#itekhelps

From the iPhone to the pet rock, the most lucrative business ideas tend to arise from a willingness to think outside the norm. But for every breakthrough, there are countless ideas that fail to take off. 

That’s not necessarily because they were bad ideas; it’s because successful innovation relies just as much on the execution as it does on creative thinking.

That’s why it’s important to have an innovation platform, system or framework (call it what you will) to align the people, processes and technologies needed to turn great ideas into practical products, services and solutions. In a nutshell, you need to make it easy to identify innovative ideas, communicate them to the business and investigate their potential.

Here’s a quick guide to how you can turn your business into an innovation powerhouse.

Step 1: Understand what to innovate – and why

There are plenty of reasons to embrace innovation, but all circle back to the same basic fact: innovation is a crucial driver of business success; as markets change, businesses must change with them. There are four distinct types of innovation and they can apply to any aspect of your operations:

Product innovation: essentially, ‘building a better mousetrap’ (e.g. annual product updates and new models).

Process innovation: where you improve an existing production method (e.g. the assembly line).

Marketing innovation: where you change the way you design, package and sell your product (e.g. personalized products and services).

Organizational innovation: where you modify your internal process or culture to change the way your organization functions (e.g. adopting new workflow tools or management structures).

These can help you find your ‘why’. Products losing market share? Then look to product and/or marketing innovation. Production or sales costs too high? Perhaps process or organizational innovation can help. Once you understand why you’re looking to innovate, you’ll be better able to manage the process.

Step 2: Remove silos and identify champions

Great ideas can come from any place – employees, customer feedback, partners or the executive team. You should be able to locate these ideas, no matter who or where they’ve come from, and determine which ones align with your long-term vision. This might mean monitoring customer service conversations (and especially complaints); creating an anonymous online ‘suggestion box’; hosting regular product and process innovation sessions; or creating a culture of innovation that includes resources and support. It’s also helpful to nominate ‘innovation champions’ – people who show the leadership, networking skills and domain knowledge to be effective innovation leaders. They can serve as a first point of contact for employees (and their ideas) across the business, as well as taking the lead on any innovation projects, at least for the initial stages.

Step 3: Hire or train?

The next thing you’ll want to do is identify any gaps between your growth goals and your current capabilities. Can you achieve those goals with your existing resources, or will they require the onboarding of fresh talent? Balance is needed here; while it’s often helpful to bring in new people with fresh perspectives, you should never discount the value of veteran team members who carry invaluable ‘corporate memory’ and experience. You might also need to update your hiring and/or training processes – for example, bringing in temporary or contract workers who can lend specialist technical skills to your teams as needed.

Step 4: Choose your processes and tools

Finally, it’s important to consider your processes and tools. Your process is the way you source and develop ideas:

Closed innovation: essentially the traditional in-house research and development approach.

Collaborative innovation: where you work with your closest partners and suppliers.

Open innovation: where you are open to customer feedback and ideas from other external sources.

Co-innovation: where you work with another business to create a product or service neither could produce on their own.

And your tools are the structures and methodologies you use to actually do the hands-on innovation work, like agile, lean startup or reverse innovation.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are already altering how the business world functions in ways that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago. Yet anyone with more than a passing interest in the technologies understands that we are currently experiencing the tip of the iceberg with regards to the potential of these technologies.

Whether it's immersing customers in virtual worlds via headsets (VR) or inserting virtual objects into the everyday world to augment customer experiences (AR), these technologies are revolutionizing the supply chain from factory to consumer and the all-important customer experience.

Ramping up the technology

Like much technology in the digital age, AR and VR have been relatively slow to enter the mainstream consciousness and are still little more than buzzwords for most people. However, their influence is already being felt through the availability of an ever-increasing number of smartphone apps and big commitments in viewable hardware from all the world's leading IT companies including Microsoft, with its HoloLens battery-powered 'mixed reality', Google's Cardboard viewer, Samsung's Gear VR, and Facebook's Oculus. Thousands of global startups are also competing for their own niche share of this burgeoning global market.

Suggested reading:

At CES, VR and AR are evolving right under your nose

Rokid Glass voice-activated smartglasses try to improve AR

Your guide to AR, a new ‘reality’ for home and business

A whole new customer reality

AR and VR are becoming increasingly vital tools for businesses to connect meaningfully with their customers in the digital age. This means offering multi-sensory products and services that incorporate touch, sight, sound and even smell. This could include everything from buying a leather lounge suite to an apartment off a plan to a state-of-the-art presentation of a prospective holiday destination. Additionally, offering services that incorporate the latest features in these technologies is rapidly becoming key to establishing and sustaining an emotional connection with customers through marketing, sales and support cycles.

Suggested reading:

3 Examples Of How Augmented Reality Improves The Customer Experience

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Customer Service: The New ‘Virtual’ Customer Segment

4 Examples of How AR & VR Will Improve Customer Service

All businesses great and small

As the head of IT for a school, it can be frustrating trying to sell cybersecurity to an unrelenting school board that doesn’t see the cost as a priority. This is why it’s vital to demonstrate the benefits of a proactive response to security threats, rather than waiting for an attack before deciding to finally upgrade your defenses.

Recognize the threat

Cybersecurity threats continue to evolve at an alarming rate, which means schools must be ready to respond to a new breed of attacks.

Ransomware attacks are prevalent across every sector, often gaining a foothold in an organization by tricking someone into opening an infected attachment or clicking on a malicious link. The infection will then quickly spread throughout the organization’s network, encrypting important files and demanding payment for their release. Other attacks might steal that data to sell on the dark web.

For schools, this sensitive data can include staff records, student medical information, academic results and much more. U.S. Federal law requires that student information be protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, with schools found in violation facing stiff penalties. Similarly, all data collected by the Australian Government’s Department of Education is protected under the Privacy Act 1988.  

The education sector has been bullied by ransomware attacks such as WannaCry and GoldenEye, suffering the highest rates of attack while having the least protected systems, according to security analyst firm BitSight. The firm's 'The Rising Face of Cyber Crime: Ransomware' report found that educational institutions were three times more likely to experience an attack than those in healthcare and 10 times more likely than those in finance.

Consider the consequences

Education providers that fall victim to cybersecurity attacks make the headlines, such as South Carolina's Dorchester County School District 2, which saw almost half of its servers crippled by a ransomware attack. The school was then forced to pay the ransom, yet still lost its data.

In light of the attack, the district is overhauling its cybersecurity defenses, but the damage to its reputation will take much longer to repair. The attack made the news after the district was forced to contact the families of 32 students, whose 2016–2017 data was not available in hard copy, and ask for their assistance in recovering lost information.

Get on the front foot

Why teachers around the world are embracing digital whiteboards...

A digital whiteboard combines the features of an ordinary whiteboard, a projector and a touchscreen computer.

The result: a powerful and interactive learning tool that encourages innovation and collaboration.

Digital whiteboards foster active learning environments and student participation by allowing teachers to manipulate the screen in unique and engaging ways.

You can drag and rearrange items, underline or highlight text, magnify images and integrate multimedia content, including videos and games, into lessons.

Digital whiteboards offer a flexible educational tool that can be used to support student learning at any age, and in any subject.

Real-world impact

Digital whiteboards are becoming more popular around the world, featuring in 90.3 per cent of U.K. classrooms, 62.4 per cent of Australian classrooms, 55.8 per cent of U.S. classrooms and 46 per cent of Canadian classrooms.

Why are they being so widely adopted? Because they can boost engagement through interactivity and help students learn in different ways.

In fact, six case studies compiled by Sydney's University of Technology found that school students of all ages, from kindergarten to Year 12, were on-task and motivated during classes incorporating digital whiteboards, and reportedly preferred these lessons to other classroom work.

They also noted that digital whiteboards were particularly valuable when teaching students with special needs.

Another case study from Portland State University found higher levels of motivation, engagement and collaboration among college freshmen when a digital whiteboard was integrated into the library instruction classes, where the instructor became a “facilitator of students’ learning”, rather than the center of teaching.

Flexibility and innovation

Digital whiteboards can be valuable assets for teachers as well as students. For starters, their many practical functions mean that, among other things, you can save time and paper by converting handwritten notes to digital text or capturing and uploading your work for later review or distribution.

But perhaps the biggest benefit of digital whiteboards is allowing you to cater to different learning styles, so that students can absorb information visually, aurally, through reading and writing, or kinesthetically, depending on what works best for them.

Not only that, you can foster a love of learning through interactive and dynamic lesson plans that bring the course material to life.

Every successful business relies on their software systems when making decisions, conducting operations, and managing resources. The importance of integrated business management software cannot be denied: it is essential to keep the business operational, efficient, and to make sure it delivers its outputs. However, software integration is often neglected because of immediate revenue acceleration goals. As a result, several different applications are installed in various functional areas. This results in inefficiencies and software integration challenges within a business, unduly slowing its processes. 

To generate higher revenue, many companies will open new office locations, embrace additional sales channels, and explore various approaches. Businesses that evolve their systems over time without strategically planning and continually reviewing their software integration solutions can find themselves with a poor system that inhibits flexibility, hampers productivity, and, ultimately, hinders the company's ability to grow. When businesses have several isolated applications, there are many challenges that arise. These challenges can become so severe that they can impede growth through an assortment of negative consequences.

Wasted Employee Productivity

To ensure the growth of your company, every employee must be working efficiently at peak productivity. If your employees are equipped with inefficient and unconnected processes, time is being wasted and errors are more likely to be committed. Ineffective software has the potential to not only slow down processes, but also decrease accuracy.  A lack of speed and accuracy will waste employee productivity and impede the growth of your business.  

Lack of Visibility into Performance

If your systems become unconnected, this may result in overlapping databases and make it impossible to get a good picture of your company. This picture, that includes business-critical reports, is essential to track performance and provide a view of your company's processes. Integrated software systems are designed to give businesses the visibility they need to not only address issues before they become costly mistakes, but also improve future performance.  Without the vision provided by an effective software integration solution, a business cannot grow.

Integration Difficulty and Cost

With so many disparate applications, a huge amount of time is wasted on the integration, maintenance, and acquisition of updated applications. When parts of the whole are upgraded, even more incorporation and maintenance is needed for the pieces to work together properly. This need to retroactively integrate software and applications means that time, money, and energy that could have been used to make business more fruitful is wasted, while maintenance costs increase.

 In the world of retail today, IT plays a vital role. Some of the basic IT functions include data center processes, application expansion, IT worker support, and end-user maintenance. A lack of in-house IT resources is frustrating for retailers and their customers alike.  As retail businesses grow, so does the demand for effective and efficient IT management.

 Creating an in-house IT resource surely has its advantages. If you give your in-house IT team the right training and background, they can provide on-demand set up and systems management for your business. This can be especially beneficial if you craft and use modified systems that are unique to your company. Additionally, the in-house IT team will be readily available for solving problems quickly and efficiently as they arise.

This response time and business expertise may save money, but to remain and thrive in the world of retail and technology, in-house IT resources require on-going investments in professional learning and continuing education, especially as new, industry-enhancing technologies emerge. Developing a relationship with an outside resource to help train your in-house IT can help you maximize your investment in in-house management.

In many cases, choosing to outsource IT makes more sense, as the costs associated with managed IT are more predictable and there is no pressure to continually build expertise within your organization.  Contracting with outside IT resources can be advantageous on several levels, especially for new or growing businesses.  Outside contractors can provide long-term or temporary support, including on-site services.  Whether you choose to invest in outsourced or in-house IT resources, there are a few key factors that should be considered.

Redundancy in management roles: In a client or contractor relationship, IT support roles may be redundant; device and network set up, maintenance, and support roles may overlap. These overlapping responsibilities and roles result not only in inefficiencies within your organizational structure, but also in increased overall costs. Failure to clearly define management roles and responsibilities with and between multiple contractors results in increased frustration and expenses by creating conflicting priorities and confusing your stakeholders.  An effective IT system must establish clear roles and responsibilities.

We all need our printers, but most especially, businesses need their printers. Businesses can’t function without them. You can always dispose of an inkjet or laser out the window, but what do you think will happen to you, and your business? In simple terms, we need our printers, even though they frustrate us sometimes. Here are among the most common printer maintenance issues that most businesses encounter in their day-to-day activities.

Printer Won’t Print

This is the most common maintenance issue that businesses and individuals face. There are endless possibilities as to why it won't print, so start with checking for error messages or warning lights on the printer.  Make sure there is paper in the tray and check the ink cartridges.

Paper Jams

Second, paper jams are common, but try to understand why it's happening instead of just removing the paper from the paper tray. Take the paper out of the tray, open all the flaps and look inside.  Be sure to inspect for small pieces of paper that, if not removed, will result in more paper jams.

 Poor Print Quality

Having horizontal lines on prints and poor-quality color or discoloration can be quite annoying. You need to clean the print heads to solve this problem. The process differs from printer to printer, and there may be options on the printer control panel or in the printer software on the computer. You might need to look this up in the manual.

Cartridge Replacement Notifications

Printers notify users that the ink is running low before the cartridges actually run out of ink. It is a good practice to purchase a replacement cartridge as soon you are notified, but wait to install the new cartridge until the old one either stops printing or the color becomes faded in your printouts.

Printer Won’t Connect to Phone or Tablet

To do this, the printer must not only be wireless, but also support the specific wireless device. The list is growing, but there are still a lot of printers, particularly older models, that don’t support mobile devices.

Luckily, you do not have to go through these bothersome printer maintenance issues because iTEK Services, Inc. has partnered up with Zebra to cater to all your printing needs.

The printers from Zebra Technologies continue to prove to be the best in producing better print outputs. The ZD420, ZD620, and ZQ300 printers from Zebra Technologies are the best choices, especially since the Z series printers can withstand extended usage over the day without compromising print speeds and output quality. The Z series printers also offer advanced connectivity options and user interface innovations.

With students accessing their school networks via desktop, laptop, mobile, tablet and now even wearables and internet of things (IoT) devices – such as smart speakers, TVs and smartboards – an up-to-date endpoint security system is vital.

The internet is helping to fuel an educational revolution the likes of which we've never seen. It truly is the ultimate tool, giving schools and students access to lessons from the entirety of human history – all at a fraction of the price of a set of encyclopedias.

However, as Alfred Nobel discovered shortly after inventing dynamite, tools swiftly become weapons in the wrong hands.

And while most schools have up-to-date firewalls and anti-virus protection, even these safeguards are powerless against an unauthorized user hopping onto a computer that a student simply forgot to log off – or an authorized user who isn’t playing by the rules.

However, there’s no need to panic because a comprehensive endpoint security plan can make sure your school is protected against the threats of today and the future.

Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you

At the heart of a secure network is a healthy dose of paranoia: an assumption that all users are hostile.

It’s a tough ask to think this way at schools, because teachers and administrators want to believe the best of their students – indeed, it’s a prerequisite for being a good educator. However, endpoint security isn’t personal, it’s merely best practice.

Microsoft lives by the assumption that “all input is malicious until proven otherwise”. As a core security principle, it just makes sense.

Students are likely a step ahead

Just one week after a Los Angeles high school handed out its district-issued iPads, almost 300 students had hacked through their device’s security measures which limited the type of content they could browse online.

Basically, when it comes to computer use, odds are that plenty of teachers are behind their students.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But if more than half of your users don’t agree with your rules, can circumvent them and have a powerful computer of their own sitting in their pockets, you’d be a fool not to be thinking about how to stay ahead in security terms.

Make staff members aware of consequences

According to Consumer Reports, about 3.1 million phones were stolen in the United States in 2013, with a further 1.4 million lost.

While no one would suggest a person who’s been the victim of theft deserves further punishment, there should be consequences for people who don’t take basic anti-theft precautions, such as simply setting a four-digit lock code.