PremierePC considers our clients’ needs every step of the way. As a Managed Services Provider (MSP), we interact with a multitude of services; tying it all together creates our client-centered service model.
Our client-centered servicing focuses on building relationships with our clients and creating positive experiences by maximizing technology services and product offerings.
We are aware that YOU are the primary reason PremierePC exists as a Managed Services Provider, and we value each relationship. Your IT provider should not be there to leverage you as a revenue source; they should be there to advise, consult, and resolve.
If you don’t feel supported by your current IT provider, you may not have an MSP.
You may now be asking, “If I don’t have an MSP, what do I have?”
Many IT companies sell you what looks like a managed services plan, instead they nickel and dime you for everything. There is nothing proactive happening. They generally offer one or two MSP services, then operate more like an on-demand or break–fix shop. The consulting is limited, and the company is centered around their profit centers, not your success.
In reality, many of these companies are Value-Added Resellers, or VARs.
These VARs pose as MSPs; their focus is pushing hardware, padding the cost, and attaching services to these orders. They may look like an MSP in the sense that they can sell and service equipment. However, they are interested solely in pushing product, not the service they provide. A VAR’s revenue margins on hardware are often in competition with the best fit for the client. Service revenue is viewed as just another product to them and has little to do with providing best in class offerings. As a result of this approach, you may end up being oversold on IT and underserviced.
So, what is a Managed Services Provider?
An MSP is going to offer a help desk, proactive and reactive services, patching and automations, and integrated consulting.
In an ideal relationship, the MSP will offer the above while also functioning as a partner and an extension of your business.
Recent studies show that 31% of MSP clients are primarily seeking an MSP to meet security risks; 15% primarily need cybersecurity services, and 7% are looking for public cloud adoption/migration/support.
Think about your business, what you NEED, and if your IT provider is meeting, and exceeding, that need.
Keep in mind, 63% of SMBs experienced a data breach or cyber-attack in 2019. It is imperative your business is prepared.
So you could either:
Spend your money being oversold and underserviced
OR
Invest in your future with a forward-thinking business partner whose sole interest is to maximize your potential through technology
On to PremierePC. Let’s look at what we provide.
Helpdesk Access 8am-5pm
- Anti-Virus Protection
- Windows Patching
- Switch Management
- Change Management
- Extended Support Options
- Hosted VOIP Phone System
- VPS Hosting
- Secure DNS
- Multi Factor Authentication
Remote / Depot Support
- Onsite Support
- Router Management
- WiFi Management
- Third Party Updates
- Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR)
- Managed Cloud Services
- Enterprise File Sharing
- Dark Web Monitoring
- Project Work
Some follow-up questions:
What does this client-centered model look like?
We offer several customizable service plan levels, centered around your business’ size and needs, not a particular service set.
What is always covered by the service plan?
Our service plans are billed by the supported device. A supported device is a Windows or Apple system which has our network monitoring agent and managed security services enabled. In addition, our team will support other devices on your network at no additional cost. This includes printers, routers, network switches, mobile phones, tablets and just about any other network connected device.
We offer proactive measures, monitoring and protection you will use on day one, plus access to more. Even our follow-up process is proactive, ensuring you are happy with the resolution of your issue. There is absolute value in having a service provider in your corner that packages essential security services and proactive measures into the offering.
How is this model different from other models?
When you simply pay by the issue or by the hour, the incentive is shifted towards the service provider. We strongly believe that a service plan creates a valuable relationship that enables both sides to be more productive and integrated.
PremierePC is transparent with pricing from the beginning. Check out our computer and network support page to view our pricing model. We are interested in ensuring this partnership works for both of us, we have no interest in hiding costs.
We stand behind the value we provide as a fully integrated MSP.
PremierePC partners with you, using forward thinking and intelligent consulting, to improve your network and security stack, mitigating problems before they arise.
Contact us if you’d like to learn more about your current environment or have additional questions.
Outlook: Cool Features For This Hot Summer
Ever open your email and immediately get a sinking feeling in your gut?
Introducing Sweep.
Here’s how it works:
What’s New With GoTo?
Announcing: NEW PHONE PLANS
We are excited to announce, will be offering the following Hosted Phones plans: Basic, Standard+, and Premium+.
Basic
Feature-limited, business phone system with messaging and basic video conferencing. 20 seat max.
Standard+
Fully integrated business solution for phones, messaging and video plus password management and basic events.
Premium+
Your remote employee workbench. Empower your entire workforce regardless of their location: Unified Communications, IT support, Contact Center, Virtual Events and Enterprise Password Security.
Join the “work from anywhere” revolution with the bundle that scales to meet your needs. Click here for more info.
How Strong Are the Barriers to Your Data?
I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of information about the importance of strong passwords. But what else are your doing to protect your employees’ account?
Let’s start with common mistakes…
Having a false security due to passwords meeting “complexity requirements”
Often people create “complex” passwords using the poor criteria. (i.e. People love to use “mangling rules” – replacing letters with symbols like @ for a or 3 for e.) Hackers and cracking software know these tricks and can guess them easily.
Recycling passwords
Everyone reuses passwords, even though we know that’s not smart. Remember, once a password is stolen, it can never be safely used again.
Not requiring MFA
MFA (multi-factor authentication) may take a few extra seconds to log into each account, but do not underestimate its power.
How many employees do you have?
How many accounts does each employee have?
Multiply these numbers and you are looking at the approximate number of security holes in your system.
Any one of your these passwords may only take THREE DAYS for a hacker to crack.
Deploy mandatory multi-factor authentication
MFA may save your organization. This simple solution can protect your accounts and data even if a password has been compromised. Requiring MFA can stop 100% of all automated attacks, 96% of bulk phishing attacks, and 75% of targeted attacks.
Maintain control of your network
Do you have IT policies in place for offboarding an employee? Are you in control of employee email access on their mobile phone once terminated? Do you restrict access to data based on role? Ex employees can create a huge gaps in your security, whether intentional or not.
Train employees
When employees are unaware of security risks and unable to recognize threats, they are not able to protect the organization. Do you offer Security Awareness Training? Do you simulate phishing attacks? You may not be aware of just how vulnerable you are to attacks.
Invest in your security stack
Layering on multiple, intelligent solutions could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in a cyber attack. What’s your security posture?
Is Your Business Making These Critical CyberSecurity Mistakes?
Let’s look at five common mistakes made frequently by businesses like yours.
Many SMBs believe they are too small to be a target.
FALSE. Hackers are not only interested in large organizations. The bad guys know that large companies have more resources, and a more robust cybersecurity stack. Makes sense to target a smaller firm that still handles sensitive payment and bank data for their clients.
Sharing passwords doesn’t seem like big of a deal, right?
They’re easier to remember, and surely you can trust your coworkers. Think again. There are many issues with this one. Sharing passwords creates giant holes in your security, makes accountability near impossible, you lose control over where your password is stored or used, etc.
Ever click “later” on suggested software updates?
Ever click “later” 12 times on that same update? You’re not alone. Again, seems like a small decision. However, think about this. Any time there is a security hole found in software, the developer seeks to correct it. They may come out with an update. With that update, they report the security hole they found. Enter hackers; anyone using a previous version of the software now has a known security hole in their system.
Free Antivirus: you may be thinking, “What a gift! This is surely just as good as any other antivirus.”
Let’s look at the facts. Free antivirus software offers low detection rates, collects data about your usage, may issue false positives to appear useful, carries bloatware and intrusive ads that slow computers, and suffers from data breaches making them counterproductive.
How often do you train your employees on cyber security?
Do you have a training protocol or standard operating procedures around this? Employee negligence is the number one cause of data breaches. Some of these actions seem harmless, like connecting to Wi-Fi at Starbucks and checking your email. Reusing your work password, or a variant of that password, across multiple accounts. Some actions could be as simple as clicking a link in an email from a seemingly safe sender. Hackers will even go so far as to drop a USB drive containing malware into the parking lot or hallway of your business; do you feel confident that none of your employees would pick that up and plug it in?
These are just five, in a list of many, common mistakes made by SMBs that leave them open to cyber security attacks.
Click here to learn more.
Tips on Computer Health
There are preventative measures you can take to prolong the life of your machine.
Here are a few of the highlights:
PremierePC handles this. Windows updates are pushed from us to make sure security updates are always current.
We also handle this. Webroot anti-virus is pushed to all service plan computers, running regular scans.
This can be useful. Make sure that computers don’t sit in places that accumulate dust or dirt, as an abundance of dust inside a computer and prevent it from cooling itself effectively. Computers also have built in fail-safes to slow down if they get too hot so the machine doesn’t completely break.
Saving files to the desktop is convenient and useful, but the operating system has to load additional resources when there are more files visible on the desktop. Additionally, files piling up in the recycling bin generally won’t have an adverse effect on computer speeds, but it doesn’t hurt to clean it out every once in a while.
This is two-fold. One, it allows other programs on the computer to use more resources, and generally, run faster. Two, without getting overly technical, when a program is open for a long time, resources in memory can get “lost.” Closing or restarting a program can help flush out the system.
It can be beneficial to turn off, and/or restart computers from time to time. Not necessarily every day, but once a week is a good time frame. This, similar to the previous tip, helps to clean things out that are stuck or wasting space in the background of the computers resources.
VPN? What’s that?
And the bad guys are always lurking.
So how can we protect ourselves and our data from unwanted third parties?
VPN to the rescue!
A VPN, or virtual private network, gives online privacy and anonymity by creating a private network from a public internet connection. Fancy, huh?
The VPN masks your IP address so online actions are virtually untraceable.
It also creates a secure and encrypted tunnel for all data to pass through, providing more privacy than a secured Wi-Fi hotspot.
Think: checking emails, looking at your bank account balance, shopping online, paying bills, etc. How often are you doing these things without a secured connection?
A few things to examine when it comes to VPN selection:
Do they respect your privacy? Do they run the most current protocol? Do they set data limits? Where are the servers located? Will you be able to set up VPN access on multiple devices? How much will it cost?
When you partner with PremierePC, you get forward-thinking, intelligent consulting every step of the way. Click here to learn more.
Our Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts
Let’s face it. We are all extremely busy all the time; or so it seems.
So we LOVE shortcuts. Anything that can maximize efficiency and multi-tasking gets my vote.
Here’s a review some of the most commonly used Windows keyboard shortcuts. This can increase productivity and offer a smoother workflow in day to day computing.
Note: ‘Win’ refers to the Windows Logo Key pictured below
Looking for one you don’t see?
Windows lists many more shortcuts on this page.
Stay tuned for more fun and helpful info from the PremierePC team.
Let’s Chat About Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge is the internet browser that was created to replace Internet Explorer. Edge runs faster and has more features than Internet Explorer, and comes preinstalled on all Windows computers. This browser is also offers faster performance speeds than every other browser.
Edge is a Chromium browser, meaning it can run hundreds of extensions that were meant for Google Chrome users in addition to the extensions in the Microsoft Store.
*click each heading below to learn more*
Single Sign On
This browser uses the OS default account to auto sign into the browser. This may not sound like a big deal, but with necessary security measures you may find yourself signing in to different many websites each day, multiple times a day, slowing you down.
This option saves you the trouble of reentering your credentials to access your work websites and increases productivity.
For the techies: Edge supports signing in with Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory, and Microsoft accounts.
Syncing
This is one of my personal favorites – by signing into my Microsoft account in my Edge browser, I can sync all bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. across devices.
Collections
Multi-tasking more and more lately? Use collections to organize websites into different categories for later.
Vertical Tabs
If you’re someone who keeps many tabs open at once, this may be helpful. Vertical tabs allow you to easily find and manage many open tabs at once.
Smart Copy
This feature copies over the rich web format of selected text instead of reformatting the text from your browser into an ugly mess. Right click, choose “smart copy,” then paste – it’s that simple!
Tracking Prevention
Edge offers three options for tracking: basic, balanced, and strict. Depending on which is selected, Microsoft will adjust the types of third-party trackers blocked.
Password Monitor
This feature notifies you if any of the credentials you’ve saved in autofill have been detected on the dark web, then prompts you to take action.
InPrivate Mode
Edge’s private browsing will delete history, cookies, and site data upon closing the tab.
GoToConnect: What’s New?
Block phone numbers on GoToConnect Mobile.
You can manage the blocked numbers from clicking the gear icon > Call settings > Blocked Numbers.
Use Visual Call Parking on GoToConnect web and desktop.
Virtually park calls on hold and answer them. With visual call parking you can view which call parking spots are in use on your system from GoToConnect web and desktop.
Note:
What is Client-Centered Service?
Our client-centered servicing focuses on building relationships with our clients and creating positive experiences by maximizing technology services and product offerings.
We are aware that YOU are the primary reason PremierePC exists as a Managed Services Provider, and we value each relationship. Your IT provider should not be there to leverage you as a revenue source; they should be there to advise, consult, and resolve.
If you don’t feel supported by your current IT provider, you may not have an MSP.
You may now be asking, “If I don’t have an MSP, what do I have?”
Many IT companies sell you what looks like a managed services plan, instead they nickel and dime you for everything. There is nothing proactive happening. They generally offer one or two MSP services, then operate more like an on-demand or break–fix shop. The consulting is limited, and the company is centered around their profit centers, not your success.
In reality, many of these companies are Value-Added Resellers, or VARs.
These VARs pose as MSPs; their focus is pushing hardware, padding the cost, and attaching services to these orders. They may look like an MSP in the sense that they can sell and service equipment. However, they are interested solely in pushing product, not the service they provide. A VAR’s revenue margins on hardware are often in competition with the best fit for the client. Service revenue is viewed as just another product to them and has little to do with providing best in class offerings. As a result of this approach, you may end up being oversold on IT and underserviced.
So, what is a Managed Services Provider?
An MSP is going to offer a help desk, proactive and reactive services, patching and automations, and integrated consulting.
In an ideal relationship, the MSP will offer the above while also functioning as a partner and an extension of your business.
Recent studies show that 31% of MSP clients are primarily seeking an MSP to meet security risks; 15% primarily need cybersecurity services, and 7% are looking for public cloud adoption/migration/support.
Think about your business, what you NEED, and if your IT provider is meeting, and exceeding, that need.
Keep in mind, 63% of SMBs experienced a data breach or cyber-attack in 2019. It is imperative your business is prepared.
On to PremierePC. Let’s look at what we provide.
Some follow-up questions:
What does this client-centered model look like?
We offer several customizable service plan levels, centered around your business’ size and needs, not a particular service set.
What is always covered by the service plan?
Our service plans are billed by the supported device. A supported device is a Windows or Apple system which has our network monitoring agent and managed security services enabled. In addition, our team will support other devices on your network at no additional cost. This includes printers, routers, network switches, mobile phones, tablets and just about any other network connected device.
We offer proactive measures, monitoring and protection you will use on day one, plus access to more. Even our follow-up process is proactive, ensuring you are happy with the resolution of your issue. There is absolute value in having a service provider in your corner that packages essential security services and proactive measures into the offering.
How is this model different from other models?
When you simply pay by the issue or by the hour, the incentive is shifted towards the service provider. We strongly believe that a service plan creates a valuable relationship that enables both sides to be more productive and integrated.
PremierePC is transparent with pricing from the beginning. Check out our computer and network support page to view our pricing model. We are interested in ensuring this partnership works for both of us, we have no interest in hiding costs.
We stand behind the value we provide as a fully integrated MSP.
Contact us if you’d like to learn more about your current environment or have additional questions.