Zinc Blog

Oh, the afternoon meeting, the woe of many office workers around the world. Sometimes they are fine, but other times, it’s very clear that they are not always an effective use of your time. Despite this, there is still a heavy emphasis on meetings in the workplace, to the point where some employees feel that their time is being wasted and misused as a result—a premise that is supported by surveys and research.

Make no mistake, you want your business to grow. There is no better sign that you are resonating with customers and providing the value you set out to deliver. Unfortunately, for a lot of companies, they simply aren’t prepared when their product or service takes off and it ends up ruining what could be a very good thing. Today, we’ll take a look at three actions you can take to keep your business humming along when it sees extraordinary growth. 

The average IT infrastructure is made up of dozens of technology solutions that all work in tandem to ensure your business’ success… at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Oftentimes, you’ll need to contact your technology vendors to either procure new solutions or get your existing ones to work with theirs. How do vendor relations figure into your company’s prolonged success?

Since it was—somewhat by necessity—implemented by many businesses a few years ago, many of these same businesses have been quick to abandon remote and hybrid approaches to work. If you are considering this return, we implore you to reconsider—in fact, we’d urge you to lean into further expanding the capabilities of remote and hybrid workers.

“Nice guys finish last.” It’s not a new idea—in fact, it’s paraphrased from a quote teasing the 1946 New York Giants for their last-place finish in their league. In business, it’s become a cliche all its own…but does the cliche actually have anything supporting it?

As it turns out, it doesn’t.

Entrepreneurship is extremely frightening to a lot of people, and that’s probably why a lot of people make the choice to work for others. If you think about it, a lot can go wrong; a lot more than can go right. Today, we thought we’d highlight how business owners are able to get through all of the problems to forge ahead and create successful companies.

Wasting money is a major problem regardless of the kind of business you run. Technology can do a lot to stretch your dollars, but it can also be the cause of waste. This week, we thought we’d identify three ways that your business could be wasting significant money on your IT. 

Technology has been a critical element to building a business since, well, there’s been business…and 2023 won’t be any different. With operational problems urging businesses to seek out the technology to resolve them, continued adoption of technology is imminent. Let’s consider three ways that technology should be used in the coming months.

There are many proponents of the four-day workweek, so many to the point where it is actively being implemented to determine if it is as successful of a strategy as it is in theory. You might be surprised to hear that it is, in fact, a successful business model, and there are studies to back it up.

The more you seek to understand your business, the better you are going to be able to run it efficiently. No, this was not Confucius, although it sounds similar to something he would get behind. The more efficient a business becomes the less it will spend. How does this work? Today, we’ll unpack what it takes to cut your costs without hurting your business. 

It’s not uncommon for an employee to hold a second job outside of your office, whether it’s a side gig that they are trying to turn into a passion project or a side hustle just to make ends meet or put away a little extra money every month. Workers holding multiple jobs is certainly not unheard of—if anything it’s more common than ever, thanks to the remote work surge. How does this phenomenon impact your organization?

When trying to determine if a certain piece of technology should be replaced or just taken away entirely, you should first ask yourself if the technology affects your products or services in any discernible way. If the technology is something that helps with productivity and efficiency to aid in the production or delivery of said product or service, then it’s worth investing in.

The technology your business uses can be viewed as a mandatory expense nowadays since so much of your business is tied to its functionality. The more IT costs rise, however, the less small and mid-sized businesses like ours can do with our IT budgets. These costs are affecting the way we think about our technology and you are probably in the same boat. Today, we will go through a few ways the rising costs of organizational technology and technology support solutions impact businesses like yours.

IT consulting can bring your business a lot of value, but many business owners don’t quite understand just how this works. I mean, how much value can you get from simply talking about things that are going on with your business technology? Well, if that were all consulting was, then probably not all that much. Today, we are going to go through what kind of features comprehensive consulting provides. 

Both in-house and remote operations have their places in the work environment, and many companies have opted to combine the two to create a hybrid workplace. While this too has made a world of difference for all kinds of businesses, others have found that it lacks the inclusivity that a modern workplace demands. Let’s take a look at the cause of this.

As businesses have witnessed how both in-person operations and remote work practices can offer unique value to their processes and procedures, hybrid work has become a more popular approach. This has in turn led to many businesses reconsidering how their business’ space is utilized…and even how much they need.

Data backup is a critical part of any successful business, and, because it’s so simple, it may actually be overlooked. This week, we’ll walk you through the proper steps for making sure your organization has a successful data backup solution so if a situation arises and you need it, you’ll have it ready to recover and not be exasperated to find out that your business is in deep trouble. 

If your business is not all that productive, then it is not all that profitable, either. Some companies prefer to see results-driven productivity and revenue generation, but there are other ways to improve productivity as well, like refining processes. Let’s examine how you can make adjustments to your processes to focus on improving productivity through the use of technology.

It’s incredibly important that your business understands where it’s allocating its time, money, and resources, especially with technology-related challenges. Today we want to discuss what is called the digital employee experience, or DEX, and how understanding your employees’ relationships with technology can shape the way they approach the workday.

Innovation is something that stems from creative thought, and it’s something that is generally not associated with your average business’ IT department. IT tends to be practical and logical, not necessarily creative. All that said, there is immense value in going against the grain and solving problems in a creative way. Today, we want to focus on how you can encourage your IT department to think creatively about their responsibilities so they can innovate and do amazing things for your business.