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The fear of having an IT project fail can be a strong deterrent for many, despite the expected business advantages to be gained. 

With the digital transformation well underway, IT projects are what set's many businesses apart of their competitors. Whether it be for internal efficiencies through streamlined business processes, or establishing a desirable point of difference in the customers eye.  

If it's your first time taking on an IT project, or you have been doing this for years, in this article we offer our 4 tried and tested methods for ensuring a successful outcome. 

When it comes to “IT security Tips” it seems everyone has their 2 cents about what you should, and shouldn’t do. For those who are not from the world of technology, it can be near impossible to understand the different reasoning’s behind the tips and synthesize this information into something practical to protect your business.

With the media bombarding us about large organisations being infected by ransomware every other day, caring about IT security should now be a must on a business’ agenda.

Gone are the days where protecting just the perimeter of a network was enough. In 2019, firewalls alone won’t protect you. Hackers are getting smarter, and so should your technology!

This means that, IT security now has become everyone’s responsibility… yes, every single employee in an organisation is suddenly responsible for avoiding ransomware attacks.

But let’s face it, your workforce is likely to have other priorities in their day. As much as a security education program will help keep your team conscious, it only takes one person to be less vigilant for an entire network to be infected by a ransomware!

So here’s the one technology every business should be looking at implementing right now:

If you are running servers or workloads in the AWS cloud, you’re probably aware of the Amazon Web Services Well Architected framework. First introduced by AWS in 2015, this framework is widely used by AWS Certified Architects to create a planned and structured infrastructure which will meet your needs today and into the future.

Consisting of five pillars, the Well-Architected framework sets the scene for having in place cloud foundations that complies with best practices. In this article, we dig a little deeper into it and consider the core pillars of AWS Foundations, and why you really should be using them in your environment.

You have heard about it, read articles about it, or are potentially even practicing it today. A relatively new, often misunderstood term, Digital Transformation has become increasingly popular in the business scene.

And it is not going away.

In less than 2 decades, we have seen more than halfof the Fortune 500 companies disappear, whether it be through mergers, acquisitions or bankruptcy. Guess who has replaced them? The businesses that are paving the way in a new digital world - The Facebooks, Amazons, Ubers and Zappos of the world.

Technology has not only happened to us, it has caused a paradigm shift within us (society), and the way we live our lives. Inevitably, it has reached businesses who now struggle to meet the challenges of an aggressive pace of digital disruption, often left at a loss as to where to begin changing. 

As surprising as it may seem, digital transformation starts with people. The biggest change is not about the shifting technology, focusing on customer experiences, or finding the right product set to run a business. Although not easy, these shifts are all doable!

The magic happens when people are able to break through legacy business culture.

As straight forward as this may sound, our leaders are struggling with taking on, supporting, and encouraging digital transformation.

A testimony to this challenge is the way most leadership teams run.

A critical component of any team, is communication. 

And when it comes to developing customised software applications, middleware integrations, apps or anything in the software development world, it is critical to be able to communicate with your team effectively, to ensure the desired outcome is reached, in the shortest timeframe possible.  

Known for being less vocal, developers will often rely on stakeholders to ensure an effective communication process in a project or ongoing relationship. This is where the challenge comes in. Often, stakeholders won’t necessarily know or take for granted “obvious” information that developers may not be aware of, adding complexity and mutual frustrations to a project – which ultimately reads as cost. 

Ah, internet scams. They’re everywhere these days and, as you can imagine, they are increasingly sophisticated in their attempts to fool you into handing over hard-earned cash. One of the most recent to emerge presents you with one of your own passwords as well as a lurid story about internet surfing habits in an effort to scare you into paying money to the scammer.

Without going into the gory details of that particular scam (because it is just one example of many), it does serve to highlight the necessity for two-factor authentication (2FA) for all your online accounts and services. With businesses relying on emails as its main communication tool, and hackers being aware of this, it’s an excellent idea to enable 2FA for your Outlook emails, too.

A brand new addition to the Lancom team, Dan Apperley joins our business as a Customer Success Manager. With a mission to further Lancom's customer-centric vision, Dan is coming on-board to work with our growing customer base in delivering pragmatic solutions to achieve their goals.

That’s right, you need to call time on your relationship with the office server. If it helps, you can promise one another you’ll just be friends, and relegate the server to a minor role on the side. Or go hard, pull the pin completely and shut it down for good.

Admit it, you’ve probably had a few technology love affairs over the years. Was it the iPhone? That shiny new convertible laptop? We might not have been there, but did you brag about impressive specifications just after spending tens of thousands on the new server?

Maybe so, but times have changed and it just doesn’t measure up any longer.

Leveraging technology to create solutions that meet and exceed business needs is the stuff that drives Waruna.

He will get inside your skin, see things from your point of view, envisage the solution and make it happen!

Waruna started his career at Lancom as Graduate Systems Engineer, 16 years ago. We knew from the get go he had more to offer, and he sure didn't disappoint us!

With a fantastic trajectory Waruna rose through the ranks becoming Lancom Chief Technology Officer, General Manager, and now the Group CEO.

With the whole world apparently going cloud crazy, you might get the idea that you’re missing out (and the chances are, if your technology systems are long in the tooth, you are). Check out these five signs which show your business is ready to take the leap…and reap the rewards.