Techworks Consulting, Inc. Blog

We’d be the first to admit it—some of the topics we discuss may seem to be inaccessible to small and medium-sized businesses nowadays, bordering on science fiction. For instance, let’s consider the topic of artificial intelligence in business.

Do you realize how much paper you use each year? Do you realize how much paper you have stored in your office? Do you realize that none of that is necessary? Today, digital filing systems as a part of a document management strategy can keep you from wasting your business’ resources on paper, filing, and printing. Here’s how:

Whether you’re referring to an individual’s personal needs or their work-related responsibilities, the Internet has become an essential component to most processes. Unfortunately, financial limitations often make sufficient connectivity unattainable for many. This is why the Federal Communications Commission stepped in last month to provide some assistance.

As most people know, data backup is important, and when things go wrong you’ll be glad your business has it. The thing is, it’s not enough to have a copy of your data when you need to restore it, you’ll also need a recovery strategy. This is because getting your data back working for you is arguably as important as any other part of the process. Today, we’ll take a look at data recovery strategies that will get your business back on track after a disaster.

Human resources (HR) may not get the attention that many other parts of your business do, but it remains important. HR plans and coordinates most of the administrative issues of a business. They deal with onboarding and offboarding personnel, are a big part of a business’ strategic planning, and function as a bridge between a business’ workers and its decision makers. With all that responsibility, HR can sometimes get bogged down with work, putting a business behind. 

With so much time being spent in email, and Gmail holding a 33.7 percent market share, it should come as no surprise that many businesses wouldn’t mind it if a little less time were spent in Gmail if possible. As it happens, one of the most frustrating expenditures of your time—rewriting similar emails repeatedly—can be eliminated by creating Gmail templates.

Nothing will annoy tech-savvy people more than listening to someone that basically doesn't know what they are talking about, but uses technology jargon to seem like they do. It’s pretty confusing for the non-technical too. This annoyance is largely due to the gap between using words and understanding complex and detailed technology processes. So, while there is some respect given to people who work to understand the terminology, most of the time, it’s just too much.

Healthcare is a hot-button issue regardless of where you live. As a result you’d think that the industry would be one of the first to implement new information technology. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry has sometimes lagged behind other industries on the deployment of new IT tools. One technology that is being used in the development of new IT tools for healthcare is blockchain. Let’s discuss how blockchain technology is being utilized and how it can change the face of patient care going forward.

For a very long time, Apple has been requested to share a workaround for their platform security with law enforcement, which the company has refused outright. Their argument has been that doing so would inherently undermine their lauded security. Well, the feds have given up asking, because they went ahead and developed a workaround themselves… and in doing so, have revealed that iOS isn’t quite as secure as it was purported to be.

While a lot of the focus on any business’ use of technology may be on its front-facing solutions, there’s a lot to be said about the technology solutions that power these businesses behind the scenes. Let’s consider a few ways that businesses are benefiting from automating some of these background processes.

Within Google Workspace is Google Docs, a useful word processing solution that can be accessed through your web browser. In case you’re new to using Google’s productivity software, we have decided to assemble a short introduction to some of Google Docs’ most useful tools and features.

Everyone knows that printing is costly. They come from nearly every direction: paper, ink, machines that seemingly always need some type of maintenance, the list of costs goes on and on. Some businesses, looking to get away from rising printing costs, and from paper files in general, are starting to do their best to eliminate printing and filing costs. Let’s take a brief look at how going paperless can save your organization money in the long run.

Boosting collaboration is a central theme to many companies' operational strategies. The more that people can do as a team, the less costly operations have to be. That is a sound business strategy. Today, many businesses are looking to software to build a successful collaborative situation. Let’s take a look at three such apps that, if used properly, will help any business boost their team’s ability to work together. 

It's no secret that small businesses are facing one of the toughest periods in decades. The COVID-19 pandemic and many other issues have made them change the way they approach operations, sales, and other aspects of their businesses. Today, they need to explore more strategies that can support customers who also have had to adapt. Today, we’ll talk about a couple of the trends we expect to see in IT in 2021. 

Artificial intelligence can be used in numerous different ways, but one way you might not have anticipated is as a means of making sure people on the Internet mind their manners. Rude and inappropriate comments are remarkably common online, so it stands to reason that many companies and developers are looking for ways to minimize them. Let’s look at what some have implemented, utilizing artificial intelligence to their advantage.

2020 has been a rough year for a lot of people. With so many problems presenting themselves this year, technology wasn’t immune. This week, we thought we would look back at some of the technology that failed miserably as the world changed precipitously. 

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony is a common technology amongst modern businesses for their communication needs. Let’s go over how VoIP functions and how it can benefit your company.

Today, most businesses (and homes) depend on their Wi-Fi. It provides a lot more flexibility and value than a wired connection in many instances simply because people use a lot of wireless devices today. Today’s wireless internet is easier to install, is faster than ever, and works to protect network security better than ever before, once it is set up correctly. Today, we’ll give you a few tips you should know on how to successfully implement a Wi-Fi platform. 

Social media has turned out to be a culture-defining technology. The massive amounts of people that use the services each week, and the large amount of time people spend on these platforms, makes them important resources for the lion’s share of businesses. The fact that the average user spends around two hours and 24 minutes per day perusing their social media gives businesses opportunities that weren’t available to them only a few short years ago. Today, we thought we would give you a look at how different sizes of SMBs utilize this technology. 

With smartphones becoming more expensive every year, the top offerings from major manufacturers price some out of the market. This provides an opportunity for these companies to offer budget smartphones to a growing market of people who don’t want to drop a $1,000 on a new phone. Today, we discuss options from Samsung, Google, and Apple that can be had for a fraction of the cost of today’s flagship smartphones.