Technology is an integral part of modern businesses. When you acquire a new business, have you considered its current IT setup and what it may look like once it is merged with your company?

Communicating and assessing expectations is crucial for a smooth transition.

Have you recently called your IT provider for more unplanned on-site visits than usual? Instead of sticking to the routine IT maintenance visits, are your provider's IT technicians now being called to your location to fix a growing-laundry list of minor issues?

You may wonder, "Do I need to hire an on-site IT technician, or is my IT provider not working out?"

We've put together seven questions to help determine whether your company might benefit from hiring an internal IT technician to help with small, daily IT tasks.

If you turn on your computer and all of your files are gone? What do you do? How does it affect your business?

If you are hit by ransomware, do you know how quickly you can be back online?

What do you need to return to productivity when vital IT applications or hardware go down?

These situations are examples of IT disasters, and they can halt productivity, damage your reputation, and accrue significant financial losses if they are not handled swiftly and effectively.

The cybercrime industry looms as a constant threat to businesses and individuals. Experts estimate that cybercrime costs will reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Now, it's rarely a case of "if" you experience a cyberattack. Instead, it's a matter of "when.

When you say the phrase "IT disaster," often it's associated with a natural disaster or catastrophic damage to your office building. But IT disasters are more than facility damage. They can be anything—seemingly big or small—that affects your IT setup in a way that halts productivity.

When you bring in a new IT provider or IT team, you may wonder, “Can they really help my business reach its goals? Or is this just another vendor?”

Many IT providers refer to their most positive, effective client relationships as “partnerships.

In today's world of high-speed internet and lightning-fast applications, slow technology can feel frustrating and ineffective. So what do you do when your computer seems forever stuck in the loading screen?

While some issues can be fixed with a simple reboot or software update, others may require an expert's hand.

The last time you received an IT proposal, do you remember why you accepted it or declined it? Why do some proposals seem "off" while others feel compatible with your business goals?

There are numerous reasons individual IT proposals may be rejected, each unique to its business and the IT provider or internal IT team that created it.

Backup systems are essential to IT disaster recovery and minimizing IT downtime. But what affects the prices of the different services? Why does the cost vary between applications and services? What is the actual cost of backup services?

The answer is, "Well, it depends on what you want from your backups.

What would you do if you turned on your computer and suddenly everything was gone? Would you have the backups you need to restore your computer, or would all the data be lost forever?

IT backups are an essential part of IT disaster recovery planning.

What would you do if you turned on your computer and saw only a blank screen? No files or programs to open, just a blank slate. What data are you most worried about losing? Do you know how to get it back?

IT backups are an essential defense against IT disasters because they can restore crucial data and systems if hardware memory is compromised or erased.

If your business is closed for the weekend, how do you know if your critical hardware is running correctly? Or do you come in Monday morning to an unpleasant surprise?

Often, the solution to a hardware issue is to reboot the equipment. For example, when something as complex as a server or firewall goes down, an IT field technician is often needed to reboot and examine the machine.