Washington Works Blog

For the modern business, ensuring that you have contingencies in place will go a long way toward keeping you in business if disaster strikes. One of the contingencies many businesses choose to make as part of a business continuity strategy is a disaster recovery plan. Disaster recovery is more than restoring data, it can mean mobilizing people and capital against time. Let’s take a look at two of the core components of a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy, Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective. 

You’ve heard it over and over for the past several years: data loss is a disaster. A data breach can ruin your business. Ransomware is a business’ biggest enemy. Your reputation can never recover after a data breach. These statements may be redundant, but if you don’t heed the message behind them, you will likely regret it. 

You know the phrase, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket?” 

The idiom comes from the novel Don Quixote, and is used as a lesson to not put all of your efforts and success on a single thing. For computing, we say it like this:

“Don’t put all of your data in only one place… or else.”

Cybersecurity is a big point of emphasis for the modern IT administrator. For the private business, it’s important for enough to be done in order to secure the business’ assets, and the integrity of the network itself. Unfortunately, when looking at public computing resources, there isn’t enough talent available to properly secure the systems that government entities rely on. 

Technology is a requirement in today’s businesses - but just having technology isn’t nearly enough. You need to make sure that you are performing the proper maintenance activities as well, to prolong the useful life of your solutions. Here, we’ll review a few basics to keeping your technology solutions ready for your use… and how we can help with that.

You may not think much about managing mobile data, but if your business routinely transmits sensitive data over the Internet, you should. Today, businesses of all types are using the Internet as a tool to drive their sales and marketing processes, but they don’t often consider the threats that come in when they use it for productivity. Today, we will go over what a Mobile Information Management solution is, and how to leverage it for your business. 

Controlling your organization’s data relies on keeping your network and computing infrastructure free from threats. Early detection allows your business to actively confront risks before they develop into major issues. However, threats are becoming more difficult to detect in early stages, and one hidden threat could doom your entire business. 

Gmail and the applications associated with it seem to have some level of inherent trust among users. We just don’t anticipate threats to come in via something from Google. However, it does happen, as a recent spat of phishing has shown using Gmail and Google Calendar. What’s worse, this particular scam has been around for some time.

One of the most - if not the most - critical resource your business relies upon is your workforce. Your employees are what keep your operations, well, operational. As a result, they are one of your most important resources to maintain as well. They are human beings, and without the correct treatment and management, even your best employee could burn out.

Traditionally, small businesses don’t use their data in the same way as larger companies. This is largely because they may not think they have a lot of data. Well, I’m here to tell you that even small businesses can have big data. Let’s go over three ways small business can use their data to their benefit.

The more time that passes the more files your business accumulates. These files need to be stored in a place where your staff has access to them. Since a lot of today’s work is collaborative, finding the right file sharing and collaboration solution is extremely important for the growing SMB. Today, we will tell you some things you need to do to maintain efficient file management systems.

With all the communication options available today, it can still be hard to beat the convenience and simplicity of the telephone. However, the phone is far from a perfect solution - it can be expensive, for one. However, what if there was a way for you to get a fully-featured telephone service with a variety of tools, without having to pay an arm and a leg?

When it boils down to it, there are really only two ways to operate a business: proactively, or reactively. While many businesses still rely on their reactivity to deal with their technology issues, the opposite approach is demonstrably more effective for the modern business. Let’s explore some of the effects that a proactive and reactive strategy can each have on your operations.

We typically use this blog to share information about the technology that a business should be leveraging - but in this blog, we’ve decided to focus on a different group that is increasingly reliant on technology: students. As these pupils will someday make up the workforce and almost certainly utilize technology on a daily basis, it is important that their education reflects this increase in their curriculums. Here, we’ll consider some of the effects (good and bad) that this has had.

Any business in operation today needs to keep modern realities concerning cybersecurity at top-of-mind if they are going to successfully maintain the business going forward. One major issue to be cognizant of is the increasing prevalence of phishing attacks.

Business communications, which is the succinct way to say the sharing of information between people both internal and external to a company, is a key player in that company’s success. Here, we’ll analyze the different types of communication that a business could leverage, and the solutions that best enable them.

The professional services space is filled with important information. Lawyers, accountants, doctors, and many more professionals have access to some of the very most personal information available. For this reason, they are continuously targeted by hackers. Since October is cybersecurity awareness month, we thought we would take a look at modern cybersecurity practices to see which ones were working best for professional services firms. 

There is no denying that the cloud has exploded into the fastest growing business computing method, and for good reason. The cloud has a plethora of options that are designed to meet the needs of the modern business. Today, we examine how your business can leverage the inexhaustible supply of cloud options. 

For a growing business, mobility has a distinct place. It isn’t all about using a phone for productivity, or having access to tools when you are out of the office, it is a philosophical decision to get the most out of your company’s data. Let’s look at the ways that enhanced mobility can benefit your professional services firm.

For decades, companies have been looking for an efficient way to manage their documents. For the longest time, the best way was to fill one side of an office with filing cabinets and file the documents away. With most of the workplace now being run by computers, and with hard costs at an all-time low, companies have begun to file all their new files on computer network.