With the masses now all working distantly, organisations have settled on the choice to bring gatherings and collaboration into the cloud. Skype for Business was king of the hill and the top system for associations wanting to communicate remotely. But no more, they have lost their crown,and Microsoft is slowly but surely phasing it out, which leaves everyone now pondering which system to use. So we take a look and give you an insight into which is maybe the best cloud based system for your business.
Currently, there are two main contenders for crown of cloud based systems. Yes, when it comes to video conferences and team collaboration, the big players are Microsoft Teams and Zoom. With the recent Covid pandemic restricting so many employees to their homes, these tools have become popular with businesses of all sizes. But, when it comes to determining which one is best for your and your business you need to assess them both.
The beauty with Teams is that it is part of Microsoft’s Office 365 platform. Teams easily integrates with Microsoft apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more. Teams makes it easy to collaborate with team members, partners and clients in any location around the globe. Not only can you hold video calls, but a team can work together live in real time on documents and projects.
With Microsoft Teams, you can have up to 250 people in one meeting! There is obviously a payment involved if you want more scope, but if your company (like most) already has an Office 365 subscription, then you already have access to Microsoft Teams and will probably have access to all it’s perks
Zoom has become the leader when it comes to video communications. As with Teams, Zoom is a highly popular communication tool for large and small businesses alike, along with being a favourite for individuals, too.
In recent months, Zoom has actually become more famous for the “Zoom-bombing.” that has been occurring. They do say the best form of publicity os scandal, and in Zooms case, this appears to be true.
However, the company has quickly reacted to these issues and has added additional security features. The other good thing that we like about Zoom, is it’s simplicity, and the free version is often more than suitable for a lot of smaller businesses
oth Teams and Zoom allow you to video call, conference call, hold online meetings, collaborate, chat, call, share files and more. The only real difference is that Teams is part of the Microsoft platform. This is great when you want to share files that are also made up in one of the Office 365 many tools, but as you can screen share on both and as you can easily email someone a file, this does not make it more a clear winner over Zoom.
When it comes to features, as mentioned Zoom is more user friendly. Plus, there’s no need to make the move from Skype for Business, Microsoft’s legacy meeting app.
Then there is the UI ( user Interface) Zoom is complimented for being user friendly, teams do not often receive this compliment.
If you already have a Microsoft account, you are probably used to how the systems work and Teams would not cause you much difficulty and as stated, if your business is already using Microsoft, it may not cost you anything as it will be part of your package.
Both Microsoft Teams and Zoom offer room environments. For instance, each tool allows you to create a meeting and then have “breakout rooms” that allow a team to be in one meeting but have separate discussions in various breakout rooms. This is proving to be highly popular with teachers and learners as it allows them to disband the students for breakout sessions and collaborate. It is slos worth noting that on the free version of Zoom, you can have up to 50 separate breakout rooms!
If you are going to be selecting your platform, purely based on expense then the pricing could be the key.
Zoom and Teams each offer free versions of their tools, and both offer additional features with their paid plans.
Zoom’s free version allows for up to 100 participants for meetings; however, the free version of the app only allows for 40 minutes on group meetings. This can be a problem if your meeting needs last longer. When the meeting’s cut after the 40-minute limit, then each participant must rejoin the meeting. Having said that, Zoom does allow for unlimited meetings between two people, and they provide online support and more.
Microsoft Team’s free version only allows for limited chats, collaboration, productivity tools, meetings, calls and security. There are also no administration tools in Teams and the tool doesn’t offer access to Microsoft support.
Actual plans are based on number of users ranging from around £10 per user on Teams and £11.99 on Zoom, neither require long term commitments though
If you want ease of use and can handle the holding calls and getting them completed within the 40 minutes, Zoom is a clear winner. But, Teams is there and easy if you already have the Microsoft package. It may take a little longer to get used to navigating but if it costs your business no more, then it is a winner.
At Systems-Integration, we have experience with all systems cloud based here to advise your business on which can help you maintain efficiency during these difficult times. please feel free to get in touch if you want any advice
Any of these events can have major impact to your business, resulting in lost revenue, or in some extreme cases, business closure. This can be avoided however if you think ahead and have the foreseight to be prepared for the unthinkable.
But…having a concrete business continuity plan (BCP) in place will help your business recover quickly after a disaster.
What is a Business Continuity plan (BCP)?
A BCP is a predefined set of protocols on how your business should respond in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. It contains contingency plans for every aspect of your organisation, including but not limited too, IT systems and support, human resources, assets, and business processes.
Knowing the Key threats to your business continuity
Various types of threats can affect SMEs such as:
Natural disasters – These are natural phenomena – For those that live in more tropical climates than Swindon and Wiltshire, these can include Earthquakes & widfires, but for our audience we will stick with the more realistic such as storms, flooding and building infrastructure damage.
Man-made disasters – These include cyberattacks/malware, intentional sabotage, and human negligence.
Equipment and utility failures – These include unexpected power failure, internet downtime, and disruption of communication services.
How to build an effective BCP
If your organisation does not have a BCP in place, now is a good time to put one together. These steps will help you formulate an effective BCP that will ensure that should a disater strike your business keeps running throughout the crises..
– 1 Business impact analysis (BIA)
A BIA will help you determine how a disruption can affect your company’s current functions and processes, such as personnel, equipment, technology, and physical infrastructure. This step will help you calculate the potential financial and operational loss from each function and process affected.
– 2 Recovery options
If disaster strikes, who and what will you need to get back on your feet? This step will help you identify key resources essential to returning your business to minimum operational levels. Some recovery options you can take include letting employees work from home or operating from a secondary location.
– 3 Plan development
This step involves identifying and assembling your company’s continuity team, which will be responsible for developing and implementing your BCP. Knowing who has what responibilities before hand will pay dividends in removing stress at the time of a disaster
– 4 Testing and training
Once your BCP is in place, your continuity team needs to perform regular tests to identify gaps and make necessary changes to ensure the plan’s effectiveness. They also need to conduct regular training for your employees so everyone knows their respective roles when a disaster strikes. Do not do what many business do, do not put a team in place and never let the, practise their skills. After all, you do not put a fire alarm in place and never test it.. Think of your BCP as your business fire alarm.
Having a fool proof BCP is a great way to ensure your business can quickly bounce back after a major business disaster.
If you’re thinking about creating a BCP for your company but don’t know where to start, please get in touch with us today. We have excellent disaster recovery packages that we can provide for your IT system and we can tell you about any other potential areas of fragility that may be present within your IT infrastructure.
In the last few months, the ‘working from home’ scenario has become quite common, and it is probably safe to say that it will be the norm for many of for the next few months at least.
For some, it may have taken a bit of adjusting; others perhaps always had a home office arrangement. Either way, under the current circumstances and with cyber criminals taking full advantage at the moment, we wanted to highlight some of the vulnerabilities home working can expose, not just for your employees but for your systems that they may be accessing whilst working remotely.
These are the most common bad practises that are happening more now than ever before.
For work meetings and for keeping in touch with people for sheer sanity during the current lockdown period, you may have downloaded applications such as Zoom or Houseparty. These apps are great in their function and keeping us connected but their security has been brought into question. Especially with Zoom recently as it has been shown that although this is a great app, it’s security hasn’t quite been up to scratch
It’s essential you protect your data by making sure your key business applications, such as Gmail and Office 365, use complex passwords unique to these applications only. Where possible, you should also consider 2-factor authentication: You can never be too protected.
You have to remember that if anyone gets hold of your Google account access, you can be in a world of pain – all it takes is the search ‘https://passwords.google.com/‘ and they will suddenly have access to all the passwords you have saved on the many sites you use. 2-factor authentication is not just a nice to have, but is really a necessity.
Many businesses have been struggling to acquire a sufficient number of laptops to allow all of their team to work at home. However, the worst thing you can do is reach for that dusty old laptop packed away in the loft.
Old equipment runs old operating systems. End-of-life systems like Windows-7, are no longer supported with security updates, leaving them wide open with loopholes hackers can easily exploit. Plugging in a Windows-7 PC or laptop at home and connecting via a VPN, is the same as plugging it in directly onsite, posing a huge risk to your entire business network. ensure your employees do not do it. Safer or better to invest in up to date kit than take the risk.
You will probably find that on a day-to-day home PC, the security installed is great for the odd bit of surfing or Ebay browsing, but is often substandard for business use. If you or any of your team are using personal PCs or laptops whilst working from home, it’s important to understand that any connecting device that is not running sufficient anti-virus software, is a weak link in your network security. Ensure your team know the risks involved, flipping from a potentially unsecure site to one of your business systems on the same browser is all that is needed to give you an almighty headache and explaining to clients. Hackers and virus’s are clever and this lockdown and WFH situation is giving them ample time to practise their skills.
Much like the anti-virus weakness, unpatched home working equipment poses a huge cyber security risk. If an unpatched user is compromised, dangerous malware or ransomware could spread like wildfire through your business, encrypting all your data and rendering it useless.
Make sure your patch management solution covers all remote clients and prompt your team to have their automatic updates on.
Familiarise yourself with the common cyber threats to look out for during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Smishing (Dodgy texts) and Phishing (Email Scams)
If your business doesn’t operate fully cloud-based systems and you and your team members are connecting using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) instead, your need to ensure your firewall needs is A+. Non-industry-leaders can provide solutions but these often cut-corners on your security.
Ensure your firewall is up to the job of offering high levels of encryption between home connections and your head office – you can’t afford to compromise. At Systems Integration we have the knowledge of the level of security that is needed to run these systems, so please feel free to ask for advice.
At Systems Integration we offer more than just IT Support, but we are committed to helping our current and future clients be aware of the risks when it comes to tasks such as working from home. So if you or your business have any concerns in these troubling times, please get in touch and ask – we are more than happy to help.
If you have Zoom or Microsoft teams, make use of the video function. We know that sometimes it may be nice to sit in your pants all day and not do your hair, but you do not want this to be the usual day to day life working remotely scenario. If people are encouraged to use the cams and be seen, it will help them get into a routine, plus during meetings, as we all know, it is far easier to read a person’s facial reactions and convey your sentiment if you’re able to see each other. If you’re worried about the messy the wallpaper in the background not being modern or the picture on the wall, looking out of place, use the magic background blur button on Microsoft teams or the background change function on Zoom. this was you know that all focus is on you.
Even if you are working remotely, you need to ensure that yourself and your team are focused and available. Even if you think you look available and online, as you can with them, your colleagues will be able to tell if you’re not as focused or productive as usual.
That said, we’re all more productive when we take regular breaks and this is even more important when working from home. If you’re taking a break, let your team know by setting a message in your status to let them know when you’ll be back online. That way you and your team know that it is your time to focus on other thing and need that away time.
Make sure your team members have everything they need – Can they access folders/files that they need? Have they got Microsoft Teams for conference calls, instant messaging, collaborating and sharing documents? Do they need Microsoft Planner for organising and managing our productivity? If they do need these tools you need to ensure they know how to use them and are familiar with them. This could come in the form of cloud-based solutions like Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, or using a VPN to access your on-premise business-critical systems.
As ever Systems Integration are here to support you with your IT requirements, whether its installation of a new software, advice on the best and most suitable hardware for remote working or even help with your remote working model? With 40% of our current clients suddenly finding themselves working remotely, we know a thing or two about setting up a remote working model that works for everyone. If you need support in setting up a successful remote working model, get in touch with our experts today.
