Author: computeradmin

Firstly, the advantages of AI Chatbots

AI chatbots can offer several benefits to businesses, as the technology can help you automate and expedite many business tasks, but be cautious about the information you share. We shared an article recently about the safety of ChatGPT which you can read here.

Firstly, lets look at why AI chatbots have gained popularity with businesses looking to streamline tasks:

• provide 24/7 customer support, handling a wide range of customer inquiries and issues – chatbots can answer frequently asked questions, provide product information, and assist with troubleshooting;
• engage with website visitors and start conversations to gather information and qualify leads;
• automate repetitive and mundane tasks, which might include order tracking, appointment scheduling, and form filling;
• analyze customer preferences and behavior to provide personalized recommendations;
• identify upselling and cross-selling opportunities based on customer interactions;
• gain insights into customer preferences, buying patterns, and pain points, which could help market research, product development, and targeted marketing campaigns;
• handle a high volume of inquiries and engage with customers during peak times;
• save on employee salaries, training, and infrastructure.

But be wary of what information you’re sharing with AI chatbots to gain these benefits.

Beware of what you share!

AI chatbots help, but keep in mind that anything you put on the platform is shared with a private company. That company may also share your data with third parties.

Additionally, they store data on servers, which makes it vulnerable to hacking attacks.

Plus, as the chatbot is always learning, it could in fact learn from your data. ChatGPT, Bard, Bing AI, and others all rely on AI language models. The platform might inadvertently use your data to inform its answers to other users, even your competitors.

What Not to Share with AI Chatbots

Avoid sharing sensitive customer or employee information. This includes social security numbers, credit card details, and personal health information. Submitting this type of data risks confidentiality, and you may fail to comply with security and privacy regulations.

Protect your financial information as well. You might want to use a chatbot as an advisor. The company may claim to anonymize your data, but a cybercriminal could still get what they need.

Proprietary code or strategic business plans should also stay out of AI chatbots. In one publicized case a Samsung employee used ChatGPT and disclosed sensitive code.

Employees might also use AI chatbots to summarize meetings or handle repetitive tasks. Make sure that they don’t unintentionally leak sensitive data when doing so.

Finally, don’t share passwords online. That includes AI chatbots. Entering personal information compromises your privacy and security online.

Keep Your Chatbot Relationships Professional

In Summary, balancing automated AI chatbot interactions and human involvement is key. You can contact our team at Ultra to discuss how to work with AI in the best possible way here. To read our recent articles about how Copilot can help your business click here.

Cyber Security remains one of the top concerns for businesses in todays world. We are excited to announce that we have teamed up with Huntress for Cyber Security, replacing ESET. The reason for this is that it provides the next level of Cyber Security for our clients businesses. Already we have seen clients that could have potentially been hacked, been stopped in their tracks with Huntress.

Cyber Security is a threat for every business no matter how big or small, in fact smaller businesses are often at greater risk due to the fact that they may not have adequate security in place.

As part of a Managed Service Plan (MSP) you automatically receive this high level of consistent 24/7 monitoring and Cyber Security. The bonus is you don’t need to know how it all works, just that it does work, and it is one less thing for you to worry about.

Some of the reasons we have teamed up with Huntress are listed below:

1. BRING HUMAN EXPERTS TO YOUR SECURITY TEAM
   The Huntress team enables you to streamline your defenses and add the power of real, around-the-clock threat analysts to your team. Analysts can help identify, investigate and isolate hidden threats that would otherwise remain undetected.
2. SECURITY MADE SIMPLE
   The Huntress Managed Security Platform is a simple cloud-delivered solution that makes it easy for you to defend against hidden threats and advanced attacks. It slows down hackers, not your devices whilst delivering advanced security for your endpoints without all the guesswork.
3. ACCELERATE YOUR EVOLUTION
   Attackers are finding new ways to get past traditional defenses, and they show no signs of stopping. The Huntress Managed Security Platform is built by offensive security experts who continuously add services to extend the depth and breadth of your security posture and keep you one step ahead of today’s advanced threat.

How Huntress Works:

Step one: Detect

Agents detect, collect and sends data to our cloud for analysis of suspicious activity and potential threats.

Step two: Analyse

Our automated engine performs initial analysis of the information collected by the agent. Then our ThreatOps team reviews the full
context of that data to determine the scope and severity of potential threats.

Step Three: Respond

When a threat is confirmed, a unique and easy-to-understand incident report is delivered with stepby-step remediation
instructions to eliminate the threat and harden your security posture.

The Huntress Managed Security Platform offers the following:

ThreatOps: Our ThreatOps team is the backbone of the Huntress platform and can be your secret weapon in the fight against hackers. This team of always-on experts can look into potential threats, analyze hacker tradecraft, create incident reports and help remediate cyber threats.

Persistent Footholds: At the core of our platform is our ability to identify malicious footholds, a key indication that an attacker has successfully slipped past preventive defenses. Huntress monitors for these footholds, and when found, delivers actionable recommendations and one-click approval for automated remediation.

Process Insights: Evict hackers faster with near real-time endpoint detection and response. Process Insights merges endpoint forensics with deep network traffic visibility to weed out and stop cyberattacks as they happen.
Managed Antivirus: By providing centralized management and visibility, Managed Antivirus starts the conversation for you to reclaim and amplify existing investment in Microsoft Defender Antivirus, opening up more options to strengthen your security stack.
Ransomware Canaries: Like the old canary in the coal mine, our Ransomware Canaries enable earlier investigation of potential ransomware incidents. Uniquely coupled with our ThreatOps team, our approach weeds out false positives and focuses on actionable intelligence.
External Recon: External Recon gives you visibility into external attack surfaces by monitoring for potential exposures caused by open ports connected to remote desktop services, shadow IT and more.

We partnered with Huntress more than two years ago and haven’t had a single regret. Huntress’ capabilities to
seek out threats on the endpoint, investigate them quickly and provide remediation recommendations provides my team with an incredible weapon to deal with live incidents.

Chris Loehr
SOLIS SECURITY

In Summary

The best news about this upgraded security, is that you don’t have to know anything about what is going on behind the scenes, as this is all taken care of within a Managed Service Plan.

Despite all of this, security continues to be something that we need to all work on together. This recent article is a good reminder of the security basics and what you are your team can do to minimise the cyber security threats.

To read more about what a Managed Service Plan is and how it can benefit your business click here.

As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to our friendly team here.

Last month we talked about how New Zealand businesses can benefit from ChatGPT. (Read the blog here) We’ve had so many clients interested in how ChatGPT can help their business, that we are talking here about it again!

What we are looking at here is weighing its advantages against the security implications.

Firstly, a quick review. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model designed to generate human-like responses. The increasingly popular AI-powered platform has a wide range of applications.

ChatGPT responds to questions or commands, drawing on pre-training using large amounts of text data. The inputs include books, articles, and websites on a wide range of topics.

The model can help automate aspects of business communication and streamline business processes.

Ways to use ChatGPT include:

• providing customer support by training it to answer common questions and resolve issues;
• generating leads by having ChatGPT collect data from website visitors to qualify leads;
• offering personalized recommendations, product information, and marketing promotions;
• giving employees quick access to internal policies, IT support, or training materials;
• finding errors in computer code;
• calculating spreadsheet data.

This can be a huge productivity boost for businesses when used correctly. However, you should be aware of some downsides.

ChatGPT is not perfect

You can get ChatGPT only via a Web browser right now. You’ll register via OpenAI, which developed the model. Don’t download an app claiming to give you access to ChatGPT. Bad actors create those fake apps to defraud or scam you.

But there are other risks a business should weigh up. Keep in mind that the technology may generate inappropriate or inaccurate responses, as the model may pull data from biased or discriminatory sources.

The model may not understand your question or request completely either. The more complex or nuanced your prompt, the greater a challenge it is for ChatGPT as it learns to understand and respond accurately.

Further, the safety of ChatGPT depends on your use case, as well as the level of control and monitoring you use. Someone else may have the copyright on the information output you get from ChatGPT. Review any ChatGPT output before using it.

Also, be careful of the input you give to ChatGPT. For example, asking it to find errors in proprietary code could risk your data security. ChatGPT itself currently warns users against providing sensitive data.

After all, the model uses all its available data to respond. So, if you enter sensitive data, it might end up being disclosed to another user who makes a similar request.

Your industry may also be subject to strict data privacy rules. If ChatGPT output contains confidential data, you may breach industry standards or government regulations.

Using technology safely

Technology can transform the way you do business, which can be a good thing. Still, you’ll want to consider the legal and privacy risks before proceeding with ChatGPT.

Interested in learning more about workflow automation and streamlining communication through business technology? Contact us at Ultra IT and we can help you evaluate the best solution to meet your needs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer sci-fi; it’s fast becoming a regular part of our day-to-day lives. For Microsoft 365 users, there’s Copilot, an AI-powered assistant. Here’s how it works.

Microsoft developed Copilot to help you navigate and operate Microsoft 365. Machine learning, trained by your usage patterns and preferences, it offers up personalized recommendations, reducing your time and effort invested.

Copilot’s proactive suggestions and tips can add efficiency. They also aim to help you take full advantage of all the software’s capabilities.

Using MS 365 Copilot

Built into the Office Suite, Copilot simplifies what you do in Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams. You’ll start your prompts out by saying, “Hey Copilot ….”

In Word, you can ask Copilot for help with formatting, spelling and grammar, and even research. You might say:

• “How can I centre this text?”
• “Can you suggest a better way to phrase this?”
• “Help me find a relevant image.”
• “Show me how to use the track changes feature.”

In Outlook, Copilot can help create emails, manage your calendar and reminders, and more. Prompts could include:

• “Show me how to attach a file to this email.”
• “Find a time for this meeting that works for everyone.”
• “Show me how to set up an out-of-office reply.”
• “Remind me to follow up on this email in a week.”

For Excel, ask Copilot to assist with formulas, help analyze data, format spreadsheets, and navigate. You might ask:

• “Show me how to use the SUM function.”
• “Create a chart to visualize this data.”
• “Show me how to format this cell as currency.”
• “How can I freeze the header row in this spreadsheet?”

PowerPoint also has Copilot functionality. You might use the assistant to design and deliver presentations, or to format slides. For example, you can say:

• “Suggest a better layout for this slide.”
• “Change the font size of my headers on every slide.”
• “Show me how to add a hyperlink to a slide.”
• “Help me set up a slide show with automatic timings.”

You can also use Copilot in Teams. Take advantage of its capabilities by asking:

• “Schedule a meeting with Julius and Jane for next Tuesday at 10 a.m.”
• “Create a status update on X from our chat conversations this week.”
• “Tell me what customers were discussed on the Teams call.”

You’ll need to first enable Copilot in your MS 365 settings. Then, click on the question mark icon in the top-right corner to access the assistant, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + / (Windows) or Command + / (Mac).

Of course, as is true with most AI at this point, Copilot is not always perfect. Microsoft warns users to verify any AI-generated content. Still, Copilot aims to save you time figuring out how to use Microsoft 365 and frees you up to do your best work.

Want to know more about setting up Copilot and how it can help your business? Contact our team here.

Imagine a world where you could get blogs automatically written for you, social media content generated effortlessly, as well as automate customer service chatbots. 

More than that, imagine a world where you can communicate with your computer and the whole Internet by simply asking detailed or complicated real-world questions. And where it will come back with seriously good answers.

That world is arriving and in its vanguard is ChatGPT. 

In a nutshell, it’s a website that you can go to, sign up, and ask serious questions – and get really good answers. 

The amazing and unique thing about it is that it is programmed to understand how we speak. And then to do unbelievably quick research and processing to give us answers that sound like they have been written by a human. 

For example, you can type in a question like:

What are the benefits to a small business of having a backup of their Microsoft 365 data outside of Microsoft?

And it will almost instantly give you a very good answer, with multiple bullet points, that you can’t really tell was not written by a human!

Or, how about – What are the benefits to a small business in New Zealand of using a professional accountant?

Or – What are the processes that a small business in New Zelaanbd needs to follow to terminate an employee for serious misconduct?

Starting to get a feel for what it can do? 

And the answers are really good and around 400-500 words long (you can tell it how long you want them to be).

Notice New Zealand was spelt wrong? It doesn’t seem to mind that sort of thing and in the answer it uses the correct spelling.

Google can only take shorter less specific questions and you’ll generally need to look at several websites to get a decent answer. ChatGPT brings it together for you.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. The GPT-3 language model developed by OpenAI is one of the most advanced natural language processing models in existence. Watch the introductory video about ChatGPT here 

On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced its partial acquisition of OpenAI.  OpenAI is best known for its work in developing advanced AI models, including the GPT-3 language model, which has been used in a wide range of natural language processing applications. This powerful combination of resources means that ChatGPT will be advancing significantly.

ChatGPT is currently free, and explains that it is available so that it can be used in the real world and learn. It will undoubtedly be monetized in the future, perhaps a bit like how Google is now.

Where next for ChatGPT and this technology?

The most exciting things are definitely still to come. Companies are starting to pour millions, billions and soon many billions of dollars into this type of technology.

It won’t be too long before you are just talking to your computing device, and perhaps asking it in plain English to put together your sales results by intelligently identifying and dragging in raw data to present to you. 

Will you even need a keyboard and mouse anymore? Microsoft’s CEO has said probably not.

Microsoft Teams – We are already seeing this type of technology being built into Teams. We’ll keep you informed.

Copilot – Copilot is a Microsoft product that is more than just a chatbot. Microsoft is gradually building an AI assistant that it has dreamed about for years. You can watch the video here on what Copilot can do for your business.  

How can your business benefit from ChatGPT?

We asked ChatGPT that, and here is most of its reply:

• The model can generate human-like text in a variety of styles and formats, including news articles, stories, and poetry. 
• It is also able to answer questions, translate languages, and summarize text, making it a versatile tool for a wide range of natural language processing tasks.
• This makes it a valuable addition to businesses seeking to improve communication with their customers.
• With its potential to enhance workflows and deliver a superior customer experience, ChatGPT creates enormous opportunities for companies to strategically leverage technology. 
• ChatGPT can help businesses improve customer engagement by providing quick, informative, and more natural responses to their inquiries.
• ChatGPT can automate repetitive tasks such as answering frequently asked questions increasing efficiency and productivity. 
• Generation of high-quality content: ChatGPT’s ability to generate human-like text can produce high-quality content for marketing, customer engagement and other business purposes.
• Personalization and customization: ChatGPT can personalize customer interactions and tailor responses based on the customer’s preferences, needs, and history. It can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to increased sales and revenue for the business.

So how do you use ChatGPT?

1. Sign Up on OpenAI
2. Visit https://chat.openai.com/auth/login. 
3. Create an account on ChatGPT

Once you have signed up, type in your question until  you get the results that you want . 

The downside of ChatGPT:

Like any technology it is important to make sure that you still give it the human once over and check for anything that doesn’t sound quite right. 

ChatGPT at present does not store the latest information. Like what band is playing at your local venue this Saturday night – use Google or Facebook for that.

ChatGPT also does not seem to like providing answers about individuals. Maybe it’s an anti-stalking thing that has been programmed in. 

In Conclusion:

ChatGPT is in its early days, yet already could be very useful and provide some excellent advantages for businesses. Technology is always moving and evolving quickly, and here at the IT Alliance we will do our best to keep you up to date with what is going on, and help you to understand what is best for your unique business requirements. 

Reach out to our team here if you would like any advice.

Microsoft has recently announced a new Teams add-on license called Microsoft Teams Premium.

Teams Premium adds on number of features to enhance the Teams experience in areas such as:

• More personalised and intelligent meetings and webinars
• Enhanced protection for meetings
• Advanced management and reporting capabilities for IT
• Advanced Virtual Appointments

The add-on is available to purchase for users with an Office 365 or Microsoft 365 subscription with Teams.

Teams Premium is now generally available, with intelligent recap features rolling out in the first half of 2023. The recommended retail price is NZD $15.10 per user per month.

One of the most exciting pieces of news around the new Microsoft’s Teams Premium service is the inclusion of GPT 3.5, which will soon feature more widely across the Microsoft tech stack.

With Teams Premium, the AI language model has the ability to automate certain tasks as part of its “intelligent recap” feature.

These tasks could include creating automatically generated meeting notes, recommended tasks or even creating chapter markings for recordings. This functionality could completely change the post-meeting actions experience typically performed by meeting attendees, freeing them up to do other tasks.

The following tables compare the full feature sets contained within Teams and Teams Premium:

There’s a number of features which are currently included in the standard Teams license which will move to Teams Premium, as well as a wide range of new features that will be available that will offer more granular controls on how customer can manage their meeting experience.

There are also a range of customisation features that are available under Teams Premium, so if you want to align your meeting room experience to your company’s brand you could utilise features such as:

• Customise the lobby & waiting room with themes and logos
• Custom meeting templates
• Custom meeting backgrounds
• Custom together modes

By leveraging these customisations, you can really make your organisation stand out amongst the crowd and provide some differentiation to the standard Teams meeting experience.

If your users utilise these features then you will need to purchase Teams Premium licenses:

• Live translated captions
• Timeline markers in Teams meeting recordings for when a user left or joined meetings
• Virtual Appointments: SMS notifications
• Virtual Appointments: Organizational analytics in the Teams admin center
• Virtual Appointments: Scheduled queue view

There is also a Teams Premium trial available for up to 25 users, so if you would like to test out the new functionality, you can do so for 30 days at no cost. If you are utilising the trial please don’t forget to turn off auto renew as trials under CSP roll into full licenses on expiry.

Contact us here to see if Teams Premium is right for you.

This article is a reminder about the basic security recommendations. Regular updates and discussions with your team are important to keep everyone involved, as part of the security solution.

Unfortunately, it is a dangerous world out there, and it is full of people constantly on the lookout for opportunities to attack your technology, and make money out of you.

Here we share our basic and standard recommendations for IT security and support.

If you do not have the basics of security in place, then you quite simply make yourself a more attractive target. 

Why attempt to break into the well-secured house when the one next door is wide open and much easier?

Cyber criminals are not dissimilar to this. Like any ‘business’ person, they are looking for a return on their investment of their time, and hacking easier targets often gives that.

In fact, one of the reasons why more smaller businesses are being targeted, is that the bigger businesses and organizations are generally well-protected these days.

So, by our clients having a decent level of protection, you are less likely to be hacked successfully.

Important – virtually no amount of security can make you invulnerable. It is not about that. It is about spending the right amount of money for your situation, to reduce the risk. Even a modest spend means massively less risk than no or inadequate protection.

Standard Recommendations  

Anti-Virus:

You need some sort of system to be able to prevent and/or detect many of the attack techniques used today. Traditionally known as “anti-virus”, today’s software is often far more powerful than just detecting viruses. 

For most of our clients, because of their general risk level, we recommend an “end point security” product. This is suitable for today’s complex threat environment at the small to medium business level. 

We find the right level of security for your business needs, balancing protection without paying for more costly products. 

Patching

A key way the attackers can exploit businesses is if the computer operating software is not up to date. 

Microsoft is always updating its Windows and Server operating system, as new vulnerabilities are uncovered. These are then pushed out as updates, but these can fail or cause issues sometimes.  

Many computers are not set up to take these patches. Ultra IT can help you with ensuring you are up to date with this.

2FA – Two Factor Authentication

We’ve written a few blogs about this over the years, and it has been the topic of many discussions! The bottom line is that for most businesses, having Two Factor Authentication in place is an absolute no-brainer. 

Even if “they” do manage to get into your email account, having 2FA turned on will mean they can’t do anything unless they also have your smartphone.

Having a password management system, as well as 2FA is a basic requirement and such an easy thing to do to protect your business.

Strong Passwords

Similarly, the days of having your dog’s name with a number after it as your password, and using it everywhere, are long gone. 

Like all security, it is a bit of a hassle, but it needs to be done. Whilst we can help you with this to some extent, what you and your team do is not an IT issue, it is a business issue. We highly recommend that you use strong passwords.

Team Awareness

It is still very true that most hacks are successful because someone clicked on something they shouldn’t have. How do you support your team to be aware of these risks, and to be constantly vigilant?

There is much you can do, including subscribing to services that send phishing emails to your team to see if they click or not, But at the very least (and this doesn’t cost anything) we suggest that owners and managers periodically raise this topic and simply discuss with their teams Just being reminded and aware is better than nothing.  Sharing this blog with your team is a good start.

The five items above are our most basic and standard recommendations. There are obviously other things that you should be doing too. But if you have the items above ticked off, you at least have a prudent minimum level of protection in place.

In Summary 

You are far less likely to be successfully hacked if you have the basic precautions in place. Let us know if we can help you with any of this here.

Reviewing your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is really a part of good business practice.

As we’ve seen in New Zealand lately, the unexpected ‘can’ happen, and after the fact is often too late.

So what is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan (BCP) is a living breathing document that consists of the critical information an organization needs, to continue operating during and after an unplanned event:

• BCP helps in events such as natural disasters or cyber-attacks.
• BCP are designed to protect personnel and assets and make sure they can function quickly when disaster strikes.
• In order for a BCP to remain relevant, they need to be reviewed at least annually and/or when the business changes.

Your BCP will cover much more than just your IT, and what it looks like for your business will depend upon what type of business you have and what is important to you.

Why do you need a BCP?

If you have a good BCP, you should be able to come through an emergency much better than if you don’t. Failure to plan for scenarios can be devastating to your business.

Ultra IT can advise on how to ensure critical systems remain operational in the event of a disaster or major problem such as a server or network outage by:

• allowing timely recovery of critical operations.
• minimising loss.
• meeting legal and regulatory requirements.

So, what does your plan need to cover? 

It doesn’t need to be complicated, and it doesn’t need to be long. The most important thing is that it is kept up to date and that it covers the key things for your business to protect it and keep operating.

Even the most basic of plans is a lot better than having no plan at all.

At its most basic, the BCP identifies the most critical aspects of the business that need to be kept running, the systems and processes that run them, and covers how they will be done during and immediately after an emergency.

From an IT perspective, consider the following things:

1. How does your business run? What are your most important systems and pieces of equipment, etc.
2. What are the potential disaster scenarios you face? Earthquake, flood, fire, etc for sure. But what about – loss of power, key people can’t get to work because the bridge near you is washed away etc?
3. How likely are those disaster scenarios, and how will they affect your operations?
4. What are the most important things you need to be able to continue doing to survive?
5. How can you do those things, or reduce the risk to your business? You are likely looking for simple, practical steps.

An IT Systems audit is often a good place to start. What IT systems do you have, and which ones are the most critical? Can you operate without your computers if the power goes off? How? Going back to paper and pen for a while could be what you need to do!

Ultra IT can review your systems to make sure they’re meeting your business objectives, ensure you have a secure operation by creating reference documents, as well as recommending improvements. 

If you already have an established BCP make sure:

• It is up to date, and has been tested. 
• Look at both the best and worst case scenarios. 
• Understand your risks and apportion the appropriate resources to minimize those risks.
• Make the plan proactive.
• Know your suppliers, providers and have updated contact information. 

Ask these questions:

• Is your BCP still relevant to our business? 
• Has our business changed and/or grown so much that we need to update the business plan?

To Summarise: 

Most importantly have a plan, revise it, communicate it to your team, know what to do, and who to call. 

If you don’t know where to start, or would like advice, feel free to reach out to us here at Ultra IT. We can’t advise on all the aspects of your business, but we can help with your IT systems and the functions they enable you to perform.

There are many types of IT support available for a business, and the two most common are “managed services” and “block hours support.” In this article, we’ll look at what these are, the advantages and disadvantages of each, and which one might be right for you.

What Is Block Hours Support?

With block hours support, you pre-pay a single provider for a certain amount and type of service. It’s usually a “block” or fixed number of hours, but it can also be a fixed dollar amount or an amount for a specific project.

What Are the Advantages of Block Hours Support?

Block hours support is usually cheaper than hiring your own staff. The provider has skilled staff with up-to-date training, so they can quickly and efficiently handle your needs. Your provider can also give you a bulk discount when you purchase more hours at a time.

And with a block hours agreement, you pay only for what you need. For example, you can save money by maintaining only the infrastructure and staff you need when you need it. That allows you to avoid a closet full of expensive hardware that you thought you were going to need or staff that don’t have enough to do.

What Are the Disadvantages of Block Hours Support?

Block hours support is what’s called a “break/fix” type of service. In other words, your provider isn’t usually involved until you have a problem. You wait until something goes wrong, and then call your provider to fix it.

That doesn’t give you the advantage of constant monitoring and management that can prevent problems before they start. That’s especially important for things such as cybersecurity, where it’s best to detect an attack and prevent damage instead of trying to fix it.

In addition, everyone’s IT operations are unique, so it helps to have someone who’s familiar with your setup when you need help. But a block hours support provider usually can’t guarantee that you’ll always get the same technician or even the best technician for your job. That means your service might be slower or less effective than a more comprehensive approach.

Reacting to a problem after it occurs also means you could experience more downtime. It could be hours before your provider can respond to your call and fix the problem. If you can’t afford to wait, you probably need a more proactive solution.

What Are the Advantages of a Managed Services Agreement?

With a managed services agreement, you typically have the option of more comprehensive services. For instance, instead of just reactive troubleshooting, your provider can continuously monitor and manage your processes such as cybersecurity.

They can also provide more “premium” services, such as more comprehensive management and even strategic planning.

What Are the Disadvantages of a Managed Services Agreement?

Compared to “block hours support,” the main disadvantage of a managed services agreement may seem like it is cost, however in the long term this often works out to be more cost effective. Typically, larger organizations use more services, so this isn’t an issue for them, but for smaller businesses, it could be that contracting for managed services is overkill that could cost you money.

Which Solution is Right for You?

Block hours support works well if you don’t have a very large or complex operation, and you can afford the downtime you might experience when a problem arises.

Larger organizations can take advantage of premium services to help them save more on their operations.

Want help with all of this? Talk to the team at Ultra IT