The ACCENT Learning Hub

Executives and Information Technology personnel historically have a difficult time seeing eye to eye. Many executives see the IT department as a necessary evil – you need it to keep the business running, but it’s just expensive and doesn’t add value to the organization. IT professionals frequently get a bad rap, which is unfair because in many cases they are destined for failure.

When Josh Garofolo started working at Accent Computer Solutions, he had his sights set on being a Technology Architect, but he wasn’t quite ready for that position yet. Over the next six years, he went from being a Help Desk Technician, to a Project Engineer, to a Technology Architect. As he advanced, he gained the knowledge and experience he needed to reach his goal, and now he’s a member of a collaborative team that designs and implements complex technology improvements for Accent clients.

When most people think about disasters, images of large-scale natural disasters generally come to mind such as fires, floods and earthquakes. What most businesses do not think about is how they will recover from smaller-scale disasters.

I have a question for CEOs and business leaders: How are you doing with managing IT? The reason I ask is because people in your role have great business minds but, for the most part, aren’t technically inclined. By that I don’t mean that you can’t operate your smartphone, but that you aren’t familiar with the intricacies of a network with all its connections, and how everything works together.

Have you ever called a company and gotten the run-around, as if no one knew what was going on or how to get answers? We don't want that to be the case when clients call us, that's why we have Client Success Managers like Erica Almendarez on our team. The Client Success Manager position was created to be a communication hub for clients, to give them a go-to person who had the answer or could find the answer to any question they might have. Erica was one of the first people to fill this role at Accent so you can say that she was kind of a pioneer.

In business, information is everything. Without your client database, financial records, documents, or email, serving your customers would be nearly impossible. You need continuous access to your system to keep your business running smoothly. So how do you ensure that your data will be protected against fires, floods, earthquakes, viruses, and human error? It’s all about backup.

I’m sure you’ve heard the terms “backup,” “disaster recovery,” and “business continuity.” What most business owners do not realize is that these are three separate things and without all three pieces, their business is in a vulnerable position. Data Backup First off, data backup is just copying your data onto another device. This could be a tape drive, an external hard drive, or an offsite backup. In most of these forms, your data is being stored in a raw format. This means that your applications, configurations, and network settings are not being backed up with it, so if you needed to restore, or recover, your network from the data backup, you may be down for days or weeks.

Did you make any new year's resolutions as the calendar turned over to 2019? In addition to the usual personal resolutions, such as eating healthy and spending more time with family, I encourage business owners and managers to add a few business resolutions to their list. Information technology is critical to operations for most companies and has the power to stop, or at least disrupt, business if things aren’t going well. When utilized properly, information technology can give companies a strategic advantage and help them accomplish their business goals and objectives.

Now that 2019 is almost here, have you decided what your New Year's resolutions will be? In addition to your personal resolutions of weight loss, spending more time with family, and getting organized, business owners and managers should be thinking about things they can resolve to do to make their companies more successful and operate more efficiently.

Most of us have tried to accomplish a task or goal and failed.  Sometimes we start over and try to do the very same project in the very same way, and we’re still a little surprised when we fail again.  Continuing with this process just takes us round and around in circles, and the result is that nothing ever gets accomplished. In fact, most of the time after we try a few times, we are in a worse position than when we started.