obligation free trial via this link or call us on 01274 396 213.

 

 

Choosing the right printer for your business

There are many, many options out there and that is obviously a great thing – but it can make the process of choosing the best one for your business a little daunting! It’s not as simple as buying the first printer that fits your budget, and doing so could mean missing out on some useful features.

The dangers of long contracts on the balance sheet

More importantly, making the wrong decision could even have negative results for your business balance sheet, as some managed print contracts can prove very expensive and painful over 5 years. Over this time in this era of ever-improving technology, what was a new and state-of-the-art printer at the beginning of a 5 year contract may start to become a little clunky towards the end of that period.

The right printer for your business is therefore not only crucial to performance, productivity and efficiency, but to the bottom line!

So back to the main question – how to choose the right printer for your business.

Key questions to consider:

Functionality

  • How many employees do you have?
  • Do you need black and white or colour?
  • Do you need high quality printing for customer-facing documentation, or more basic quality for reviewing email drafts etc?
  • Paper size – A4, A3?
  • Will you need copying, scanning or fax facilities

Efficiency

While the price of the actual printer is an undoubted cost consideration, don’t forget to take into account the operational costs of the machine such as ink, paper, maintenance. The cheapest printer hardware price does not always factor in these operational costs – be sure to take total cost of ownership into account when budgeting for print.

Connectivity

Would it be of benefit to your workforce to be able to print directly from their mobile devices? The right print environment can make for huge productivity gains in this regard.

Security

In this era of unprecedented cyber security threats, GDPR and other regulation considerations, the need for strong security measures across your whole IT infrastructure, including print, has never been more prevalent. Some printers come with in-built ‘print release’ functionality which reduces the risk of stray documents being left laying around in error on a printer tray by ensuring a password is required in order to print sensitive documents.

So what printers suit your business best?

In this article, we’ve suggested some considerations that you’ll need to make when choosing your new printer. Even with these questions it may still be difficult to make that final decision, so here’s a few more things to take into account:

  • Everyone and every business uses a printer differently – there’s discrepancies between individuals and departments
  • A rough guide is that an small-to-medium sized organisation benefits from having one printer for every 7-10 people
  • Understand maintenance and running costs before entering into any long-term contracts

As Canon Authorised Partners, Complete IT Systems are able to offer you leading guidance on your organisation’s print environment to achieve best value for money, results and reliability.

Give us a call today on 01274 396 213 or email  to talk to one of our print specialist team.