Washington Works Blog

Technology improves a lot of things, especially when it is used to make something that is usually time-consuming and difficult less so. One aspect of life that is changing rapidly is the financial services sector. Finance, banking, insurance, and other industries that would be tabbed as financial services have embraced mobile technology for its ease of use and efficiency. The development of computer applications that make it easier to invest, diviest, and manage financial services and money are becoming prevalent throughout society. Let’s take a look at FinTech.

Business analytics are a growing field, as all businesses can see benefits to their operations through the optimized performance and decision making that these kinds of analytics enable. Let’s go over business analytics, and how they can be used to your advantage when applied to your technology.

For a while there, blockchain was a buzzword that you would hear about constantly. It was the future of data security and secure online transactions. As 2020 has pointed our attention elsewhere, you’ve heard less and less about blockchain technology. Today, we’ll take a look at what some of the most innovative companies are doing with distributed encrypted networks,

How confident are you that your business could survive a data disaster of any size and scale, from a single misplaced file to a complete loss of your entire onsite infrastructure? Being prepared to recover from any version of events is key to your business’ success. Let’s discuss this concept, which is widely known as IT resilience.

Every person has documents that they need access to, so it stands to reason that a business has hundreds. If you and your staff are tired of sifting through dingy file cabinets to find that the document that should be in a certain place, isn’t, considering a document management system may be right for you. Today we will give you five good reasons why moving to document management can be a benefit for your business. 

Wasting time is a big concern in any business, and this is one place where the Internet can potentially hurt as much as it helps. Of course, it does still help, as the Internet is where many of today’s business tools are accessed. How can you ensure that your team is spending their time working, rather than on social media or other distracting websites?

As an owner of a small business, there are a whole lot of issues that you have to confront every day. Besides the normal issues, there are always situations that pop up without warning. When your business is small and more easily manageable, they are easier to steer one way or another When your business starts growing rapidly, however, turning things around can get more difficult. This can turn into roadblocks to progress. Today, we will look at some of the issues that a small business owner will encounter when their business grows fast.

If you are an entrepreneur, changing the way that you look at your business can be pretty difficult. Many businesses start out with not much more than a ray of hope, so if your business is doing well, you must be doing something right. When demand makes you think bigger, your technology spend becomes a major priority. Let’s take a look at some of the changes a growing business has to make. 

A lot of people never stop and consider how their data is saved. It’s something we all have, from old photos of our family vacations to the files kept on the server back at the office, but not many people know the actual mechanics behind it. Today, we wanted to go over these specifics, and hopefully make it clear why we always advocate for backup practices.

While all a business’ technology solutions are important, some are bound to take priority over the others, especially when certain ones become an industry-wide focus. A recent survey evaluated the top concerns of small-to-medium-sized businesses for the coming year. The results of the survey identified a few telling trends regarding the priorities that SMBs hold now, and for good reason.

The Internet has never been more valuable than it is today. Over the past couple of months tens of millions of students have been introduced to telelearning, millions of businesses have promoted telework, people are meeting with their friends online, and consuming content from their living rooms (or their home offices) at rates never before seen. So what about security? Today we’ll take a look at how all this use is changing the Internet. 

Social distancing has more or less confined many to their homes, and so many people have begun to adopt remote working to stay busy and to keep their workplaces operational. One way to assist these activities, VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) is a massively helpful tool that many businesses use. Here, we’re going over why this is.

We’ll begin by reviewing the current situation.

A virtual private network (also known as a VPN) is something that more and more businesses are using, especially now while most of the workforce is now working from home. As a means of encrypting data while it is in transit, the use of a VPN enables you to transmit assorted types of data more safely. Of course, not all VPNs are the same, and so you need to be careful to select the right solution for your needs.

Technology can be complicated, and it doesn’t help when all you hear is an alphabet soup of acronyms used to describe it. As professionals, this kind of jargon has become a second language to us and it is easy to forget that not everyone will recognize these acronyms. For your reference, we’ve assembled some common ones you’ll probably hear us use.

Data is one of a business’ most important assets, and as such, it needs to be kept in such a way that it remains organized and utilizable. This has led to widespread use of databases in businesses, which has necessitated the use of database management systems. Let’s take a closer look at these systems, and why they are so crucial.

Remote monitoring and management software helps businesses of all sizes avoid issues of equally variable sizes, which is why it is a key facet of the managed IT service model. We wanted to review some of the ways that it benefits the managed service provider, and as a result, benefits our clients.

It is apparent that Google is deeply invested in the G Suite, as they recently added an assortment of features to make basic processes much simpler and more convenient for their users. Here, we’ll go over a few of these updates, and how they can positively influence your operations.

It wasn’t too long ago when the idea of video conferencing was a very complicated one. The technology just wasn’t there to make it a major benefit for companies. As conferencing technology has been innovated upon, however, it now presents a laundry list of substantial benefits. Let’s take a look at some benefits you can see by moving to video-driven meetings. 

Augmented reality has been one of the most cited emerging technologies for the past few years. It was the technology that was supposed to fuel Google Glass, the failed attempt at creating a pair of revolutionary smart glasses. Since then, there hasn’t been much press about AR in the mainstream media and not much is known about major tech companies’ attempts to improve AR technology. 

How often do you find a message in your SMS inbox that has clearly come from a business, but you almost have to wonder, simply because the incoming number seems to be randomized? Google has taken notice of this challenge, and so has rolled out a means for businesses to confirm that they are in fact the ones sending a particular message.