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5 Lessons We’ve Learned About Remote Work

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 10:16:21 +0000

If one was to capture 2020 in a single word, “unprecedented” would be a fairly solid pick. The rippling effects of the coronavirus pandemic have transformed all aspects of life, with how we work being one of the most salient.

Case in point: at the start of the year, 4.7 million Americans (3.4% of the working population) worked remotely. Just three months later, at the height of lockdown, 34% of Americans who previously went into the office every day were now working from home.

The Overnight Shift to WFH

This unprecedented shift is remarkable for its incredible pace, not so much the direction. Even before the pandemic accelerated the move from the office, remote work was on an upward trajectory with 159% growth since 2005. It’s estimated that by 2025, the majority of the workforce (at least 70%) will work remotely for at least one full business week each month.

At all levels of the corporate hierarchy, from admins up to CEO's, 2020 has represented a massive work-from-home experiment. As much of a rollercoaster as these last few months have been, the rapid shift to WFH offers a unique glimpse into the future of work, and to better prepare companies and their employees for life after the office.

The overnight shift to WFH marks the first time many employees have had to find ongoing and sustainable ways to work together while apart - and as a whole, teams are not doing too badly: according to a global survey of office employees during the pandemic, 68% said they’ve been “very successful” working from home. Employees are equally satisfied with their work activity performance at home compared to the office, and 70% of leaders say their teams are performing the same or better from home.

The Future of Remote Work

These positive assessments of remote work are quite remarkable given that workplaces were forced to transform themselves overnight and without much warning. Sentiments about working from home have likely improved as teams adapted to working remotely and refined the processes and tools by which they do so.

Given that remote work is here to stay, it’s worth looking at the experiences of the last few months to evaluate what we’ve learned about remote work so far as well as find ways to make remote work even better moving forward.

Without further ado, here are five lessons we’ve learned about remote work in 2020.

1. It can be hard for employees to disconnect

Fear that employees would slack off was once many managers’ primary objection to working from home. As it turns out, the opposite is true. Since the start of lockdowns, employees at home averaged 48.5 more minutes of work every day.

But that may not be the win it appears to be. Nearly half of workers also report feeling more burnt out. To combat this, businesses need to make it a priority to help employees maintain work-life balance, even when the lines between home and office are blurred.

2. Projects can easily get lost or buried

It’s easy to take for granted the built-in ways with which employees share information in office settings. An ability to quickly touch base in-person (on the way back from making a coffee) helped employees prioritise their projects and provided a unified sense of momentum. When everyone works separately, projects can all too easily become lost or buried.

The solution lies in increased visibility. To prevent key projects from falling off, all people involved need ways to easily access and share key documents and information, as well as project management and collaboration tools that make it easy to track progress.

3. Remote employee silos happen without communication

Whether within a team or across departments, silos occur when colleagues don’t communicate with each other about what they’re working on. And when the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing, it can be costly for businesses.

Silos often result in duplicated work, blind spots, and other major business risks - and they’re more likely to occur when visibility is lacking, such as when everyone is working from home. Effective communication and collaboration, however, can help cure employee silos both formal (status meetings, progress reports) and informal (making it easy for workers to discuss work on the fly).

RingCentral offers a constant communication channel(s).

4. WFH improves many aspects of work but makes others harder

WFH does not have a universal effect on work - in fact, it improves some aspects of working while making others more of a challenge.

According to the Global Work from Home Experience Survey, homebound employees have a significantly easier time managing distractions and disruptions, and doing the sort of deep-thinking work that relies on this increased focus. But with fewer opportunities to interact organically, collaboration and a sense of connection drops off.

To get the most out of working from home, businesses need to find ways to continue to protect employees’ ability to work without distraction when it makes sense - but to also better enable seamless connectivity between workers and teams for tasks that require it.

5. It’s difficult (but possible) to recreate the organic collaboration that happens in the office

When it comes to teamwork when working from home, it’s not all bad news. Though remote work has been seen to fare worse than office environments when it comes to needs like getting timely information and collaborating with others, the results aren’t actually bad at all: six in 10 employees, a majority of workers, rate their ability to perform these activities from home positively.

This suggests that organic collaboration is possible when teams work remotely - but workers might need a little more help to do so. Setting up virtual “drop-in” office hours for managers, regular face-to-face team chats, and finding other ways to electronically recreate the easy communication that occurs in the workplace are key to fostering organic collaboration at home.

Communication and collaboration in the WFH era

What these lessons have in common is the theme of communication and collaboration. In a WFH world, the right tech becomes more than a communication tool - it’s the foundation upon which all work happens. This underscores the need for technology that’s accessible, seamless, and doesn’t create new challenges when it comes to helping employees connect with one another to get the job done.

A unified communications solution such as RingCentral helps to relieve many of the pain points employees encounter while they work from home. RingCentral combines team messaging, video conferencing, and cloud phone into a single platform, allowing employees to choose how, where, and when they want to collaborate. By breaking down the barriers to workplace communications, remote teams can master collaboration regardless of where they work and take productivity to new heights.

Combine it with our other favourite product, G Suite, and enjoy your new super powers.

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Datasheet

Written in collaboration with RingCentral©.

Why you should Purchase G Suite from a Google Partner

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 18:01:16 +0000

These days, talk about digitalisation and ‘the cloud’ is constant and urgent. In our ever-globalising and ever-innovating world, the opportunities to harness cloud technology and use it to fuel growth are endless (just check out some of our previous blogs posts on cloud); but the idea of cloud technology in a business can also be daunting to manage.

Ostratto wants to help companies not only keep their heads above water during such a time of digitalisation, but unlock their maximum potential (and sail?). As a proud Google Cloud Partner and official reseller of Google Cloud services, we supply G Suite licenses at the same price as Google, but with additional services. Here are a few of the many reasons why taking advantage of a Google Partner can be a massive advantage for any business.

1. Same buck, more bang

By partnering with a Google Cloud Partner, you pay the same price for your licenses as you would buying directly from Google, but you get additional benefits, for free (yes free). The services are customisable for your business’s specific needs but they can include:

A security audit
A training workshop for your IT team
Implementation – existing business or new
User data migrations from existing systems
A combination package

Google Cloud Partners exist to act as a bridge between what can seem like a 'big scary Google' and a small business. We know our clients' businesses better than Google would ever be able to and that's a huge advantage for both the small business and Google. We identify the best support package that will not only improve how you utilise Google G Suite, but enhance all aspects of your business operations, keeping you efficient and ahead of your competition.

2. A friendly face

A businesses internal IT team may be able to blunder their way through a G Suite setup but what happens when things go wrong?

With a GCP Partner in your corner, the days of navigating the complexities of the cloud alone are over. In order to become a certified reseller, businesses must hold a rigorous set of prerequisites; these include passing a series of Google Cloud certifications and also having real-world proven experience with the products. To maintain our status we have to resit the certifications regularly and we're also expected to keep up-to-date with everything Google. When you partner with a qualified reseller like Ostratto, you really do gain access to years of experience with Google Cloud technologies and processes.

Having passed all the stringent prerequisites we then gain access to an advanced, prioritised level of support because it's expected we won't be asking the 'simple' questions. We can then use this level of support to get answers to the questions we haven't been asked before - all whilst the end customer only deals with one person whom they can trust to help.

Included in any basic resale of Google G Suite is a basic support package - perfect for the 'how do I do this' sorts of questions. Pair this with our support package and expect a truly empowered Google experience.

3. Put it on my tab please barman

One of the many benefits we offer to our clients is a single monthly bill. As we offer a range of various services and products we really focus on simplifying the recurring costs by billing one bill a month instead of a separate bill for each charge. It might seem a simple benefit but with the average medium-sized business spending $20,000 per month on SaaS tools, being able to consolidate multiple vendor bills into one predictable, itemised payment makes cashflow just a tad more manageable.

When you purchase GCP services through Ostratto, you can enjoy simple automatic card payments with pro-rata'd user costs automatically applied for you. You can then view your previous and current payments on our billing portal for your Google services along with any other services you receive from us. I can already see your billing department thanking you.

4. Value, maximised

Nobody likes to waste time or money. When businesses use the expertise of a GCP reselling partner like Ostratto, they can be confident that they’re getting the most value out of Google Cloud products. We help businesses identify and eliminate inefficiencies in their workloads, giving them more time to focus on using Google Cloud tech to drive direct value for their business.

There’s also no need to allocate extra time and staffing to train a new team member on the ins and outs of the cloud - most of your team have probably already used Google's services and anyway, that’s what we’re here for.

Passing comments

These are the most obvious reasons to purchase via a GCP partner like us but there are many more. If you’re interested in learning more about how Ostratto can make your cloud journey easier, we’d be happy to talk.

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Why We Love G Suite

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 21:00:28 +0000

We use (and provide) a multitude of different SaaS products here at Ostratto to keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes and to improve the productivity of the business. Although I have a lot of weird love for all of the services we use, my favourite and one I couldn't live without is G Suite.

Yes one could say we are albeit biased but I'm not afraid to come right out and say it’s by far the best all-in-one business services solution on the market right now. It's affordable, easy to use and super powerful.

Today we’ll dive into the unparalleled benefits of G Suite, why we use it and recommend it to all of our partners, and how it compares to other similar solutions on the market.

Contents

What is G Suite?

Gmail

Calendar

Drive

Docs, Sheets and Slides

Google Meet

Admin

Unparalleled Benefits of G Suite

Familiarity

Uptime

Affordability

Security

How to Move to G Suite

Let Ostratto do it for you

Other options

What is G Suite?

G Suite is Google’s suite of intelligent apps. This was formerly known as Google Apps, till it was re-branded in late 2016. We primarily recommend G Suite for clients that are needing email hosting for their business. However, G Suite is much more than just email. It also includes a variety of apps and features that can come in quite handy. In fact, you’re probably already using or are familiar with some of them.

G Suite has three different plans you can purchase - Basic, Business and Enterprise. We utilise the Business G Suite plan at Ostratto. This starts at just £9.20/user/month. For many of you, the basic plan is probably all you’ll ever need and that starts at £4.60/user/month. We have a much fuller breakdown of the individual G Suite system features on our product pages but here's a quick summary of our favourite features.

Gmail

According to a Litmus study, Gmail leads the way as the most popular email client, with a whopping 27.8% of the market share based on open rates. It’s no surprise as Gmail has been around since 2004 and now boasts over 1.2 billion users. One of the best things about G Suite is you basically get an enhanced ad-free version of the online email client you’re probably already using.

G Suite essentially allows your employees to have their own Gmail accounts with email addresses with your business domain name (example: tim@yourbusiness.co.uk). A very small business with one or two users might be able to get away with free Gmail accounts and some alias forwarding rules. But once you start hiring two or three employees, you’ll find yourself needing accounts that can be managed separately. It's the difference between looking like a new small business, or established and professional - we even wrote about it a couple blog posts back.

Calendar

I absolutely could not live without a calendar. Knowing when I have a client call or whether I have an important project milestone upcoming is totally essential. Google Calendar is a feature-packed calendar provided as part of G Suite and it will help you keep your schedule organised.

One of the great things about using Google Calendar in G Suite is the ability to create multiple calendars that are accessible to everyone in your business (or just a few users). For example, you might want a group calendar for events like team holidays and regular meetings. Having all your employees attached to the same business makes tasks like these even easier when compared to the free Google Calendar version.

One of the other cool features you get with Google Calendar once you go to the Business tier and upwards, is the ability to add conference calling features to an event. No messing around in separate products, you simply add video conferencing to the event and all attendees get an invite with join in details as well as a voice dial-in number if they aren't going to make the video call.

Google Drive

Drive allows you to allows you to store, access and share your files in one secure place. You then have easy access to them from any device. G Suite Basic plans come with 30GB of storage for every employee. G Suite’s Business and Enterprise editions provide unlimited storage so you will always have enough space for your files. We think that's pretty cool and I really have put it to the test with over 8TB and counting in a shared drive (we love movies what can I say).

If you haven’t used Google Drive before, one of the best things I like about it is the amazing search functionality. I mean it does make sense - Google do know a thing or two about search technology. No more rummaging around deep in folders, you can easily find what you’re looking for, no matter how disorganised you are.

Shared Drives are also very neat. You can create shared drives for projects, departments or teams so that it's easier to find that shared information with sharing multiple folders with each other. It also means that the classic business situation of a user leaving the company and nobody being able to access their shared important files. You can choose certain levels of access for team members - view, edit or manager roles provide set permission levels.

Docs, Sheets and Slides

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides pretty much speak for themselves. Fully fledged document processing, a spreadsheet tool and presentation suite all reside directly in the G Suite system without any software downloads needed. Should your internet connection not be available, you can still work offline and your changes are automatically synced when you connect back to the world.

Import documents to make them instantly editable, including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PDF files (.docx, .doc, .pdf, .rtf, .txt, xlsx, .csv, .html, .ods). You can even collaborate and comment on Microsoft Office files without it having to automatically convert to Google’s format - great when you are working with Microsoft Office-based customers.

You can also export to common third-party formats which makes it easy to collaborate with other individuals or companies and send files back and forth, without ever needing to install or purchase additional software.

One of the best features of Google Work Suite is the real-time commenting and unlimited versions. Previous versions are kept indefinitely and they don’t count toward your storage. This makes it super easy to track changes made to a document or undo a mistake. Sharing documents with your coworkers or other individuals is also incredibly easy.

Google Meet

What better way to meet a new client instantly than jumping on a video call. Google Meet provides an easy and secure way to handle video calling without leaving your business system. All versions of G Suite, Basic, Business and Enterprise provide the product with 100, 150 and 250 participant limits respectively - generally way more than we have ever needed.

Participants can also share screen content, or when they are using Google Chrome, a single browser tab, which is pretty neat when you need to show somebody something. The Enterprise version also allows users to record their meetings to re-watch.

Calls are crisp, reliable and secure - our key desirables in any communication product ultimately.

Google Admin

The Admin console for G Suite is the like mission-control. It lets business owners easily manage everything from one single place. Do everything from adding new users and groups, configuring business apps, manage devices, configure security settings (like 2-factor authentication) and add new custom domains for your business which can be used for Gmail.

Now with the admin console being the admin console, only administrators can access the wealth of configuration available. Users can be provided different administrative levels via roles, so that only the relevant parts of the admin console can be access by users.

Unparalleled Benefits of G Suite

Although there are alternatives - Microsoft 365 and Zoho to name a few - there are some unparalleled benefits to G Suite which we are yet to see overcome. Here's a few.

Familiarity

One of the greatest benefits of going with G Suite for your business is that most of your employees are probably already used to using products like Gmail for email and Google Docs. This makes the transition much easier for your business and ensures you don’t have to waste time explaining to new hires how to utilise company tools; unlike Zoho or Office 365 where there might be more explanation needed.

G Suite also has the best compatibility on mobile devices compared to any other email provider. It works pretty much everywhere which certainly saves time troubleshooting with your users.

Uptime

When it comes to uptime, Google is one of the best when it comes to reliability. If you want to dig into the technical details, G Suite offers a 99.9% Service Level Agreement (SLA) for covered services, and in recent years they’ve actually exceeded that. Also due to the fact that email is such an important part of every business, G Suite has no scheduled downtime or maintenance windows. All of their data centres are built with redundant infrastructure.

But just like any service, they can never be up 100% of the time. Therefore, you can always bookmark the G Suite status dashboard or follow us on our social platforms for updates on all of their products.

It's Extremely Affordable

There are other providers out there that are cheaper, such as Zoho, and don't get us wrong, Zoho offer a truly excellent service too. However, just as we often advise our partners - certain technical aspects of your business you should absolutely not cheap out on. Your business email is one of those areas. Having an email host that you can rely on can save you money down the road.

Here’s a look at G Suite’s pricing and what’s included in each plan - you can drill further down into this here, but here's a brief overview:

For everything that G Suite includes - this really is a steal.

G Suite is secure, really secure

When it comes to security, Google really don't play around. The product is built on some of the most secure infrastructure on earth. It’s trusted by some of the biggest companies in the world; such as HP, Verizon, Whirlpool, and Salesforce. As Google says, they are leading with a “security-first mindset.” They have industry-leading knowledge and expertise backing each and every one of their products, including G Suite. They have a very thorough white-paper which covers some of the measures they take which you can read here.

Some of their certifications:

How to Move to G Suite

If you have read up to this point and you are keen to get started with G Suite then that's awesome - you are making a good decision. Get ready to work smarter.

We are partnered with G Suite. This means we provide setup services for our clients using our wealth of knowledge on the product. We then offer support plans after the initial commission.

There are a few options of migration depending on where you are coming from and how technically versed you are.

Let Ostratto do it for you

The best way to move over to G Suite is to let us handle it for you. We have handled many migrations from various legacy systems with ease and we can help you today. Don't make the mistake of handling the migration yourself and losing years of important business data - it's simply not worth it.

For a quick quote or for more details on our migration and setup services just get in touch, I'm excited to chat with you and I'll try not to nerd out too hard.

Other Options

That being said, Google have provided extensive documentation on migration methods from various sources and if you are feeling technically confident then be sure to check out their guides:

In Closing

So there we are, a quick overview of why we go on about G Suite so much. Hopefully it's been of use to you and provided a half-decent run-through for you. If you have any questions about the product or if you want to get started today, just holla at us.

Get Started with G Suite

COVID-19: Our Favourite Remote-working Tools

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 13:02:41 +0000

Whether your business had already implemented remote-working ideologies or it's all very new to your business, it's definitely been a general-culture shock to the working world. Businesses that never thought they could work from home are now embracing wonderful and sometimes whacky ways to get their work done remotely, sometimes whilst even compromising security (yes Zoom we are talking about you).

Our partners are generally well equipped already. More than 80% of what Ostratto helps our partners' businesses with, resides on cloud technology. That's smart business solutions that are accessible from anywhere at anytime.

For the businesses that we don't yet have a relationship with, firstly; welcome(!) and secondly; this article is for you. It's a quick run through of our favourite tools that will help you conduct your business from pretty much anywhere.

We'll firstly break it down a bit into some sub-categories of the products we offer today. Select to jump to the sections:

Communication Collaboration Productivity

Looks uncomfortable. Credit: unsplash

Communication

Communication during these tricky times is absolutely vital. It's the difference between a happy and productive worker and a very unhappy unmotivated one. Here's some of our favourite communication tools.

Google Meet

Video meetings for your business. Meet takes the headaches out of joining a video call at work. Just set up a meeting and share a link. No worrying about whether teammates, clients, or customers have the right accounts or plug-ins. With a fast, lightweight interface and smart participant management, 100 + person video calls are a breeze.

Meet is perfect for keeping connected with your team and your customers from one product, and it comes included in the G Suite package as standard.

Google Chat

A messaging platform built for teams. Hangouts Chat makes it easy for teams to stay in contact with instant messaging. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate easily and efficiently. With dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time — plus threaded conversations — Chat makes it simple to track progress and follow up tasks. Chat currently supports 28 languages and each room can support up to 8,000 members.

RingCentral

RingCentral is our preferred cloud phone solution. Get an all-inclusive business phone system with online meetings, messaging, and more. Integrated perfectly into your business systems, you can expect big business benefits without the high cost and complexity. Your teams will have all the accessibility they need to seamlessly communicate and collaborate from anywhere, becoming more productive, effective, and efficient as a result. You can host video meetings with up to 1000 participants too - which is pretty cool.

We love it because it's super reliable and it provides a one-stop shop for all business communications.

Zoho Campaigns

Email marketing software that drives sales. Create, send, and track email campaigns that help you build a strong customer base. From beautiful email templates to an easy-to-use editor, and automation tools to real-time analytics, Zoho Campaigns has it covered.

We use this to keep in touch with all of our partners with ease, updating them on the current situation and also providing regular tips on staying productive.

Collaboration

Even the most communicative team still need ways of collaborating effectively. If your team is still saying 'are you done with that spreadsheet as I need to make edits', then this category is for you. It's 2020 and things have changed now, you old-timer you.

Google Docs

Create and edit documents directly in your browser – no dedicated software required. Several people can work at the same time, and every change is saved automatically. Work on a single document with team members or people outside your company. See edits as others type, communicate through built-in chat and ask questions by including comments.

It really is powerful word editing, made simple and accessible with the power of the cloud. It comes with even the most basic version of G Suite.

Google Sheets

Collaborative, smart, secure spreadsheets for fast-moving organisations. Sheets was designed with the needs of agile organisations in mind. As Sheets is cloud-based, it enables you to collaborate with anyone, anytime, anywhere. It's built on top of Google’s infrastructure, which gives you the freedom to create, while helping to keep your information secure.

Again, no software to install and super simple to use.

Google Slides

Slides is Google's offering of a presentation tool. It allows you to create and edit polished presentations in your browser – no software required. Several people can work at the same time so that everyone always has the latest version. It helps you to make your ideas shine with a variety of presentation themes, hundreds of fonts, embedded video, animations, and more. All included in G Suite.

Productivity

Productivity is often the measure of a successful migration to remote-working strategies. With recent developments in the technical industry it's still very possible to maintain a very high level of productivity. We've covered a few excellent communication products and we've also covered a selection of smart collaboration software.

G Suite

G Suite - our bread and butter. It provides all the tools a business needs to do business, in an extremely affordable package. An integrated suite of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI. Includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Meet and more, all in the same place accessible with the same login.

We use G Suite for our business email, communications and productivity needs. The prices start at £4.60 per user/month and there's no contract, so it's really ideal for new businesses who don't want to commit to anything serious in the early days.

What I think is pretty cool is that the likes of Netflix and Colgate are using exactly the same product as a start-up business of one user. It really is modern-day cloud computing, allowing the little guys play with the big guys with no capital required. Awesome!

Zoho Projects

When we do any commissioning work such as website design or a system setup, one of our most used products is Projects. It lets us track all ongoing tasks so that an overall project progress can be seen - and shared with clients if necessary. It can help you plan your work, track it efficiently, and collaborate with your team wherever they are.

The main features we use are the tasks, the activities, issues (at times a great tool to nudge clients if we're waiting on them) and also the integration with Google Drive so that we can share files securely within the project space without needing to upload anything.

A great tool for teams that still need to be working on projects from different places.

Zoho Bookings

We've noticed a large increase in online classes since the lockdown here in the UK. Classes for exercise and yoga type activities the most prevalent. Should you be needing to host this sort of event, you need a solid way of offering booking for your 'students' - Bookings has you covered. It syncs your calendars while letting students/customers self-schedule and pay for appointments. The user interface is completely customisable to fit your brand and there is an email function that sends emails to your customers automatically reminding them when an appointment is due.

This one is for personal trainers, coaches teachers, trainers and just about anybody else that needs a way to manage classes easily.

So there you have it. They are our favourite tools because they are cost-effective, smart and they are generally awesome. They all also meet our principles.

If you need any help with working remotely during these very difficult times please just reach out. We will be happy to assist and if we can help your business in any way at no cost, we absolutely will.

Stay safe.

Help me work smarter

Business Systems Integration: Not just a 'nice to have'

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Every growing business grapples with decisions around the best business system to manage its expanding operations. Proper planning of an integrated business management software system often takes a back seat to short-term revenue acceleration goals. And, as a consequence, various applications are installed at various points in time in various areas, resulting in business systems being spread across different platforms with different logins and well ...yuck. This creates process inefficiencies and software integration challenges.

This sort of issue is something we see a lot of at Ostratto when onboarding businesses that have been trading for a (sometimes little) while. The real question is: how did these problems arise in the first place and how can they be avoided?

The Convoluted System Landscape

It's easy to see how a rapidly growing company can quickly become entangled in a complex system environment.

When starting out, companies first install accounting software so that they can manage their bookkeeping. Then, in the quest to acquire more customers, companies then put in a standalone CRM system, along with separate systems for resolving customer support issues. Inventory management, order management and fulfilment systems soon come along in the form of additional software or even spreadsheets (you wouldn't believe what we've seen).

As growth occurs, many companies will open new office locations and embrace additional sales channels resulting in more sophisticated processes for e-commerce integration and recurring billing amongst others. Additional business software to support these processes can take the form of standalone applications from different vendors, in-house developments, or a variety of spreadsheet workarounds.

Businesses that evolve their systems over time in this manner can find themselves with a poorly planned infrastructure that handles short-term processes sub-optimally. This mess of systems is often referred to as a “software hairball”, a hairball that inhibits flexibility, productivity, and ultimately slows down the company's ability to grow.

John in the finance department, wondering which login

he uses for his accounting software. (Credit: unsplash)

Business Challenges

When high-growth companies become entangled a 'software hairball' challenges within business begin to arise. Here's five of the main issues that can hinder business growth when a business runs with disparate business software systems:

Wasted Employee Productivity

For a company to grow easily, every employee must be operating at optimal productivity. If the team is bogged down by inefficient and disjointed processes, it takes time away from their more important (profitable) tasks. Important processes such as order processing, invoicing, expense approvals, and fulfilment can take a lot longer to get completed, and are often prone to errors.

For instance, your team may be spending hours manually re-entering order information into an accounting system, while other employees pull that same information from your CRM system for their order fulfilment processes and to calculate sales commissions. If any orders are cancelled in the meantime, your employees have to sift through mounds of data to reconcile this information again. Such labour-intensive and manual tasks reduce the agility that your company needs to grow.

Lack of Real-time Visibility

When software systems aren't integrated you often cannot easily get a view of business performance quickly. Reports showing performance across your finance, sales, marketing, service, and fulfilment departments really are crucial to giving you an overview of your company's operations and performance.

It's easy to see why companies simply give up on reporting on a regular basis because of the amount of time it takes to source, extract and analyse this data. For the businesses that still produce these reports, countless hours are wasted trying to tie unrelated, error-prone, and out of date information together. Consequently, businesses either end up making critical decisions slowly, based on inaccurate information, or they make hasty and risky decisions off gut instinct.

Integration Complexity and Cost

With so many separate systems, an IT department wastes an enormous amount of time and money on integrating, maintaining, and acquiring new versions of these applications. Often when new versions are purchased, even more integration and maintenance needs to be performed for all the different versions of software to work together. Consequently, valuable IT time that could be used to make the business more productive is wasted, while maintenance costs skyrocket.

Increased Customer Churn

Customer acquisition and revenue growth are key pillars to your company's continued success. With fierce competition, it's essential that your company provide an exceptional customer experience or risk having customers take their business elsewhere.

When customers are unable to quickly get information on their order status, can't get issues resolved in a timely manner, or frequently deal with products being out of stock, they will be less satisfied and less likely to continue purchasing from you. A set of separate, convoluted business systems which don't talk to each other, won't be doing your service any favours.

Advantages of Integrated Software Applications

To keep your business growing at the dramatic rates you have always aimed for, it is essential to have your business software applications integrated and seamlessly connected. The advantages of designing your systems in this manner yield tremendous cost savings and improved business productivity, including:

Process Efficiency Across Your Organisation
There are several key processes that you may encounter in your daily operations, such as order management, fulfilment, invoicing, cash collection, expense approvals, and financial consolidation to name a few. Automating such processes enables you to avoid new hires that would otherwise be required to manage these processes, and redeploy staff to higher-value activities to help your business innovate and grow.

Significant IT Time and Cost Savings

With IT no longer having to maintain multiple systems as well as the various integrations between them, a significant reduction in operational costs can be expected so that IT time can be spent improving the business operations.

Dramatically Improved Visibility
Real-time visibility is important in making informed decisions. When information can be accessed instantly from almost anywhere, without wasting employees are better informed and can make more accurate, faster decisions.

Accelerated Growth
With an integrated software system, expansion to multiple locations and additional sales channels can be accomplished a lot faster because of unified order and accounting management processes and data. Teams can upsell more efficiently to their existing customer base because of the improved visibility they would have.

User-Driven Innovation

Because process changes can be implemented quickly, everyday business users are able to apply their functional expertise to tailor processes and applications in a way that improves performance. Meanwhile, technical teams are liberated to focus on strategic works that can add value to the bottom line rather than just fight fires.

Parting Comments

Today, companies in virtually every industry are using sophisticated business software to fuel their growth but many are still struggling to keep up and manage costs effectively because of a hairball of disconnected functional systems causing process bottlenecks and employee productivity issues.

Integrated business software suites are transforming how companies run, and enabling them to experience growth that takes them to the next level.

All products that Ostratto sell are designed to work together in harmony - it's what we call being 'lightweight' and it's one of our core principles. Get in touch with us today to see how we can simplify your workflows and make your business, smart business.

Let's Chat

DIY Website Design

Tue, 21 Jan 2020 14:37:07 +0000

Not so long ago, there would have been no question of hiring a pro to get website up and running for your business. It was only the quirky folk with severe acne and an energy drink drip-feed that could produce a website on the internet and it was often an expensive ordeal.

Thanks to the rise of online tools like website builders, it has become much easier for the non-techies among us to build a more-than-decent website. Just because you can, though, doesn’t always mean you should. It’s a decision worth weighing carefully, since for some projects a professional cannot be replaced by a tool.

Now I know what you are thinking. "Lew isn't this post going to be a tad biased since you offer website design as a service?" YES. It will be shamelessly biased. That being said, you can only hire a web design company if you can actually afford to. If you don’t have the money yet to hire someone, then designing your own website may be the only option for now. In many cases, having a basic website with helpful content is better than having no website at all.

Anyways, let's get to it - a few points to bear in mind during the design of your website.

Design

Design is not something you can pick up in an afternoon. (Maybe a few afternoons?) Without an understanding of design, you could get it wrong. Your competitors on the other hand, might choose to hire a professional web designer and avoid the mistakes.

It's about:

User experience
How it looks
How it makes people feel
How it makes people act
The character of your business
Your message to the world

You could end up saving yourself a lot of time and hassle by getting a professional to help you create something that looks well-designed and established.

SEO Knowledge

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an ever changing landscape. It's the constant battle to keep your website being found on search engines and most importantly to keep you above your competitor listings when potential customers search for your services. Search engines change their rules all the time and what worked last month might not work this month.

We've been helping clients with SEO for years and still (like a lot of aspects in this industry), we are learning more efficient ways to get the best result. SEO requires constant listening, watching and testing to see what’s changed with Google and the other search engines.

Some key technologies in the world of SEO:

These are the basic fundamentals of SEO and so if they look alien, either get reading or get in touch with a web designer. We plan to release an article soon with a quick overview of these technologies, so keep an eye out for that.

You are not your customer

You live and breathe your business everyday and it’s fair to say you know your customers. We like to think we’re the same.

The problem is that when you’re so involved with running the business, it’s sometimes difficult to see things from your customers’ perspective. It’s difficult to imagine what it might look like seeing your website for the first time, by a prospect for example. This is known as 'the curse of knowledge'.

That’s where a professional designer can help. They can see the things you’ve missed because they are looking from a different direction. Here are a few common mistakes caused due to this 'curse':

No prominent contact details
No clear call to action
No statement explaining succinctly what it is you do

Not every web designer will consider how your site will lead to more contact and sales because they may just be focused on creating a website for you. So admittedly this point you could look at as a possible benefit of creating your own website - you know what you want from it.

We are a little different. Here at Ostratto, your interests are our interests. Everything that comes out of our door is with our principles in mind, and they exist only to boost your business.

You might need help along the way

Building a website isn't a walk in the park. You might be able to pull something basic together with some guides and the power of YouTube but what happens if something goes wrong?

A web designer would take care of all this for you. You won’t need to fix anything or find answers to complex tech questions. We do everything for you. We've spent years educating ourselves on the technicalities of designing websites and have come across plenty of problems and solutions over that time. There’s not really any need for you to do the same.

However, that being said, here are some fantastic resources for web design tips:

The right tools for the job

Like any creative skill it requires a number of tools to ensure the job is done correctly. If you don’t have these tools and/or know how to use them, then you might not get the result you’re hoping for. Here are a list of tools we use to build successful websites:

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Google Search Console
Google Analytics
G Suite
Rank Tracking Software
Competitor analysis software
Landing page software

These tools can be expensive but they are necessary. Especially if you want to create high impact websites for users that perform well in search engines.

It took us a few years to learn how to use these tools and even longer to use them effectively.

LOTS of time

Learning to build a website from scratch can take a long time, especially if you aren’t very technical. Even if you’re using some super-simple website design tool you may need to do a lot tweaking to get it right. Not to mention all the image editing and resizing to make it look good and load quickly. You will also need time moving forward to update the website often to keep it fresh and looking professional enough to show to the world.

Time is money and whilst you’re learning how to build a website, you’re not managing or marketing the business.

Time - you are going to need it.

Your competitors

Even if you do have the time to create your own website, there is a high chance your competitor has paid a pro. If they have paid for a professional website to be designed and you haven’t, the likelihood is that theirs will work better.

If you are trying to stand out then you’ll want to a high quality website that looks better than your competition.

My tuppence

I know it’s tempting to try and design a website yourself, even more tempting when drag and drop software now looks so easy. Considering the points I’ve covered above, think carefully whether or not you have the time, the skills and the patience to create a showstopping website. Quite a few of our current clients have asked us to build their website after they tried to do it themselves.

At some point you’re going to have to pay a professional. It’s up to you whether you do it now or later.

Get in touch with us today for a friendly, no pressure chat about what we can do for you. And if we think you don't need to pay for a website yet - we'll tell you.

Free email: It's not good business

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 17:42:28 +0000

@gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @live.com, all touted as FREE email addresses. Great for a new business that wants to keep costs down right? Let's have a look at why your business should stay clear of a free email address.

With email communications being a key tool for your business, it’s important to make sure that your credibility surrounds that communication and that your email address is one that speaks 'professionalism'. After all, it’s for business.

When people see your Email address, if you have a Yahoo or Gmail account, you may be giving the impression that you are not as serious about your business as you should be. It's all about the perception, especially for a small business. Free email addresses definitely serve a purpose but when it comes to your business, you should steer clear of anything that takes away from your credibility and potentially detracts from your professional reputation.

"It's all about the perception, especially for a small business."

Let's dig into what exactly is 'wrong' about using a free email service for your business. All of these points are assumptions on the customers behalf and for the most part theoretical.

It's unprofessional

When people see an email account that is from a free service, they may assume that you are reluctant to spend money and therefore the products and services that you offer may not be of the highest quality. How people perceive you and your business is critical to the success of your business. Having a free email address may make those who are considering doing business with you think twice before they enter into a relationship with you. As easy way to remedy this is by registering your business domain name so that can have business emails. Our partners have confirmed to us that since using professional email addresses they have been treated as a much more established business than they did before. You may see that this will open up a large amount of new business opportunities for you and your business - and at such a small cost.

No domain? No business investment

Registering your domain name is very inexpensive and so if you don’t register yours, it will be seen as a direct lack of investment into the business. Customers may wonder where else money has been saved on your business. This of course also spreads to the perception that your products or services are of inferior quality.

Are you here to stay?

So you aren't investing in one of the most inexpensive purchases a business can make and so the question may come up in the minds of potential clients as to whether your business will actually be around in the long term.

The people with whom you do business need to totally trust that you will always work with their best interest in mind. It needs to be seen that you are willing to invest their hard-earned money so they the customer can trust that your business will be around for a very long time. Having a legitimate business email address and email system will help them to feel comfortable with that and it's a very evident investment into your business.

'Free' means 'No technical support'

When you are using a free email service, and your email goes down, to use a popular phrase "Who You Gonna Call?!”

Well Google or Microsoft won’t be answering your phone call and millions of others when they are having problems. They would go out of business if they did that for free. With a true email hosting service, you will very often get technical support (you certainly would with us). So, if your email service stops working at that critical time, and remember in running a business communication is a top priority - you will be able to get the help you need.

It's not for a business

Although a free email address might be enough for your business now, it will definitely not be in time. The free email services offer a consumer-grade set of products and so the clever features offered in a business-standard email platform are immediately missed out on. Basic features such as mailbox sharing (instead of all using the same set of logins, read: major security risk) or even email deliverability authentication (this is a measure to ensure that your emails are actually delivered to your recipients and not to their spam folder).

Your business services need to be able to scale actively with your business success. You don't need the stress, and potential downtime, of having to change email services when you get busy - trust us.

You are missing out

Using your domain name in your email address is similar to how product placement is used in the movies to get people to remember that product even after the movie is over.

When you use your business domain name in your email communications, you are continually presenting your company name over and over again. It’s like free marketing. And if you don’t take this opportunity to market your own business, and you use a free email service like Gmail, you are essentially putting a sign for somebody else’s business over your front door. In other words, you are advertising for Gmail and not your own business. Granted Google appreciates the free advertising and they do offer some fantastic products, but you shouldn’t be doing that for Google. They have a much larger advertising budget than you likely do!

If your email has your domain name in the email address, you are cementing the name of your company into your potential customer’s mind. Do this over and over again and the customer will remember your company before any other company when they are about to buy your products or services.

A custom domain is a pretty cheap billboard...

In Closing

It's worth spending a small amount of money so that you can register your domain and so that the perception that other people have of your business is one of credibility and trustworthiness.

It is also important to remember that nothing in life is really free. You may not always know when you sign up what the price is going to be. Generally the cost of a business email system is a lot less than the cost of a customer facing issues anywhere from deliverability problems to customer service problems (because your email has gone to your customers spam folder). The relationships that you share with your clients should not be short ones but should endure for a very long time - invest in your business email system to show that you will be around for a long time.

To find out more and to get started with professional email addresses, let's chat, we're all ears.

How secure is your data in the cloud?

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 16:23:44 +0000

Cloud-based solutions are increasingly in business demand around the world. These solutions include everything from secure data storage to e ntire business processes. As we move more to cloud-oriented solutions, a new challenge comes into play: the 'security' of cloud storage. The question arises of where data is stored and more importantly, who has access to it. Here-lies cloud storage security - security measures that are implemented to protect data with the same (or often higher) level of sensitivity as would exist in an on-premise data storage solution.

Sounds great (yawn). Let's see what this actually means in real terms for your business data.

A recap on 'the cloud'

As we've covered before, cloud-based storage is an outsourced solution for storing data. Instead of saving data onto local hard drives, users store data on internet-connected servers. Datacentre's then provide a home for these servers to keep the data safe and secure to access. Businesses turn to cloud storage solutions to solve a variety of problems. Small businesses use the cloud to cut costs and big businesses use the cloud to distribute data more efficiently across the world. Any time you access files stored remotely, you are accessing a cloud - in simple terms anyway.

Email services are a prime example. Most email users don’t bother saving emails to their devices because those devices are connected to the internet most of the time.

Types of Cloud: Public, Private, Hybrid

There are three types of cloud solutions, each offering a unique combination of advantages and drawbacks:

Public Cloud: These services offer accessibility and security. This security is best suited for unstructured data, like files in folders. Most users don’t get a great deal of customised attention from public cloud providers unless you use more business-oriented options. This is your Google Drives and your Dropboxes. This option is affordable.
Private Cloud: Private cloud hosting services are on-premise solutions. Users assert unlimited control over the system. Private cloud storage is more expensive and more old-fashioned. This is because the owner manages and maintains the physical hardware.
Hybrid Cloud: Many companies choose to keep high-volume files on the public cloud and sensitive data on a private cloud. This hybrid approach strikes a balance between affordability and customisation.

The big question: how secure is cloud storage?

All files stored on secure cloud servers benefit from an enhanced level of security. The security credential most users are familiar with is the password. Cloud storage security vendors secure data using other means often not implemented in on-premise solutions such as:

Advanced Firewalls: Firewalls inspect traveling data packets (moving data). Simple ones only examine the source and destination. Advanced firewalls verify packet content integrity (what the data means). Clever algorithms then map the packet contents to known security threats and say yay or nay to data entering or exiting the cloud. A bit like a bouncer at your local club saying yes or no to guests based on previous experiences of having them trying to do snow angels on the dance-floor. You thought people would forget?
Intrusion Detection: Online secure storage can serve many users at the same time and successful cloud security systems rely on identifying when someone tries to break into the system, both at the door and when inside. Multiple levels of detection ensure cloud vendors can even stop intruders who break past the network’s initial defences. To continue our club analogy, these are your bouncers inside the club monitoring the guests.
Event Logging: Event logs help security analysts understand threats. Analysts use this data to build a narrative concerning network events. This helps them predict and prevent security breaches based on known patterns of behavior. For example, bouncers predict incidents based on experience from other nights in the club.
Internal Firewalls: Not all accounts should have complete access to data stored in the cloud. Limiting secure cloud access through internal firewalls boosts security. This ensures that even a compromised account cannot gain full access. Although you've been permitted access to the club, you don't get into VIP unless you are known and trusted.
Encryption: Encryption keeps data safe from unauthorized users. If an attacker steals an encrypted file, access is denied without finding a secret key which will unlock the file and reveal the data contents. The data is worthless to anyone who does not have the key. Just the same as if you have no ID, you don't get into the club. Admittedly this analogy is running out of ground...
Physical Security: Cloud data centers are highly secure. Certified data centers have 24-hour monitoring, biometric security and sometimes armed guards. These places are more secure than almost all on-site data centers.

Remember

For a security system to be complete, users must adhere to a security awareness training program. Even the most advanced security system cannot compensate for negligent users.

Cloud Data Security Risks

Security breaches are rarely caused by poor cloud data protection. More often than not, improving user security will make cloud storage more secure. Many factors contribute to user security in the cloud storage system, most of which focus on employee training:

Authentication: Weak passwords are the most common enterprise security vulnerability and it's not uncommon for users to write their passwords down. Multi-factor authentication can solve this problem. (MFA for next Prime Minister!)
Awareness: In the modern office every job is a cyber-security job. Employees must know why security is so important and be trained in security awareness. Users must know how criminals may approach a cyber-attack - this leads us onto the next point.
Phishing Protection: Phishing scams remain the most common cyber attack vector. These attacks attempt to compromise user emails and passwords by 'fishing' their data. Ever seen that email 'your money has been locked, enter your details to unlock'? That's phishing. Using this data, attackers can move through business systems to obtain access to more sensitive files.
Breach Drills: Simulating data breaches can help employees identify and prevent phishing attacks. Users can also improve response times when real breaches occur. This establishes protocols for handling suspicious activity and also provides an apt time to give feedback to users on their security awareness.
Measurement: The results of data breach drills must inform future performance. Practice only makes perfect if analysts measure the results and find ways to improve upon them. Quantify the results of simulation drills and employee training to maximize the security of cloud storage.

Educate Your Employees

Employee education helps enterprises successfully protect cloud data. Employee users often do not know how cloud computing works. Explain cloud storage security to your employees by answering the most commonly asked questions:

Where Is the Cloud Located? Cloud storage data is located in remote data centers. These can be anywhere on the planet (sometimes even underwater). Cloud vendors often store the same data in multiple places. This is called redundancy.
How is Cloud Storage Different from Local Storage? Cloud vendors use the internet to transfer data from a secure data center to users. Cloud storage data is available everywhere.
How Much Data Can the Cloud Store? Storage in the cloud is exponentially large, almost unlimited to us. In a 2013 study it was predicted that over 1 Exabyte of cloud storage is in use - this is over 1,073,741,824 Gb's of data or if written, 50,000 trees made into paper and printed. Local drive space is limited. Bandwidth – the amount of data a network can transmit per second – is usually the limiting factor.A high-volume and low-bandwidth cloud service would run too slowly for meaningful work.
Does The Cloud Save Money? Most companies invest in cloud storage to save money compared to on-site storage. Improved connectivity cuts costs. Cloud services can also save business money in disaster recovery situations.
Is the Cloud Secure and Private? Professional cloud storage comes with state-of-the-art security. Users must follow the vendor’s security guidelines. Negligent use can compromise even the best protection.

Cloud Storage Security Best Practices

Cloud storage providers store files redundantly. This means copying files to different physical servers placed far away from one another. In a traditional office a disaster such as a fire would result in lost data and consequently lost business. In the modern office this data is stored in the cloud, copied to multiple data centers located throughout the region. A modern office would be able to recover overnight.

Redundancy makes cloud storage security platforms far less likely to occur. Cloud storage vendors measure hard drive failure and compensate for them through redundancy. Even without redundant files, only a small percentage of cloud vendor hard drives fail. These companies rely on storage for their entire income and so take every precaution to ensure users’ data remains safe.

This makes cloud storage an excellent option for securing data against cyber-crime. With a properly configured cloud solution in place, even ransomware poses very little threat. Simply wipe the infected computers and start fresh, all whilst data remains safe in the cloud.

In closing: It's time to invest in Cloud Storage Security
Businesses who invest in enterprise cloud storage need qualified cloud maintenance and management expertise. As a reputable managed security services provider, Ostratto can provide a full evaluation of your data storage and security needs today - just get in touch.

Otherwise, thanks for reading and chow for now.

Why should my business exist in the cloud?

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 11:08:54 +0000

'The cloud' - what is it, where is it and what can it do for your business.

Like the name suggests, the idea of the cloud feels lofty and hard to grasp. Simply put, cloud computing is the practice of using a network hosted on the Internet, or 'the cloud', to store, manage, and process data. This means you won’t have to maintain or own any hosting equipment locally as you pay someone else for this. Often the label of 'Cloud' is interchanged in different contexts but the basic premise is that instead of systems operating on your business premises, they are operating in a managed data centre for you.

With more than three quarters of companies making use of cloud computing, you’re probably no stranger to the idea. But have you considered moving your business IT to the cloud?

The Good

Cost

Cloud computing works on a pay-as-you-go basis. You only pay for what you use, similar to a utility bill. This eliminates the need to spend money on the expensive (and ever-changing) hardware that comes with hosting on a server. Instead of worrying about servers, you’ll be able to focus on your business.

Quick Accessibility

Many cloud computing services come on-demand, so increasing computing resources can happen efficiently. No more complaints from your users that the X drive is down, or that the business-critical services are running slow.

Scalability

This is a big one. With cloud computing, you have the ability to scale 'elastically'. In other words, your website or app receives the right amount of resources (bandwidth, storage, etc.) when it needs them. And when it's time to take on more employees as your business grows - there's no concerns whether your infrastructure can handle the additional users. Also - when your business decides it's time to move into a larger building - no more weeks of planning on how servers and equipment are going to be moved. It all moves with you without lifting a finger!

Optimal Performance

Most cloud computing services providers (definitely Google) run through secure local data centers that are maintained around the clock, to a much higher standard that is generally possible when IT is done in-house.

Easily Shared

The easy accessibility that comes with the cloud computing makes it very simple to share information across the globe. Data replication technologies are used to ensure that a user is always retrieving the closest copy of any data, from anywhere in the world.

This all happens automatically, with no need to configure peer optimisation of any sort.

Reliability

In cloud computing, data backups occur routinely making disaster recovery easy and inexpensive. With the before-mentioned data replication technology, data can be found on multiple devices at redundant sites on a cloud provider’s network.

Often providers guarantee 99.9% uptime - a number often not achievable in conventional business IT.

The not so good

Security & Privacy

Although cloud service providers often implement high security standards and industry certifications, storing data and important files on external service providers can introduce risks. Any discussion involving data must address security and privacy, especially when it comes to managing sensitive data. We must not forget what happened at Code Space and the hacking of their AWS EC2 console, which led to data deletion and the eventual shutdown of the company. Their dependence on remote cloud-based infrastructure meant taking on the risks of outsourcing everything.

Of course, any cloud service provider is expected to manage and safeguard the underlying hardware infrastructure of a deployment. However, your responsibilities lie in the realm of user access management, and it’s up to you to carefully weigh all the risk scenarios.

Though recent breaches of credit card data and user login credentials are still fresh in the minds of the public, steps have been taken to ensure the safety of data. One such example is the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR), which was enacted in the European Union to provide users more control over their data. Nonetheless, you still need to be aware of your responsibilities and follow best practices.

Vulnerability to attack

In cloud computing, every component is online, which exposes potential vulnerabilities. Even the best teams suffer severe attacks and security breaches from time to time. Since cloud computing is built as a public service, it’s easy to run before you learn to walk. After all, no one at a cloud vendor checks your administration skills before granting you an account: all it takes to get started is generally a valid credit card. This is why training on your business system users is vital.

Limited control and flexibility

Since the cloud infrastructure is entirely owned, managed, and monitored by the service provider, control is inherently removed from the customer.

To varying degrees (depending on the particular service), cloud users may find they have less control over the function and execution of services within a cloud-hosted infrastructure. A cloud provider’s end-user license agreement (EULA) and management policies might impose limits on what customers can do with their deployments.

Customers retain control of their applications, data, and services but may not have the same level of control over their back-end infrastructure, at least, often not to the same level of control provided with an on-premise system.

Vendor lock-in

Vendor lock-in is another perceived disadvantage of cloud computing. Easy switching between cloud services is a service that hasn’t yet completely evolved, and organizations may find it difficult to migrate their services from one vendor to another. Differences between vendor platforms may create difficulties in migrating from one cloud platform to another, which could equate to additional costs and configuration complexities. Gaps or compromises made during migration could also expose your data to additional security and privacy vulnerabilities.

Luckily this is becoming less of an issue as more migration tools are provided by providers such as Google's extensive migration suite.

Where is the cloud?

Cloud storage generally relies on hundreds of data servers across multiple locations around the world. This provides redundancy (should an entire data center fall over) and also optimal performance (always able to provide data from a close location). This means that your emails and business files are stored several times-over, across the globe in super secure data centers, waiting to be opened or written to.

Generally the Google data center in Ireland is most commonly used by our Ostratto partners as this is the closest full data center.

In closing

Cloud services are now fully available in today's business environment and the options of providers are vast. Ostratto are a firm believer of cloud technologies - they enable our partners (especially the smaller businesses) to scale freely and at a low cost which is vital during the early life of a business.

If you are interested in speaking to someone about how cloud technology can empower your business, get in touch with us today.