Your business depends on a budget to come out in the black at the end of the fiscal year, and the way you invest that budget will have a considerable impact. As you create this budget, your IT needs to be one of your top considerations - after all, it is what effectively powers the modern business. Here, we’ll discuss how diligently incorporating your IT into your budget can help your business be more successful down the line.

The cloud has proven to be an extremely useful tool for the modern business. Not only does it provide anywhere-anytime access to applications, processing, storage, et al; it also delivers those products as a service, allowing you to budget for recurring costs rather than major upfront ones. This provides your organization with functional, supported, and secure computing environments that eliminate a lot of the support costs that traditional computing environments require. It sounds like a perfect scenario for small and large businesses alike, but things aren’t always what they seem, as a lot of cloud users have found that they have incurred several hidden costs by using cloud platforms. Today, we take a look at these hidden costs.

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.

If we asked you to think of a business technology that doesn’t take advantage of the cloud in some capacity, would you be able to come up with one? Cloud computing has become a part of almost every business endeavor, and for good reason. SMBs can leverage the cloud for any number of services or solutions, including email, data storage, server virtualization, and so much more.

The cloud is a great way to make services and solutions available to your employees anytime, anywhere. There are now plenty of ways to leverage out the cloud for the benefit of your business. Here are four such ways:

Running a business is challenging, especially when it comes to juggling your assets and your IT budget. That’s not even mentioning managing your workforce, or delegating tasks out to those who are qualified to perform them. While you’re busy with all of these responsibilities, chances are that there will always be one task within your organization that’s better handled by a professional: your IT management.

The traditional telephone system has been a staple in the office for decades. However, your typical landline telephone system hasn’t aged well, and has been left relatively useless in the wake of better, more flexible solutions, that are designed to save your business money. Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is a great tool that can be used to improve your business’s ability to grow.

Sometimes when your workstation feels bogged down, a relatively cheap and simply hardware update can make a huge difference in performance. Adding more RAM (Random Access Memory, often just referred to as memory) can be a game changer for your bogged down PC.

Saving a little on your technology can go a long ways, but cutting too many corners can lead to additional problems and expensive downtime. Here are a few ways you can cut costs without creating long term issues.