Proactive Service vs Reactive Support

When we talk with business leaders we often hear about their perception of Proactive Service vs Reactive Support.  Many business have been told that Proactive Support includes things like patch updates, anti-virus checks, computer monitoring, and so on.  While you can consider these items to be proactive in nature, doing them independently doesn’t offer much value to the end result … Read More

Are You Hitting Your Goals?

Straight and simple. Are you hitting your goals? Do you have them written out for the quarter, year, next 3 years? What do they look like? Most importantly, how is technology helping you? Can you answer that last question directly? Most companies can’t. In fact, most companies can’t answer much at all about the impact technology makes on their business. … Read More

Technology Pain Threshold

I’m always surprised by the difference in pain thresholds between companies.  One company will put up with all sort of terrible atrocities in their infrastructure and never say a word.  Another company will raise hell the moment a printer doesn’t work.  I suppose this is a matter of culture, but what is that actual impact on the business?  The Emerson-Ponemon … Read More

How Is Any Company Different?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about one question:  What actually makes a company different?  I started to consider this question in reference to my own company, but then I thought about it in a larger sense.  What makes any company different?  It seems that you can rattle off a few attributes that might make a company different, but I … Read More

Staff Time Management

We’ve noticed a trend in the past couple of years in our business and with our clients as well.  As a business matures and grows the people in that business must do the same.  The Financial Times points out that Staff Time Management is one of the key differentiators between growing firms and those that stagnate (ref:  https://goo.gl/zu0tX6).   The logistics … Read More

The Leverage Service Experience

The Leverage Service Experience is unique.  It’s like the feeling you get when you go home for Thanksgiving.  You don’t use it everyday, but when you do it feels comfortable and familiar.  The person you talk to knows who you are and what you like.  They know how you like to be treated and how you want your computer to … Read More

Find Employees that Fit

Leverage is in a service industry, and service is provided by people.  So the most important ingredient for our service recipe is the people that provide the service.  We can have the best technology and the best processes with the best plans, but if we don’t have great people then none of it matters.  People are the glue that holds … Read More

9.5 Remote Worker Requirements

More people than ever are working away from the office.  The modern employee expects the ability to perform her entire list of job duties from anywhere.  As an employer, it’s a competitive advantage in your market for acquiring business and top talent.  As with any new technology it comes with some risks.  You must account for the security requirements first … Read More

How to Fire Your IT Company

Have you ever broken up with your IT company?  The process can be messy.  In a perfect world you get your passwords without issue.  Your backups are provided on the exact day you ask for them.  All services are retained under your company name and your former IT provider is removed as an authorized contact.  But the world isn’t perfect. … Read More

Data Backup Testing

We recently went through a new client acquisition that required us to use backups to install their new server because the old server was in the cloud far away.  The process was pretty painful because the former IT company didn’t have proper backup systems in place.  This made me think of some other issues we’ve encountered with backups for new … Read More