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"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."

A recent survey, questioning 1750 UK bosses, has found that three quarters of public sector organisations are not sufficiently able to recover their data sets and computer systems after an IT failure.

This means that 74% were doubtful that if IT disaster struck, they would not be able fully restore their networks.

The survey, which was carried out by IT group EMC, also showed that 54% admitted they had lost data of suffered downtime in the past year.

Other European countries also involved in the survey include Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Russia.

The survey has shown that the most common cause of IT downtime was hardware failure, closely followed by power outage and software malfunction.

The overall conclusion for this survey has proven that businesses should be focusing more on the technology that they have available and the precautions needed to protect their data.

For more information please visit Our Disaster Recovery Page

This year, Network Resource Group has successfully participated in apprenticeship and internship schemes with the trainees being offered a full time paid placement within the company.

In this economic climate, young people are having the hardest time. With limited jobs and learning resources available, it is difficult to find a career track. Network Resource Group provides apprenticeship and internship places to help people with potential carve out a career beginning.

Apprenticeships have proved beneficial for both Network Resource and the student. Through a work based training programme, our apprentice has gained valuable work experience whilst studying and we have benefited from hiring a nationally recognised City and Guild qualified computer engineer as well as being able to harness the enthusiasm, determination and ambition of a young person.

Having an apprenticeship on board has provided Network Resource Group and the service desk with a highly motivated and resourceful team with knowledge and qualifications that reflect the latest technology and working practices. Our apprentice trained for 10 months within our company and has been a valuable asset to the group.

80% of employers who employ apprentices agree they make their workplace more productive.
81% of consumers favour using a company that takes on apprentices.
88% of employers who employ apprentices believe that apprenticeships lead to a more motivated and satisfied workforce.” National Archive Backing Young Britain Apprenticeships and Internships, a Guide for Employers.

Another successful programme undertaken by Network Resource Group is the hiring of interns. Unlike apprenticeships, internships are not funded and the intern does not gain a qualification at the end of the placement. They are also unpaid and for shorter periods of time. Network Resource Group has had three interns working for us for a period of three months. Our most recent intern – after their placement- was offered a job within the PR and Marketing department.

Internships give interns an opportunity to deploy their skills and be trained in an industry or career path they are interested in. Internships are a platform to improve employment chances and to develop skills. They are learning processes and in Network Resources experience, the placements have always been filled by graduates.

Network Resource Group has found that bringing a fresh mind to the business in the form of an intern, we have developed and improved our productivity and innovative capability.

Apprenticeships and Internships provide the ideal solution for business. Network Resource has used these programmes as training and learning platforms to create the strong fundamentals for continued success.

The Olympics is less than a year away and companies across the country are preparing to deal with the possible and predicted disruptions which will be caused by the 2012 London Olympics. Are you one of these companies?

Are you reading this blog post with a slow heart rate and a steady hand knowing that your company is going to survive next summer? Everything is in place and every possible disruption has been covered?

Or have you been, or are you now reading this blog post with a pulsating thud in your chest, with sweat dripping off of your forehead and a blind panic racing through your complete being?

You wouldn’t be the only company not to think about Business Continuity Plans. Realistically, the big corporate companies have had these BCP in place since the 1948 London Olympics. But to survive the Olympics, small businesses also need to think about putting a plan in place. Your company has two computers? Your company is based in Sheffield? 2012 still needs to be considered. It is still a business and the M5 runs right through your business straight into London.

These things are often missed or misjudged and it is the small things which can cause the biggest problems.
Over the past two months, Network Resource Group has been engaged in a Business Continuity campaign which was aimed at making our existing customers and potential customers aware of the disruptions to their business which may occur during the Olympics, and to offer our Business Continuity solutions.

Using polls, social media, call outs and emails, Network Resource were able to establish business attitudes towards the Olympics. The majority of London based companies were prepared for 2012, but a small majority of business in London hadn’t considered the disruptions and were eager to find out more information. But the most shocking result was the results founded outside of London. Businesses assumed that being outside of London, they would not be affected. This was a common misconception. Businesses across the country will be affected by the Olympics. More traffic will be on the roads, train delays across all networks are expected and supply chains will be interrupted. Network Resource may not be able to make the trains run on time, but we can provide you with the tools your business needs to succeed.

Inevitable disruptions and 5.3m visitors along the Olympic Route Network. Planning isn't easy, but it is essential.

• Business Continuity
• Disaster Recovery
• Remote Communications
• Telephony Communications
• I.T Security
• Networking
• Data Back Up

These solutions ensure that every aspect of our customers business has resolutions in place to aid continuity if disaster strikes. The most valuable business asset is data. Data sets need to be protected and backed up regularly so if data is lost it can be recovered easily and efficiently.

Find out more infortmation: Click Here

The global world of cloud services is predicted to expand next year. It has been forecast that over the next five years, sales of cloud services will grow rapidly and dramatically causing revenue to soar.

Software as a service (SaaS) is currently a market leader accounting for 87% of cloud services. But to a shift in the market, this is expected to drop as infrastructure as a service and platform as a service gain in popularity.

Whether your company works within a corporate cloud or opts to use a hybrid service, Network Resource has the resources to make these services work for your office environment. In this economical climate, due to lack of spare finances, few businesses are able to move with the market and adapt to these IT requirements.

Decisions need to be made within IT departments that intend to build a private environment of their own that can also make use of public infrastructure offerings.

Private cloud services offer hosted services to limited users positioned behind a firewall. With the development of Virtualisation, corporate networks have become service providers meaning that they are more able to meet customer requirements. 

Until recently, IT focused on the need and usage of public cloud computing. But this focus has begun to and is continually shifting towards private cloud computing. Private clouds provide more control over data sets than what would be available using a third party service. This has led to the demand of hybrid clouds due to their operational flexibility.

Network Resource have undertaken a recent survey on our social media networks to try and determine the high levels of interest in hybrid cloud services, we are also trying to discover the percentage of companies which are in the cloud and which cloud service is the most common. The poll has confirmed that IT organisations focus on hybrid clouds and over 15% of companies indicate that hybrid clouds will be evident in many businesses in the next five years.

For more information, please visit http://portal.netres.co.uk:5004/services/security/cloudprotect/

Ten reasons to host:

LAN’s within an office can offer control and comfort. Being able to see server room equipment can ensure the user that everything is in working order and secure. However, during economic uncertainty, it is companies that leverage their technology who will be the ones left standing.

Hosting your IT services and applications can save your business money and take you out of the date centre and place you in the forefront of your business.

1. Operational Expenses.
Hardware is expensive, and it needs replacing regularly. Adding this expense into your annual budget means that you have to make cuts elsewhere. Technology changes overnight, every night which can take a toll on your finances. Hosting allows you to move IT from the asset column to the operating expense column, allowing you to write off your current equipment. With hosting, the managed service provider bears the upgrading costs whilst your business benefits from the latest versions of operating systems, server technology and applications.

2. High Availability
Unplanned downtime can slow your business productivity which can cause detrimental effects for both you and your customers. Hosting solutions can offer guarantee uptimes as high as 99.999 percent. Providers offer hosting from advanced data centers with built in redundancy, meaning if your server fails your data can be automatically transferred to another machine resulting in no interruption of service. And in addition, expert engineers are constantly monitoring storage requirements, patches, upgrades, and bandwidth and responding to proactive alerts before thresholds are reached.

3. Automatic Backups
Tape back up solutions is becoming redundant in business. Switching tape drives is now an unnecessary stress. It isn’t uncommon to forget to switch the drive or copy over important data. Hosting solves this problem. No more concern over whether your data is safe and secure, instead, when using a hosted environment, regular automatic backups can be included in your service agreement.

4. Anywhere Anytime Access
Hosting allows you to store and host your data and equipment in a central location. A huge advantage of this is the ability to access it from anywhere when connected to the Internet. This allows employees to access files, emails and data when away from the office. This improves productivity and business ethics.

5. Security
Data is the most important asset a company has. If data is lost and you do not have the correct measurements in place, then it can spell out disaster. Hosted IT solutions offer high tech security from data centers with around the clock security personnel, digital video surveillance, biometric finger print and retina eye scanners. Hosting offers anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall protection while still being able to physically see and maintain your local network giving you a sense of comfort and control.

6. Never Upgrade Software Again
Hosting solutions offer automatic upgrades to the latest features and allow you access to the latest versions of your products and services. These IT solutions automatically upgrade you to the latest operating systems for your PC. You no longer need to manually upgrade and keep up to date with the latest and greatest.

7. Go Green
becoming environmentally friendly is at the top of everyone’s agenda. Companies are constantly striving to improve and develop their green credentials. IT hosting is the ultimate application to help you meet these requirements. Since you no longer have to power and cool a room full of equipment, you are conserving energy and reducing the size of your carbon footprint. Bonus points if you allow employees to telecommute by accessing the network remotely, reducing traffic congestion and decreasing fuel consumption.

8. Reduce Maintenance Time
A hosted solution through a managed service provider places you directly in to a team of certified IT professionals. While you or your IT manager have a broad skill set, two heads are better than one. Day-to-day IT tasks are completely automatically and the bottlenecks are troubleshot by an experienced team, leaving you to focus on other ways to make your business more successful.

9. Scalable
Hosting your IT makes adding and removing workstations easy. User profiles are assigned to each employee and are quickly duplicated for a new employee or removed if you need to scale down. There’s no need to purchase additional copies of software or go through time-consuming steps to set up new users on the network, while terminated employees' profiles are removed and data archived at the data center.

10. Flat Fee
IT expenses can be effectively managed with a hosted solution. Your managed service provider often charges a flat monthly fee based on how many employees you have so there are no surprises. Instead of figuring out how much that last help desk call is going to run you, a hosted model allows you to budget accurately for upcoming expenses. The ability to scale your business on a moment's notice, reduce time spent on tedious maintenance, and knowing you’re making a positive impact on the environment carry significant advantages that make it difficult for traditional networks to compare.

Outsourcing can prove extremely beneficial in business. Whether you are thinking about outsourcing your staff or your technology, outsourcing has been proven to save money, improve productivity and change business perspective.

1) Cost
Adding together the annual salary of an in-house IT manager, the cost of recruitment, training and additional company benefits, it equals a substantial overhead that not all companies can afford. Creating an annual budget is a difficult process. Making cuts and juggling expenses can often lead to unnecessary cuts and wrong decisions being made which can affect your business. Outsourcing areas can save money, tighten the budget and expenses can be used elsewhere in the business.

2) Lack of in-house expertise
Does your business have an IT department? If not,  perhaps you don't have space for an extra staff member. Or your company's IT requirements aren’t enough to busy an entire department. Although you depend on your IT systems, you simply can't justify a full-time, in-house employee. Some companies offer unlimited IT support contracts, which would enable you to call them whenever you need help, as if they were a dedicated member of your staff.

3) Extend your in-house expertise
Maybe you have a designated IT contact or a dedicated IT person in-house. You rely heavily on them for the continuity of your IT and therefore your business. But what happens if they are already dealing with a crisis when another one comes along? Or if they are away from the office when disaster strikes? What if there is a serious issue and they try everything they can think of, but nothing seems to be helping? Outsourcing to a dedicated IT firm will give you access to a full team of experts whenever you need them.

4) The skills crisis
Recruitment is a tough, time-consuming and expensive process at the best of times. Do you lack confidence in your ability to find people with the right skills for your business? If you are not from a technical background, how do you ensure you recruit the right people, especially when IT skills are in such high demand? With outsourcing, once you've selected the right IT partner, you don't have to worry. You'll have a highly-trained team on hand at all times.

5) Productivity
If you don't have an IT department, you might be thinking that it saves money keeping responsibility for technology in-house and distributing it amongst your staff. The likelihood is that it is dramatically reducing their productivity.

6) Find out about the latest technology
Technology is a constant, but upgrades and new features constantly change. If there's a new product, upgrade or tool available that might be useful to your business, how will you find out about it before your competitors do? Building a relationship with a supplier will mean that you have access to advice from people whose job it is to monitor the market, assess innovations and work out whether they can benefit their customers. They will also gain advance intelligence and training via any industry partnerships they may have.

7) Value added services
Are you worried about your network's security? Need a disaster recovery plan? Want to support an increasingly mobile workforce? Do you require bespoke software? Your IT support provider may be able to offer you a full range of additional consultancy services. They will be able to make recommendations that could improve your systems and save you money.

8) Constant care
Chances are that your current IT strategy relies on a 'break/fix' set-up. This means that by the time you know there is a problem, your business and staff's productivity has already been affected. Some IT support suppliers can proactively monitor your systems 24/7, identify any issues and fix them before you even notice, virtually eliminating downtime. They can also carry out diagnostics on your system, servers and network to prevent any problems arising in the first place.

9) Risk management and legal redress
Partnering with experts should not only mean that you experience fewer IT problems, but also that someone outside your business is responsible in the event of a crisis. If you have the right agreement or contract in place, this may extend to legal responsibility, which could enable you to seek damages if something goes wrong.

10) Focus on your business
Your time is more precious than ever. You need to focus on your staff, your costs and most importantly, your clients and forget about your IT