k_Street Consulting, LLC Blog

Efficiency is extremely important for any business to maintain consistent revenue generation. Technology is a big part of that. Today, we’ll discuss two ways that technology can help build a more efficient business. 

Unexpected downtime can wreak havoc on businesses large and small, which is especially bad when so many paths lead to it. Let’s explore some of downtime’s causes, and equally importantly, how it can be avoided.

Keyboard shortcuts are undeniably useful—to the point that some are almost ubiquitous. However, there are a lot that aren’t, and they are just about as useful. We wanted to introduce you to these shortcuts so you can incorporate them into your workflows.

Today’s businesses have more technology involved in their processes than ever, making it essential to have access to the support that will keep them in operation. Nowadays, that kind of support is best obtained through a relationship with a managed service provider.

Now, I feel it is appropriate to acknowledge that all this is coming from a managed service provider… but that’s just because we feel strongly enough about the benefits of managed services to offer them over the traditional approach to business IT support and services.

If you want your organization to be efficient, you must increase productivity. However, this is often easier said than done, as plenty of obstacles, communication challenges, and resource allocation issues can stymie even the most well-thought-out plans. Let’s look at how you can improve productivity for your business by considering these common issues.

Change is inevitable, especially in the dynamic world of business, where it is the driving force behind growth and innovation. Yet managing change can be a daunting task. It requires strategic planning, effective communication, and strong leadership.

This is where change management optimization comes into play. It's about refining your approach to change, making it more efficient and successful… particularly when it involves your IT and related processes.

You might have noticed that some of your younger workers are leaving your business much earlier than you might expect them to. This could be because of a phenomenon called “shift shock,” which examines employee engagement and satisfaction. Let’s consider how shift shock could potentially harm your business.

Maintaining positive customer relationships is an extremely important consideration for every business. One of the best tools any business can use is the customer relationship management (CRM) platform. While most CRMs have similar features, some come with more advancements; and higher costs. Today, we will get into what type of CRM you should consider for each level of business.

The end of the year is always a great time to look back on the past and look forward to the future and what it might look like. One way you can do this is by looking to cut out some of the clutter within your organization’s network by examining how often your applications are used and which services you are subscribed to.

Businesses are complex beasts, and there can be a lot of moving parts that need to be addressed in order for them to run effectively. Business technology can aid in this effort quite substantially. Here are four ways you can implement technology to help make managing your business easier.

Successful businesses often need to adapt to changing market conditions, consumer preferences, and industry trends. This means that they have to not only understand their business, but they also need to stay open to making innovative changes. Let’s look at six examples of changes that the average business may need to make to remain successful.

Business continuity is a tricky beast, and one that is best fought with proactive and preventative measures. The reason for this is simple: any situation where your business’ data is put at risk could mean the end, and we are not catastrophizing when we say that. Let’s look at two issues that are only small problems at the surface level, but could snowball into serious problems.

Service businesses, which provide intangible services rather than physical products, often require specific software to manage their operations efficiently and enhance customer service. Some of the most important software for service businesses include:

Managing your business efficiently requires judicious allocation of limited resources, encompassing budget, time, and the capabilities of your workforce. It is paramount to ensure their effective management. Let's delve into fundamental practices that can help you optimize the resources at your business' disposal.

It's essential for every responsible business owner or manager to maintain vigilant oversight of their operations. Often, the demands of running a business can obscure a clear view of its functioning. Let’s explore the significant advantages that a conscientious monitoring platform can offer your organization.

The biggest problems that a business faces are the ones that drain your coffers and cost your business capital. Here are some technology solutions your company can implement to keep inefficiencies from costing your organization needlessly.

When it comes to running a business, it's not a single task but a web of interconnected responsibilities that collectively determine its efficiency. For smaller businesses, this web can feel even more intricate, demanding more from their limited workforce. This month, we want to shed light on the substantial impact that even modest technological investments can have on a business's operations.

Gaining efficiencies inside your business can make a world of difference to how it runs, but also how it is viewed by your customers. An efficient business can do more and react much faster than one that is constantly struggling to streamline things. Let’s look at five things you can do to create a more efficient workflow.

It isn’t uncommon for businesses to engage in actions that seem to directly contradict their own best interests. This is called self-sabotage, and it can be a costly and extremely debilitating phenomenon for a business. Let’s go through some of the actions that may be holding your business back, even if you don’t realize it. 

If you want your business to grow, then you’re going to have to get used to dealing with complex problems that require complex solutions. You can implement technology to make solving these challenges easier, but at the same time, you want to be careful that the solutions you implement are not going to get in the way of productivity. Today, we want to discuss good old-fashioned bureaucracy, and how while you might not want to build it into your strategy, it will probably happen anyway.

It isn’t uncommon to hear about how much working from home has environmental benefits—and on its face, this claim makes a lot of sense. We did have to wonder, however, how much greener remote work really is—if at all.

Let’s go into why the question of whether remote work is the environmentally friendly option isn’t as clear-cut as you might expect.

When you have a lot of tasks to get done, you might find yourself stressing out about the sequencing or ruminating on your circumstances. How did you let it get so bad? Why does this always happen to you? If this sounds like an everyday occurrence for your organization or your employees, we want to share three ways you can help to make things easier to manage, even when it feels like there is just too much to handle.

Last week, we aimed our laser focus on productivity and how it can be defined for your organization. Now, we would like to examine how you can measure productivity for your business. Let’s discuss how you can track your productivity.

Productivity will always be the primary goal for businesses, right alongside profits, although one thing does in fact lead to another in this case. To ensure your company runs efficiently, you need to understand just how productivity works and its relationship with what you put into your business. We’ll be using the next couple of weeks to take a closer look at the relationship between your business and its productivity.

First, let’s look at what productivity is, in its simplest and purest form.

Many, many businesses have inventory that needs to be managed, and an equal number of those know all too well how much of a headache managing it can be. Fortunately, modern information technology provides integrated tools that can make this process far, far easier.

Business can get stressful. Not only for the people tasked with managing an organization, but for the workforce as a whole. Fortunately, businesses are identifying that technology can go a long way toward making all this work less stressful. Let’s go through some of the innovative technology that is being used to keep employees engaged.

Customer relationships are at the heart of any business that sells a service or goods, making a technology solution like a CRM a powerful way to jumpstart operations. Let’s review what some of the benefits of using a CRM are and how your organization might use one to the best of its ability.

Of any operational strategy, collaboration is both the simplest to set up and the most difficult to master. The organizations that do, stand to benefit greatly from the massive amount of efficiency that is created, and the productivity that results from it. The organizations that struggle with it,won’t be as efficient and that typically means costs will rise. Let’s take a look at some of the ways businesses can work toward collaborative mastery.

Productivity can be a challenging thing to measure and maintain, especially in a world full of distractions. Sometimes the distractions come from the nature of the work itself, and understanding this can become the key to overcoming them. Here are five tips you can use to overcome any workplace distractions and become more productive in the workplace.

You don’t need us to tell you that business owners have a lot of work to do, so you should make it a priority to streamline as much of this work as possible. You can use an easy four-step process to make your day-to-day tasks easier and more efficient, and who knows? You might even be able to free up some of that time by asking others to pitch in every now and then. Here are four tips you can use to get the most out of your productivity routine throughout the day.

As time passes and your business accomplishes great things, you might find yourself in positions where your network cannot handle its normal everyday workload. When there is so much network traffic and data transference, it can be difficult to identify where and why this slowdown occurs. What is a network bottleneck, and how can you resolve this issue?

As cliche as it sounds, one of the best ways to create a more positive workplace is to simply put more positivity into it. Let’s exercise this for a moment by setting the often-talked-about worst-case scenario to the side, and focus on what the optimal experience could be with the right technology management in place.

Businesses are always trying to be as productive as possible, but the truth of the matter is that productivity is not a constant state of getting things done. It is perfectly natural to have ups and downs throughout the week that ultimately contribute to any progress made on tasks. The question then becomes one of how can you make progress toward goals for the workday. Here are four tips that might help you get more done throughout your day-to-day duties.

There is a misconception going around that the absolute only way you can possibly take care of your organization’s technology is to hire dedicated professionals to monitor and maintain every aspect of it. There is considerable benefit to doing this, we won’t lie, but there is value in applying specific mantras from everyday life to your IT infrastructure. With these small, common-sense practices, you might see some long-term success in IT management even without professionals at the helm.

Many critics of a shorter work week believe that cutting the number of hours worked throughout the workday or work week could potentially lead to a decrease in productivity, but a new study from Iceland suggests that this simply is not reality. This study suggests that productivity should no longer be a cause for concern when it comes to a shorter work week, as its astounding results show what really happens when you reduce the number of hours worked without reducing pay.

Computers are supposed to make life easier, and in a lot of ways, they do. However, using a computer can get complicated at times, especially when you are working with tons of files, applications, and resources on a daily basis. This can lead to a ton of digital clutter, which can be counterproductive and time-wasting. Let’s learn about how you can reduce digital clutter on your work PC.

Businesses are always looking for a way to be more effective. Whether that be avoiding operational hiccups, cutting costs, or anything else that aids them in an effort to provide a superior product or service. For businesses that take advantage of dynamic technology solutions in efforts to enhance productivity through collaboration and automation, keeping the platform that fuels those initiatives managed and maintained is important. No organization is situated to effectively do that better than an IT services provider. 

For all the time we spend promoting productivity-enhancing technologies, we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the source of quite a bit of inefficiency: the user. People get distracted from their tasks all the time and the bounceback rates from these distractions aren’t great. Let’s go over a few tips that you and your team can use to help identify and avoid distractions throughout the workday.

With businesses depending on technology more now than ever, it stands to reason that the collaboration solutions that are available would improve as demand increases. Today’s business needs a collaboration solution that allows them to communicate, manage tasks, and be a reliable solution for teams separated by more than just a wall. Let’s take a look at the modern collaboration tool and how they provide powerful benefits for the modern business.

Today’s business is always searching for a leg up, and this often means doing what it can to improve their operational efficiency. Companies can approach this in several ways. They can try to cut out redundancies, they can invest in training, or for many businesses, it means leveraging innovative new technological tools that are designed specifically for this purpose. 

While some places get to take the holiday season off to some extent, other establishments are at their busiest—and as such, don’t have time for any inefficiencies. Let’s meet an employee from such an establishment, located far up north, to learn about how any workplace might benefit operationally from managed IT services.

There are a lot of Android apps that are good for productivity, but Google Keep offers a particularly significant advantage. Today we’ll take a brief look at Google Keep and tell you about some features that will help you use it proficiently.

Drones are a technology that comes with some controversy, but also some real utility. Known best as an unmanned deterrent measure used by governments, today drones are used for a multitude of different tasks. Today we’ll discuss how drone technology has expanded over the past several years. 

Email is important, but it seems to steal so much of your valuable time, doesn’t it?

Conquering your never-ending inbox can seem like a feat all in itself—let alone having it done before lunchtime. There’s an easier way, and when done properly, you’ll be able to spend less time sifting through your email and more time on the more important stuff.

Email is one of the most popular business communication tools, with Google’s Gmail service being a popular choice with a market share of around 33.7 percent. It therefore makes sense that a lot of time is spent using Gmail, time that you might like spent on other initiatives. To help reduce the amount of time spent in Gmail on routine correspondence, we’re sharing how you can use Gmail templates to get the job done.

Windows 7 was the most popular operating system Microsoft ever created. It’s so popular that months after the software giant officially retired their record-breaking OS, some businesses continue to use it. Today, we will take a look at why some businesses haven’t moved off of Windows 7, and what effect it could have on their company.

Businesses of all sizes rely on data to operate, which means that this data needs to be collected somehow. Let’s consider how the concept of data automation has assisted these businesses to successfully accomplish more.

Your business’ critical IT systems are on the fritz again, and you aren’t sure what’s causing the problem. Fortunately, you have access to help. When you don’t feel well, or something’s wrong with your body, you visit your healthcare provider. They’ll examine you, diagnose the problem, and prescribe a solution. This process has been in place for millennia. Much more recently, it was also adopted by a very different sector: the information technology industry in what is known as managed IT services. 

Email is a great tool for businesses to use, but if mismanaged, it can quickly become a major time sink. That’s why we wanted to go over a few ways that you can use your email solution to boost your overall productivity (rather than squander it) in the form of some handy tips.

The world has been turned on its head recently and it has forced the hands of many business owners to make a complete digital transformation of their business. Many businesses have made this transformation previously, but haven’t completely worked out the logistics of it when the stay-at-home orders came down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today we will look at four elements of a digital transformation that are extremely useful for your business.

With the widespread support of social distancing that current events have encouraged, remote working options are seeing an understandable surge in popularity. In order to make the most of “telecommuting,” as it is referred to, there are a lot of reasons to use a Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, solution. Let’s go over some.

There are many reasons that you might want to make your office a little more “green.” As it happens, there are just as many ways that you can put forth the effort to do so. If you’re trying to run a more environmentally-conscious business, we have a selection of a few relatively simple ways to start.

Workplace engagement has long been a conundrum--how do you maximize the productivity of your business without alienating your team through quotas and ironclad policies? Many businesses have been finding that an effective way to do just that has been to use a concept known as ‘gamification.’  Let’s explore gamification and how it might be useful to you.

Much is made about collaboration. It’s not just a buzzword, it is extremely important in many parts of business. Collaboration is simply getting people to cooperate in their work to a successful end. While collaboration can be found in every business to some degree, it can be more of a challenge for the small business. Today, we’ll take a look at what constitutes successful collaboration, and how your organization can go about improving your collaborative capabilities.  

If your business is in retail, you’re going to need a Point-of-Sale (also known as a POS) system. This is a common device in businesses that directly sell to their clients and customers, as it can do a lot to assist these businesses as they manage their processes. As you seek out a POS system for your business, you’ll likely be looking for (and avoiding) certain features.

Businesses are increasingly adopting more advanced technologies to benefit their operations. We’ve seen a few of these technologies really come into the public eye this year. That’s why we wanted to take some time and review these tools and time-saving solutions with you: to tell you about ways that your business procedures can improve through their implementation.

Business can be tricky, especially if you’re good at it. It’s important to know when to be comfortable with your position without starting to feel complacent. If you fall into this trap, you’ll be running the risk of hindering your organization’s growth, potentially blocking any future successes.

It’s probably pretty fair to say that Microsoft Word has become the poster child for word processing programs - and for good reason: its tools and capabilities are very well-suited for the user’s needs. Did you know that you can even adjust Word so that it better fits your use of it? For this week’s tip, we’ll go over a few ways to do so.

Many people can find it challenging to constantly remain productive, which is only understandable. Nobody can be firing on all cylinders all the time. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways that you can optimize your productivity. Here, we’ll review three general approaches to improve your productivity, with examples describing how to enact each.

How many email accounts do you have? Out of those, how many do you check regularly, and how many different platforms are they on? Too many, and you’re apt to miss something important. That’s why we’re going over how to ensure that your emails are well-organized and accessible from a single source.

Productivity is a key facet to our success. However, many offices seem to have an environment that focuses more on keeping busy than it does being productive. While they often intersect, these two statuses are very different. Here’s why.

Sometimes, things are written in the wrong place. Fortunately, there are means of moving them if they happened to be written using a computer. These processes are relatively very simple and are so commonly used that the shortcuts are right next to each other on the keyboard. For today’s tip, we’ll review how you can cut, copy, and paste content in effectively any program you use.

With the use of portable personal music players and streaming services like Spotify, Google Play Music, and Pandora, unobtrusively listening to music in the workplace has become much easier--but has it also made it easier for employees to be more distracted from their tasks? Additionally, assuming that music does create a boost in productivity, why does it do so?

How much time is wasted in your workplace just trying to communicate about potential projects? The notable difference between productivity and stagnation is that one is making you money, while the other is costing you money. Employees spend about 80 percent of their time in meetings, on the phone, or responding to emails, so it falls on the business owner to ensure that communications are as easy as possible so minimal time is wasted.

When implementing a new project, expectations run high and deadlines must be met. The temptation is to feel so pressured to get the project finished that the planning phase is rushed. If even a small detail is overlooked and a shortcut is taken in this early stage, it can come back to bite you in a major way--perhaps even derailing the project altogether. This is especially the case for an IT project.

How many devices find their way into your office every day? In this age of mobile devices, it’s no surprise for each of your employees to have everything from a smartphone or tablet, to wearable technology like a Fitbit. Depending on the type of device, you’ll want to ensure that you have every opportunity to secure it so that it doesn’t become a security problem later on down the road.

When you decided to start your business, you had to be overwhelmed with everything that you had to do just to get it off the ground. If you are like many entrepreneurs, getting a product to market was the aim then, but as business continues and your organization grows, it’s likely that you’ve looked to technology as a benefit. So, when does the amount of technology you have become a hindrance to your bottom line? We will take a look at what happens when an organization takes their love of technology too far.

Efficiency is the foundation for every successful business. In fact, many would argue that efficient business is the only good business. Those sentiments haven’t always been the prevailing opinion, but as costs continue to rise for the business owner, finding ways to mitigate revenue losses is paramount to sustaining any semblance of a successful business. Because so many people depend on the average business, it has become essential for businesses to work diligently to enter the information age. It can be perceived as a negative by the people you depend on. How can you make BI work for your business without alienating your staff?

Technology is necessary for so many businesses, but some don’t know how best to approach managing it. This is particularly difficult for businesses that have limited budgets and workforces, which leads organizations to simply go without the support in favor of saving some cash. Of course, when something goes wrong, it’s more noticeable and could cause major troubles in the future. This break-fix IT is far from the best way to approach IT maintenance, but how can you make sure your budget doesn’t suffer from it?

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing?” Well, there’s a hint of truth to this, especially in the business world. Just because your cloud solution allows your business to store a huge amount of data in the cloud, doesn’t mean that you are getting the best return-on-investment. In fact, you might just be unknowingly wasting resources that would be better used elsewhere.

Everyone loves a good vacation, especially if you have the good fortune of having a reliable staff on-hand that can handle the administration of your office while you’re away. Although, it might be tempting to just cut yourself off from technology and enjoy your time off, doing so might cause problems down the line that could easily be prevented by simply checking your email or calling home-base once in a while.

We’ve all become so adapted to the conveniences of the Internet that it’s difficult to remember what society was like before it. This becomes especially obvious when watching old movies. How odd is it to see characters do pre-Internet activities like go to the library to research information and use a phone book? These are just some of the ways that the Internet has dramatically changed society, for better and perhaps for worse.

When it comes to purchasing the best technology to protect your business, you should consider an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) device. The reasoning is simple; they help your organization avoid data loss, and aid in business continuity. Here’s what you need to know about UPS devices.

Running a business means going to meetings. There’s really no way around it. And while you can’t run a business without meetings, you can run your meetings as efficiently as possible so that they’re not a complete waste of time. Unfortunately, according to a recent study by Blue Jeans Network, the worldwide trends for meetings show that they can hinder productivity more than help it.

If your business has put off embracing cloud computing as a legitimate method for data distribution and application deployment, it might be time to reconsider why you haven’t integrated a cloud solution yet. A recent study from software companies Exact and Pb7 Research shows that the cloud can provide your organization with a significant increase in both profits and net growth, proving once and for all that cloud business is better business.

In order to perform their jobs to the best of their ability, your staff need to access mission-critical data in a moment’s notice. One of the best ways you can help your employees work their best is to ensure that any information they need to do their jobs is immediately available. Do you make this a priority, or deal with this issue as the problems arise?

What’s the best way to share files between your different personal devices and computers? It turns out that you can share files over your home’s network, and you don’t have to be an IT technician to do it.

There are countless ways to boost your productivity in the office… at least, that’s what the Internet says. How do you separate the productivity champs from the chumps? It’s simple, really; just look for the tried and true methods that have been backed by thorough research. One such study, performed by Julia Gifford of Draugiem Group, claims that workers can be more productive by not trying to do as much office work as possible.

The road down entrepreneurialism is a long and twisted path, full of pitfalls that can lead you astray. However, there’s one companion who will never forsake you, and that’s your morning cup of coffee. While you might feel like you can’t get anything done without your morning caffeine fix, it can be holding you back from achieving your maximum productivity.

Have you ever felt like you aren’t sure how to proceed, or how to get yourself out of a rut? You surely don’t want your competitors to know about your weak points, but you feel so much pressure that you might think twice about asking for tips of the trade. After all, a hand once in a while can make all of the difference. This is when you might consider outsourcing a consultant.

In business, you need to be competitive to experience growth. Otherwise, your competitors might catch up and surpass you when you least expect it. When your computer network is reliable, you can know with certainty that your employees are operating at optimal efficiency. For a small or medium-sized business, this can mean all the difference.

You pay your employees to come to the office and perform their daily duties, but how much of that time is actually being spent working? Every wasted minute cuts into your daily profits, which can waste countless minutes. If you want to get the most out of your team, there are several technology strategies that the modern business can take advantage of to maximize productivity.

We talk a lot about how downtime experienced from a technology issue like a server outage can destroy your company’s productivity. Yet, we’ve not distinguished between the different types of downtime, with the worst kind being pure and unadulterated downtime. What is pure downtime and how can you dilute it?

Technology grows more powerful and complex every day, and there have been increasing efforts to automate certain repetitive tasks. In the near future, we may be able to look at fully automated assembly lines. While most companies are concentrating on what this means for their budgets, automation could very well be a threat to jobs around the world.

A lot of today's companies are taking advantage of the money they can save by switching to an outsourced IT provider, but they all have their reasons. The reasons why they outsource their IT may vary by company, but there are always constants that can help you figure out what you should expect from your IT.

With the coming of spring, many people are taking the opportunity to get rid of all of the stuff they don't need anymore. As time goes on, you accumulate all sorts of junk that you probably don't even know you have. Sometimes it's a good idea to go through it all and see if you really need it - especially for your business's in-house IT department.

Multitasking is something that everyone prides themselves on, but cognitive psychologist Art Markman seems to think otherwise. He says, "you are your own worst judge of how good a multitasker you are," due to the same areas of the brain that monitor performance are the same areas that work with multitasking, making it nigh impossible to determine how well you are actually multitasking. Of course, multitasking is something that every good employee should learn how to do, as it can improve productivity significantly.