Guide to building a digital-first small business in 2021

2020 was a year of realizations for businesses around the world. When health scares like the COVID-19 pandemic hits without warning, life’s normalcy gets disrupted beyond imagination. Companies need to adapt to new ways of working in a matter of days. For smaller businesses with little or no contingency plans in place, the pandemic was an eye-opener. Studies earlier have shown that nearly 80% of small businesses in the US did not take full advantage of the capabilities of digital and productivity tools available in the market for their use. 

Download White Paper: How a Digital Workplace Streamlines Business Performance 

In today’s digital economy, consumer behavior is directly influenced by the rapid proliferation of digital services and connected devices. There is no escaping the digital transformation realm for small businesses as the pandemic proved that digital supremacy is an inevitable need for survival and not an operational luxury for them. On this note, let us examine the top 4 crucial technology trends that a small business cannot afford to ignore in 2021.

Read more: Top 10 Ways to Set up an Effective Business Strategy in 2021 

1. Autonomous Customer Service

Once relied heavily on by customers, traditional services are moving into self-service portals wherein customers can configure and transact independently. There is a rising demand for instant and autonomous customer service. Nearly 62% of US consumers prefer talking to a chatbot while interacting with a business. AI-enabled chatbots offer instant and more data-driven support decisions to consumers when they interact. In a traditional setting, customers are forced to wait long to connect with a human support associate and explain their whole problem. Often, customers will be diverted to another department and the story of waiting and explaining repeats. With autonomous chatbot and voice assistants, most queries receive replies instantly. Also, precise data is collected and transferred to a desk executive when connecting with a human support agent.

2. Integrating Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

It is hard to find businesses without a dedicated website today. Considering that a good majority of your potential customers find out about you from the internet, building a website is necessary for any business. But today, nearly 50.8% of global internet traffic comes through mobile phones. People browsing your website on their mobile phones expect information pages to load as quickly as possible. For this, small businesses must deploy AMP principles in their web development to ensure that every web page offers a seamless loading and viewing experience in mobile browsers. Any delays in page loads can create unsatisfactory experiences for visitors, and your bounce rates will go up if AMP is not incorporated in your web experiences.

3. Marketing Personalization

Do you know that 80% of consumers are likely to do business with a brand that offers them personalized experiences? Personalization begins from the first step that businesses take to reach out to their customers, which is marketing. Rather than shooting out mass email campaigns, sticking flyers and billboards across the city, small businesses can utilize the vast plethora of modern marketing platforms to roll out customized and highly personal campaigns to attract the right audience to their stores or websites. Customers want only the right content to be delivered to their mailboxes to make more informed decisions. Small businesses need to use AI-driven personalized marketing platforms that can quickly identify interest patterns and deploy relevant messaging and recommendations to the correct customer to convince them of a purchasing decision quickly.

Read more: Key Predictions on How Workplace Technology and Culture Will Evolve in 2020 & Beyond 

4. Seamless Omni-channel experience

Irrespective of the digital channel that consumers use to reach out, small businesses must deliver an omnichannel experience across their digital landscape. From seamless transactions to better and intelligent recommendations and improved agility in back-office administration, small businesses need to have powerful digital platforms deployed across their operations’ length and breadth. Companies cannot leave their customers lurking in the dark, waiting for information as the competition might take advantage and lure them away with better experiences.

With the rising demand for faster and more digital-friendly experiences by consumers, small businesses should streamline their business process automation and management exercise. They need to efficiently coordinate workflows in different departments, such as finance, supply chain, logistics, HR, marketing, and sales. Additionally, they need to ensure a responsive digital infrastructure for their front-facing internet assets as well. 

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE 

Using intelligent business management platforms like InfinCE is necessary for small businesses to compete in the new digital era. From building a robust digital backend for your business to setting up a roadmap for continuous success on the digital front, InfinCE can reshape your digital ambitions in the most cost-effective way possible. Get in touch with us to know more about how your small business can conquer 2021 with InfinCE Digital Workplace.

Download White Paper: The Business Value of InfinCE for Business Owners and Employees

Choosing the Right Pricing Model for Enterprise IT Services

The recent trends in digital transformation have paved the way for ensuring optimal business growth for enterprises. With the rates of public cloud adoption going up, it seems that leaders have recognized the potential of modern IT tools and technologies for generating better revenue. Simultaneously, organizations have also started to find alternatives to traditional IT infrastructure models and achieve improved agility in their operations.

Today, the cloud has become ideal for businesses to build enterprise applications at much lesser costs quickly. Cloud also allows them to utilize advanced technologies to scale their operations and stay competitive in the market. As new IT solutions are entering the industry every day, organizations need to identify the right platform to manage their workloads.

Read more: Private Or Public Cloud: Where Should My Business Invest? 

Choosing the right pricing model for enterprise IT services

Partnering with a reliable IT services vendor like InfinCE gives organizations the option to run workloads on-premises and on the public cloud. This works to bolster the security of sensitive company data further while ensuring superior operational efficiency. Although adopting the best IT models is always the goal of a business, leaders also look for responsive technology partners that can offer IT solutions at the best costs. So, it’s crucial to choose the right pricing model.

There are predominantly two types of pricing models for enterprise IT services – subscription-based models and consumption-based pricing. Choosing the right pricing strategy allows a business to scale their IT resources up or down as needed while saving some money in the process as well.

The consumption-based approach is usually the go-to option for companies that want to make their business operations more agile. On the other hand, a subscription-based model suits those who want to keep their budget under control while benefiting from the potential of modern IT tools and technologies. 

Read more: 5 Reasons For Small Businesses To Adopt SaaS Model 

Listed in this blog are three principal business areas that are primarily affected by your IT pricing model’s choice.

1. Enterprise IT Operations

In the past, launching a new IT project required considerable hardware and software investments. Sometimes, it also needed months of planning and execution to get it right. Today, businesses demand faster solutions that will allow them to launch an IT project on the go. It can be facilitated easily by collaborating with an agile IT services provider.

A subscription-based model means that you will need to pay upfront for receiving the services, be it cloud solution or on-premise. Some vendors also allow customizing the features in their subscription models so that you can decide which elements you will need to optimize the IT operations of your company. As the costs are determined based on the length of the subscription, long-term plans often mean lower business costs.

On the contrary, the consumption-based IT model allows you to pay for the services you use. While this can be a good option for those who have trouble keeping their IT systems updated with software updates and patches, it will need you to cherry-pick the required tools and technologies every time you want to launch an IT project. So it is vital to choose an end-to-end IT solutions provider when going with the consumption-based pricing model.

Read more: InfinCE – A One Stop Technology Solution for Small Business 

2. Running Workloads

Working with a reliable IT services vendor that will take care of everything from equipment maintenance and on-site configurations to training and support for your in-house team is always the best choice to stay ahead of competitors. That’s what InfinCE does for its customers. InfinCE’s technical concierge allows businesses to access IT support via phone, email, or live chat. The concierge helps you resolve the problem either by yourself or by arranging for a technician, depending on the challenge’s complexity.

When the IT vendor manages everything, a fixed recurring invoice can lead to better savings than paying every month. As subscription-based models are evolving, it gives you greater control and flexibility when choosing IT plans.

It also means determining your workload requirements adequately before choosing a pricing plan so that you can avoid all kinds of risks and keep a check on the costs. You can also use both public and hosted private clouds as per the plan to explore better opportunities to develop enterprise applications and services. Meanwhile, if you go with consumption IT plans, you can easily and quickly scale the IT resources on your terms and effectively run the workloads.

Moving between public clouds and on-premises setups can also be much cost-effective when it is consumption-based pricing. Enterprises can easily choose the business-critical applications necessary to improve performance or deal with any latency issues. Likewise, it can also be beneficial to pull back the workloads with highly sensitive business data that cannot be left off-premises.

Read more: How can modern IT management software empower companies to be more agile? 

3. Capacity Planning

IT capacity planning needs companies to evaluate their resource utilization, workforce needs, and application usage before buying the servers, storage, and network infrastructure from a vendor. In this case, using a subscription-based service works out because businesses can have a predictable expense to manage their revenue stream. Moreover, subscription models also save on the costs of full purchases to gain access to the IT tools required to cover their demands.

On the contrary, the consumption-based model, or the pay-as-you-go approach, allows organizations to make an immediate purchase for their unplanned IT decisions. This can help deal with sudden demand peaks that cannot be managed with the existing infrastructure. This also means that those who are not adept with capacity planning can benefit from consumption-based IT pricing strategies. A reliable vendor can also help you determine future capacity requirements and see if the resources are enough to meet those upcoming demands.

A subscription-based model can be a boon to businesses that need an all-in-one platform for their enterprise needs. For instance, InfinCE offers a vast pool of features to support the business’s changing needs for fixed pricing. Customers can also personalize the plans with added resources to match their current and planned needs, which will lead to better operational efficiency and productivity.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software 

Selecting the right pricing model 

Choose consumption-based IT model, if you:

• Prefer maintaining a more agile business operations approach
• Need to shift too often from public cloud to on-site system
• Cannot determine future peak demands precisely
• Want scalable IT resources for unplanned potential workloads
• Do not have dedicated personnel or the resources to manage any software updates or IT maintenance work

Choose subscription-based IT model, if you:

• Need a greater level of control and flexibility over your IT plans
• Prefer to have a predictable monthly expense
• Have the capacity planning done right based on the predefined budget
• Do not want to look for the required tools and technologies every now and then for new IT projects
• Want a comprehensive solution for managing everything from IT systems configurations to training and support

Choosing an all-in-one business management solution can help you become flexible and responsive to meet the customer demands and ensure optimal growth for your business in today’s competitive environment. The final decision to go with usage-based models or subscription approach should be based on your business’s actual requirements.

Want to know more about the flexible pricing plans offered by InfinCE for businesses of all sizes and capacities? Contact us! 

Benefits of Implementing IT Assets and Inventory Management Software

During 2020-2024, the IT Management software is predicted to grow at a value of over USD 353 Million, with a 7% CAGR year over year. These estimates were from the pre-COVID era, which means that the growth rates could be accelerated now. In the new normal, workforce worldwide is undergoing a seamless transition from desk-based jobs in the office to work from anywhere culture. Fueled by the pandemic’s necessity, remote working from home became a mainstay for professionals in almost every country that bore the pandemic’s brunt. With this culture becoming mainstream, there is an essential requirement for two major components for succeeding:

1. Flexible Enterprise IT Policies

2. Flexible IT Asset Management Software

Flexible enterprise IT policies are needed to ensure that employees are readily connected to the organization’s technology ecosystem from their home networks without facing any issues.

Flexible IT asset management software is needed to accommodate and manage the entire spectrum of IT assets that are now distributed between employees’ offices and homes.

Read more: 4 Tips To Attain Success In The New Normal Remote Work Environment  

Once a strategic enterprise IT policy is in place, the next important thing a business needs for enabling a seamless remote working culture is efficient IT management software. Such a platform would allow easy control and management of an organization’s IT assets. Companies often rely on outdated IT inventory management software or manual spreadsheet-based mechanisms to organize their crucial assets. These will increase overhead and lead to utter chaos when the business faces disruptions on scales as massive as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benefits of having a Modern IT Inventory Management Software

With more companies expected to have a hybrid model of work in the future, employees may get the privilege to decide whether they want to work from the office or home. In such a mode of operation, having powerful IT management software can empower organizations to achieve agility in their operations. Let us examine the top 4 benefits that can be realized when an organization deploys a modern IT inventory management software:

Read more: Top 5 Productivity Tools Every Small Business Needs Today  

1. Manage IT Hardware

An organization’s IT hardware includes components ranging from small network hardware to servers, data centers, and intelligent sensors that are used to aid work. It is vital to enable secure and seamless access to each of these assets when authorized employees need them. Also, there is a need to manage every hardware’s lifecycle from procurement to installation, deployment, maintenance, and retirement at correct intervals of time to maintain a sustainable IT environment for your staff.

2. Manage Devices

With digital being of paramount importance, every business will require employees to have some form of a computing device to be with them for official purposes. In most cases, it will be a desktop PC or laptop, or it could be smartphones with dedicated company apps for work management. Additionally, there will be a host of supporting devices such as printers, webcams, projection devices, etc. It is essential to keep a record of who has access to what to ensure that costly IT assets are not lost or misplaced.

3. Manage Software Licenses

Irrespective of the business sector that a company operates, there will be a range of software products that their employees would use to work better. It could be productivity apps, HR software, digital storage, enterprise work support apps, etc. The IT team will have a hard time administering licenses to employees who need access to different software at different times to progress in their work schedules. With robust IT Assets management software, they get the required dashboards to view, control, and administer licenses to cloud-based or on-premise software used within the workplace.

4. Manage Data

In the digital economy, data is the King, and this notion works in the operational side of businesses. When organizations deploy more software or platforms to empower their employees to work better and serve clients faster, these applications will generate a vast gamut of data daily. This data fuels in-depth analytics and yields insights on improving productivity, better allocation of IT and human resources, optimizing costs, etc. A modern IT management software can handle enterprise data as an IT asset and help companies build internal data workflows and processes to ensure that the data is put to fair use and ROI is derived faster.

Read more: How IT Teams Can Prepare to Support Remote Workforce During COVID-19  

A modern IT management software can help businesses realize untapped potential and value from their IT infrastructure. As we have broadly covered in this blog, enterprises of all sizes have an opportunity to make their entire business’s digital backend more flexible to support employees when they want to work from anywhere. This will significantly improve the organization’s preparedness for future disruptions similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. If your organization is on the lookout for a comprehensive enterprise management software to manage your digital landscape, get in touch with us to see why InfinCE can be the ideal solution.

How to Build an Effective and Solid Business Strategy for 2021!

For most businesses, 2020 has, undoubtedly, been a year they would want to write off from their history. As some things are meant to be forgotten, and things should move on, businesses must also look for the opportunities 2021 and upcoming years hold. Prospects will keep coming and going, but having a defined business strategy can help a company make the most of these opportunities.

Read more: Business Process Management Strategy for your Small Business 

If you don’t have any business development strategies or are looking for suggestions, you can consider the following recommendations.

Ten ways to form an ideal business strategy

NOTE: Not always, but sometimes implementing specific strategies may require you to take advantage of certain productivity tools, centralized IT Management applications, private IT infrastructure, etc. For any such tools and applications, you can always count on InfinCE. Using this tool, you can get desired business management software to improve business processes, achieve cost efficiencies and experience the utmost data security. What makes InfinCE the first choice among businesses is its unbeatable pricing, including a 30-day free trial.

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE 

A company can incorporate the following suggestions to enhance its growth and competency and improve its business level strategy.

1. Have a realistic vision

In a business world, having a vision may seem cliché, but it is, in fact, an essential thing which a business must be precise, clear, and realistic about. As vision is a peek into the future, it must comprise aspirations related to the organization you want to develop and ascertain what success implies in various business terms like markets, volumes, customers, etc.

2. Be unique to have an edge

One of the most critical business strategies is to choose the right tools and techniques that can help you identify how your company can deliver unique value to its customers. In most divisions of the economy, businesses are struggling in the crowd of similarity. When you have a well-planned business strategy, you can stay on top of the competition through its pricing model, delivery system, service offering, and more.

3. Be clear about your targets

Poor targeting is one of the major barriers to the growth of a business. Lack of clarity in targets makes a company suffer from imprecise messaging, which in turn misaligns sales and marketing. Therefore, make sure to be clear about your targets so that your business can focus better on resources and device an integrated sale and marketing approach, where marketing enables sales productivity. With clear targets, you can execute sales and marketing plans more effectively.

4. Focus on systematic growth

Only through systematic and streamlined growth can a company invest in talent, technology, and new tools. To achieve this growth, you need a business level strategy. A robust business development strategy allows your business to grow in the required dimensions.

Once your company is precise on this aspect, it will be easier to anticipate how much you can afford in terms of capital expenditure, overhead expenses, resource management, etc.

5. Decisions must be fact-based

Most executives complain about a lack of adequate data when planning or executing a business development strategy. Having access to fact-based data or information (through public records, social media trends, geographical location, etc.) allows a business to quickly quantify the value of various segments served, thus easing the decision making for multiple operations.

6. Have a balanced short & long term planning

While some companies may prefer to have short term planning to achieve their objective, others may choose long term planning as a better way to achieve it. Instead of choosing one or the other, it is advisable to have a balanced mix of short-term and long-term planning. Having such a balance allows companies to keep the team and the strategies aligned with the objectives through long term planning.

7. Agility is Necessity

Companies should always be focused on long term scenarios; however, they should be responsive as well. For example, one of the critical components in forming a business strategy should be anticipating market trends. Companies should evaluate long-term market trends and follow procedures based on this information by holding strategy review meetings at regular intervals.

8. Bring transparency

As companies are looking to hire more millennial employees in their team, it has led to agility and enhanced transparency in operations. Such transparency in the various departments and operations has brought employees together, easing the endeavors to meet the company’s objectives significantly.

9. Invest time in pre-planning

You would want your managers to welcome the business development strategies that you frame without any hesitations. It would be better to do proper research and gather important information ahead of your strategic planning. When you have a well-thought plan beforehand, it can help you gain greater control over your choices, resulting in a positive outcome.

10. Make your strategies flexible

Every strategy you form for your business should be amendable. This characteristic comes useful when you wish to make changes to them due to unexpected changes in the business trend, customer’s preferences, or results being different from what you expected. Ensure that you always have a Plan B for the things that don’t go accordingly with your Plan A. This way, you might achieve an increased success rate in implementing your strategies and successfully meeting the organization’s objectives. 

To sum up!

To conclude, a company should incorporate a business strategy to bring together all their employees working towards the set target while keeping things transparent at all levels. A company must ensure that its business strategies are swift, well-planned, and fact-based, supported by a backup plan if things don’t go as expected.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

If, at any level, your business development strategy requires the help of IT management, private IT infrastructure, cloud migration and data management, custom dashboards, and collaboration or productivity tools, reach out to InfinCE. Here, industry-trained professionals devise the best business strategy for your organization.

InfinCE to sponsor a virtual conference organized by the Digital Workplace Experience!

With digital work culture on the spur, business leaders worldwide are striving to excel within the new norms. To help enterprises overcome remote work challenges, and provide them with insights on unlocking new business opportunities in this realm, Digital Workplace Experience is organizing a series of virtual conferences for enterprises worldwide, from the 11th of February, 2021. InfinCE is the keynote sponsor of the conference! 

The event promises inspiring talks from innovative and well known Business Thought Leaders, giving away tips and secrets of predicting challenges before they occur. InfinCE will also exhibit its virtual booth to illuminate business leaders with technology that enhances collaboration, communication, data security, as well as eliminate the many challenges prevailing in today’s business world.

The conference aims to bring together thousands of enterprise executives to share their real-world company culture, employee experience, and digital workplace platform challenges. Business leaders from across the globe are welcome to attend the series of events which includes talks, in-depth workshops, insights into the world’s best digital workplaces, and candid case studies to enhance business leadership qualities and skillsets.

Digital Workplace Experience is gathering together the world’s most influential companies and intelligent workplace leaders to sponsor the events. InfinCE, which is a unified business management platform, aims at simplifying remote work with upbeat technologies. Sharing the similar objective of assisting businesses from around the globe with a unified business management platform that redefines how office-work tech is provisioned for today’s business, InfinCE is honored to be a part of this virtual conference as the keynote sponsor.

About InfinCE

InfinCE is an all-in-one collaboration platform that redefines the enterprise cloud by bringing together all the IT resources needed for an organization and its workforce to operate from anywhere. InfinCE offers customizable dashboards with smart tiles for data visualization, a full complement of collaboration apps and productivity tools, and a curated business app marketplace. It also lets business owners control their information assets through a single admin panel, with minimal effort. The platform also offers customizable websites, business emails, a company-branded mobile app, and more, delivering a competitive edge to business users. 

InfinCE is a flagship product of Fingent, a global IT company providing strategic IT solutions and services for complex business problems. 

Benefits of Monitoring Your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in Real-time

As more and more companies send their workforces to operate remotely, the IT market is witnessing a surge in demand for VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure). The development of the high-performance network 5G and next-generation computing devices make VDI an integral aspect of cloud computing today. 

For those who are not familiar with VDI, here is a simple definition. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) refers to the technology that employs virtual machines to manage virtual desktops. It hosts virtual desktop environments on a centralized server so that they can be deployed immediately upon request by end-users. It differs from desktop virtualization in the sense that VDI can be both persistent and non-persistent.  

Desktop virtualization is a general umbrella term that covers any technology employed to break-up a desktop environment from the system hardware that is used to access it. While Virtual Desktop Infrastructure can be considered a type of desktop virtualization, VDI can be implemented in multiple ways like managing remote desktop services.

Read more: How IT Teams Can Prepare to Support Remote Workforce During COVID-19 

How Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Works

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure uses a hypervisor to separate a server into different virtual machines that have the capability to host virtual desktops. These virtual desktops can be accessed by end-users remotely from their devices, while the host server will do all the processing and manage the allocation of resources. VDI can also have software-based gateways to let users connect to the appropriate virtual desktop environment securely.

In persistent Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, users connect to the same virtual desktop environment every time they access it. This makes it easier to customize the desktop for their specific needs, such as a personal physical desktop. In non-persistent VDI, users connect to generic virtual desktop environments, and there is no need to maintain any customized desktop environment between sessions. This allows companies to manage their resources effectively with a large set of employees that do not need a tailored desktop.

Key Benefits of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

In the modern-day scenario, VDI can help businesses overcome the challenges that legacy systems posed. This can be in terms of user mobility, ease of access, security, flexibility, and performance. Organizations can now use hyper-converged infrastructure to facilitate greater scalability and high performance at significantly low costs. 

Although VDI may seem a bit complex to some businesses, the enterprise adoption of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure can benefit the company.

1. Effective Centralized Management

VDI works based on a centralized format, which allows the IT team to update, patch, or configure multiple virtual desktops within the network quickly.

Read more: Top 4 Advantages of Centralized IT Administration for Your Business 

2. Seamless Remote Access

VDI lets users connect to the virtual desktop environment from any location using any device, making it more flexible and convenient for different teams to collaborate on a project.

3. Better Cost Savings

VDI handles all the processing tasks at the server level, which keeps the hardware requirements for end-user machines in check, leading to better cost savings for the organization.

4. High-end Security

VDI manages data on the server, making it easier to protect sensitive enterprise information with high-end security features rather than managing security at multiple endpoint devices.

5. Superior Performance

VDI can be used in all kinds of business scenarios as it allows deploying virtual desktops for end-users on-demand efficiently, thereby boosting the remote workforce’s performance.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is also ideal for organizations that have BYOD policies in effect. As the centralized server will handle all the processing jobs, VDI can accommodate a broader range of devices while maintaining endpoint security and data integrity. However, managing VDI involves dealing with an extreme level of complexity. So, there could be many scenarios that will create challenges for the company.

Read more: 5 Ways Virtual Private Server Make a Difference to Your Business’s Digital Future 

How Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Monitoring Helps

The most common challenges in employing VDI are:

• interruptions in the network connection, 
• poor user experience, and 
• issues related to functionality. 

Troubleshooting virtual desktop environments can be overwhelming for the IT team. So, using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure monitoring tools is a viable solution.

VDI monitoring refers to monitoring, reviewing, and managing the functions, operations, and performance of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure environment in an organization. It allows easy implementation of troubleshooting steps while facilitating security appraisal and better performance management. Nonetheless, VDI monitoring involves dealing with several processes and methodologies across the virtual desktop environment endpoints and the hypervisor layer, making it an intricate and extensive process.

VDI Monitoring: Setting Up the Objectives

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure monitoring uses a dedicated application or a virtual monitor to manage its operations. This allows the system to track user activity, operational status, security features, resource allocation, and more at every layer of the VDI. This makes it essential to define the monitoring platform’s objectives to effectively address all the problems related to operations, connectivity, and infrastructure. In general, the VDI monitoring tool should:

• Provide the necessary insights on all the levels of the VDI, including the hypervisor, virtual machines, and software-based gateways
• Provide extensive visibility of the networks, routers, communications links, servers, and applications of the platform
• Provide reports based on these levels of visibility to resolve the identified problems in the infrastructure or general platform

VDI Monitoring: Choosing the Tools

Selecting the tools for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure monitoring relies on the nature of the problem. Some VDI monitoring tools are designed to address the server-side issues, while some focus mainly on the client-side issues. Nevertheless, VDI monitoring should be based on a broader outlook of problems at every level of the infrastructure and the platform. Typically, VDI monitoring tools can be classified into three groups:

• Management and monitoring tools from VDI solutions providers that work on a licensing scheme and are more administration oriented
• Tools specially designed to review, monitor, and manage VDI platforms, which support the development of a hybrid structure for problem resolution
• General-purpose monitoring tools that cover VDI projects and allow organizations to evaluate the performance of the platform based on varied metrics

Ensuring Success

To ensure successful Virtual Desktop Infrastructure monitoring and guarantee optimal performance, it is vital to choose a reliable VDI monitoring tool packed with powerful features to track every aspect of the virtualization platform, network, applications, and server. Simultaneously, IT teams should be trained in employing VDI architecture, its various transactions, and elements. IT teams should also possess the technical knowledge to monitor the VDI in real-time to ensure that all the operations continue running smoothly.

InfinCE, a remote work platform, empowers your remote teams with access to their digital workspaces through powerful, secure, and flexible virtual desktops, anytime. Focus on your business, while we take care of the setup and maintenance of your virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and applications. Get in touch with us to learn more. 

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford.

Team collaboration is the main element in a business that spurs innovation, develops creativity, enhances productivity, and boosts employee satisfaction. When individuals come together openly, all the processes and objectives become more streamlined, steering the team towards a better success rate of achieving a common goal. A collaborative atmosphere makes each team member a potential resource or a tool that other members can rely on to make better decisions. This healthy employee relationship is what makes a company anticipate better business performance and productivity.

Team collaboration has always played an essential role in ensuring business growth. Post-pandemic, it has become indispensable to unite your employees and overcome the work silos that remote work culture has spiked. Setting up effective team collaboration in your organization requires proper planning and strategy.

The inevitable role of a team collaboration software

For creating an impactful collaborative environment, you may want to make use of team collaboration software like InfinCE. A team collaboration tool comprises all the essential features and functionalities needed to enhance your organization’s teamwork. 

For instance, InfinCE facilitates quick and streamlined communication among employees through live-chat, video calls, and virtual meetings, a crucial factor in improving teamwork.

Read more: 6 Ways Online Collaboration Software Helps Manage Your Virtual Team 

As far as improving your team’s collaboration strategy, you can consider these tips in 2021. 

1. Combine innovative ideas

In addition to bringing ideas and plans to the table, a project manager is also responsible for weaving in their teams’ suggestions, ideas, and objectives to achieve a perfect amalgamation. A project involving complexity and multifaceted elements require agile policies, including innovation from all stakeholders and parties to achieve goals. Real-time data availability helps participants comprehend and differentiate between advantageous and disadvantageous actions and instantly make amendments. It implies that successful team collaboration combines the most-suitable ideas and the promptness of being adaptive and flexible.

2. Everyone must have a say

Effective team collaboration is an art that requires filling the gaps between differing ideas and transforming them into feasible solutions. A collaborator needs to be an active listener to get to the root of an idea or proposal. Listening patiently to everyone with a stake in the outcome is inevitable to map the course better. When everyone has a voice in the room, it becomes easier to confirm and clarify the information shared and discuss the details in real-time. This way, a great collaborator can respond effectively when all participants’ suggestions have been duly heard.

Implementing this strategy for team collaboration is very important as team members want to feel valued and be ensured that they are more than just employees.

3. Create an energetic environment

An ideal collaborator must ensure that everyone is working with enthusiasm. For this, they can stimulate motivation and energy into a team meeting or group conversation by allowing the team members to share their ideas and suggestions. A collaborator must always appreciate team members who play their part well. Criticisms should be polite and thoughtful and help employees realize their role and its significance in making the project successful.    

Issues that need attention should be discussed in such a way that the discussion motivates the team. The most vital asset of a successful project is a team that collaborates well.  

4. Sustain a friendly atmosphere

As a collaborator, you must always be open and available to suggestions as you never know from where you may get that million-dollar idea. Not only this, but a friendly atmosphere is also vital for building trust among team members. When employees feel confident and comfortable to share their opinions and concerns, it becomes easier to make workplace relationships successful. Keeping your door opens to new suggestions, accomplishments, and thoughtful criticisms empower the team collectively. This practice leads to healthier teamwork, better trust, quick problem-solving, and eventually enhanced business performance.

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE 

5. Transparency brings excellency

An effective collaborator is not concerned with roles and titles as much as they are with the results. When a group member brings a sound suggestion to the table, the collaborator should always give full credit to the team or individual to motivate them.

Besides, an effective collaborator should share information and define expectations throughout the board. Such transparency in communication allows team members to trust the company for keeping things apparent. When the required details are shared with the team, it brings a sense of workplace community, augmenting the spirit of collaboration among employees.

6. Work should feel like fun

A project or a company tastes success when trust, motivation, and morale are high among the employees. Organizations need to motivate team members by organizing team outings, dinner parties, games, and events that help build strong connections between various departments. 

Building such a fun and friendly atmosphere among team members fosters a sense of accountability that goes past schedules and deadlines.

7. Rise above inflexibility

Just like the joined blocks that make up a building, team collaboration builds up a workplace. Although workgroups are known for tending to the silo, modern workplaces function well when employees have the freedom to work without boundaries. Instead of working individually, foster team collaboration to ensure that all the members are accountable for their participation.

Effective team collaboration in business ensures that individuals realize their value in helping a company achieve the desired objectives collectively. Team collaboration helps transform a business environment into an atmosphere that makes employees feel like family.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software 

Benefits of integrating InfinCE team collaboration software

• InfinCE offers enhanced data security by ensuring data privacy through advanced firewalls, virtual private servers, and encryption-based access.
• Reliable support through various communication channels like phone, email, and live chat helps companies determine the appropriate solutions.
• The zero-coding feature of InfinCE allows you to set up a domain, mail server, website, and business applications in no time.
• No hidden charges if you ever wish to increase your server capacity and data storage.
• The user-friendly interface allows you to carry out tasks quickly and uninterruptedly.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

Whether your business needs to build an IT infrastructure or requires specific apps for team collaboration, InfinCE helps you get the desired business tools and software to achieve your objectives. Get in touch with our expert to understand how InfinCE can boost team collaboration at your workplace.

How InfinCE’s Online Collaboration Software Facilitates Effective Business Communication

Effective communication plays a significant role in business success. Having proper business communication channels means having a highly-engaged workforce, which boosts employee morale, performance, and productivity, leading to higher returns. Employing robust business communication tools will enhance communication within your organization.

The importance of ensuring seamless communication between the team members can be felt more deeply at present, as every industry is shifting toward a more remote-friendly work culture. Hence it is essential to have a reliable online collaboration software that offers all the features for improving employee engagement and productivity. With an all-in-one collaboration platform, enterprises can facilitate effective employee communication and address many existing gaps in their productivity and work environment to achieve better revenue.

Read more: 3 Ways a Workplace App Helps Manage Your Business During COVID-19 

The role of business communication tools in today’s work culture

Business communication can be defined as the process of “exchanging information to promote an organization’s goals, objectives, aims, and activities, as well as increase profits within the company.” Effective business communication also implies how the management and employees interact to realize the company’s goals while focusing on improving organizational practices and reducing errors.

Enterprise collaboration software allows businesses to keep the communication channels open for better teamwork between different company departments and between the management and employees. Organizations can use business communication tools to generate new ideas, find solutions for specific problems, make proposals and sales plans, identify the right marketing strategies, reach agreements, and execute the decisions.

Read more: 6 Ways Online Collaboration Software Helps Manage Your Virtual Team 

Advanced online collaboration software like InfinCE comes with features to capture various forms of data to track sales performance, monitor employee productivity, analyze your marketing campaigns’ performance, and more. It results in better collaboration between the teams and helps foster a work environment that motivates everyone to achieve better results.

How to make the most of enterprise collaboration software

By integrating an all-in-one online collaboration platform in the company work culture, you can stay on top of the employee engagement problems, recognize any communication gaps, get instant feedback from employees, and predict your workgroups’ changing needs. 

Below are some ways to leverage the maximum potential of business collaboration software and ensure superior employee engagement.

Read more: 10 Benefits of Using Business Communication Apps to Future-Proof Your Company 

1. Keep your team aligned with your mission

Defining your company’s mission and values to your team members will help them provide sincere feedback on how they feel about that and play a role in achieving the business goals. You should also answer any questions they have and keep the channel open for discussions. Encourage a free exchange of ideas, which you can incorporate for making future decisions. At the same time, keeping your employees aligned with the objectives will make them feel more valued and lead to better productivity.

2. Plan strategic initiatives with your team

You need to express the strategic initiatives of your organization clearly with your team and ask them to provide any inputs and ideas that they may have. Real-time collaboration software can help you plan the strategic initiatives alongside your team, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and understands what they need to do to achieve those goals. Likewise, it will also ensure that your employees brace themselves for the upcoming changes in the company’s direction that may affect their work.

3. Create a dedicated two-way communication channel

Listening to your employees is very important to ensure that you have a flawless two-way communication channel in your organization. Just as you deal with your customers’ grievances, you should make sure that you address the problems cited by your employees. Following a feedback system and encouraging employees to express their views during team conferences can help you gain valuable insights into your company’s work culture. It will also enable you to identify any roadblocks that affect productivity. 

Advantages of choosing InfinCE for business communication

InfinCE is an all-in-one enterprise collaboration software that allows you to maintain a competitive edge in the industry with innovative features. Unlike the usual business communication tools, InfinCE offers you a complete suite of productive features to ensure effective collaboration between your employees and the management and do a lot more.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

1. Streamlined communication with live chats

It is possible to miss out on important messages when you communicate through emails, especially if they have multiple recipients or long threads. InfinCE solves this problem by allowing you to communicate through individual and group chats. You can also share local files through the live chat for real-time collaboration.

2. Seamless team meetings with audio/video calls

Video meetings can quickly eliminate communication gaps, due to which most online collaboration software mainly focuses on offering video conferencing features. InfinCE goes a step further by providing group or one-on-one audio/video call options with file-sharing capabilities and high-end security features so that you can enjoy enhanced business communication.

3. Improved collaboration with online office tools

InfinCE gives you access to a wide range of online productivity tools to make employee collaboration simpler in your company. You can easily access these office tools to manage your company data in various forms and collaborate with your employees on the go for realizing efficient results.

Read more: An 8-Point Checklist to Enhance The Modern-Day Digital Workplace 

You can also get many other functionalities with InfinCE that make business communication effortless while allowing your employees to be more productive and achieve the company goals quickly. As employee engagement relates to your team’s level of commitment and their connection to your company, such an all-in-one enterprise collaboration platform can be a critical driver for your business success. Contact us to explore InfinCE further. 

The Key Benefits of Using a Unified Workplace App for Modern Businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed every aspect of how businesses used to operate. It has also led to the need for accelerating digital transformation and using corporate technology productively and efficiently. As more and more organizations adapt to working remotely, workplace apps have emerged as a reliable solution to meet their varied needs.

Read more: Key Predictions on How Workplace Technology and Culture Will Evolve in 2020 & Beyond  

These apps for the workplace help employees maintain efficient communication, stay on top of their productivity, and collaborate with team members, clients, and customers to deliver the desired outcome. However, this has also spotlighted finding a reliable workplace app that can optimize their business operations.

Read more: 6 Ways Online Collaboration Software Helps Manage Your Virtual Team 

How Workplace Apps Enable Seamless Collaboration

A recent Gartner poll revealed that around “48% of employees would likely work at least part of the time remotely after COVID-19”. That means companies need to find the best platforms to help their workforce collaborate digitally and tweak their employee experience strategies for the best results. Using different workplace apps for various processes such as video conferencing, project management, or team collaboration is possible. However, a unified workplace app that combines all these features under a single dashboard makes things easy.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software  

An all-in-one collaboration platform will also give businesses advanced employee monitoring tools to ensure maximum productivity. As organizations are looking to adopt nontraditional employee monitoring tools, an integrated workplace app with remote worker monitoring features can considerably reduce the operating costs. Moreover, advanced all-in-one collaboration apps also allow administrators to use employee information and analytics for ensuring their health and safety data, which will be vital in the post-COVID era.

Read more: 10 Benefits of Using Business Communication Apps to Future-Proof Your Company  

How to Maintain Company Culture in the Post-COVID Era

Choosing the right workplace apps will also have a significant impact on company culture in the post-COVID period. According to USA Today, “When employees do start to return to the office – and those dates keep getting pushed further and further back for many organizations – some companies plan to implement rotating schedules to reduce the number of people in a given space.”

That has made it quite difficult for companies to maintain the business culture and support their employee communities. As per Mark Caskey, EMEA CEO for Corporate Solutions at JLL, “The current COVID-19 restrictions have accelerated demand for digital solutions that enable companies to provide a safe working environment for their employees, so they feel comfortable going back to the office.” This is where a unified workplace collaboration app can come in handy.

An advanced all-in-one collaboration platform will not only facilitate the “working” side of an employee, but it can also support to address the personal needs of employees. For instance, administrators can easily define and describe the new job roles to the employees, making the onboarding process simpler and more efficient. 

Here, we have listed three ways a unified workplace app can help companies successfully operate beyond the Coronavirus pandemic.

1. Using Video Conferencing Apps for Workplace

Video conferencing tools have become an essential component of modern-day business operations in the wake of the global crisis. It allows businesses to innovate and use technology to make communication and collaboration simpler. Reports by Reuters say that there has been a surge of around 400% in the demands for specific video conferencing tools that incorporated Augmented Reality for making the team meetings more interactive.

Workplace app developers are looking for better solutions to address their users’ growing needs, allowing more participants in a meeting, screen sharing features, and excellent administrative tools. Simultaneously, video conferencing apps for the workplace also incorporate better security and privacy features to let businesses take advantage of the collaboration suite.

Read more: 5 Ways to Secure Your Meetings When Using Video Conferencing Software  

2. Incorporating a Comprehensive Workplace Chat App

Communication platforms for instant messaging are another vital aspect to have in today’s business scenario. Besides video calls and virtual meetings, team members need to have an all-inclusive workplace chat app to communicate project details throughout the workday. It will ensure that employees can cooperate and work efficiently.

Modern all-in-one collaboration apps combine instant messaging options with other productivity features that eliminate the need to switch between different workplace apps, say, to start a video or audio call when needed. Employees can use the workplace chat app for file storage, file transfer, and video meetings on the go.

3. Finding the Best Project Management Solutions

Businesses need to find the best ways to assign tasks to their employees, coordinate workloads, map out the tasks, schedule virtual meetings, and streamline collaborations. All of that can be made simpler with the right project management solution. However, when project management is included in the collaboration app, it is more convenient for the administrators to oversee everything.

Many free-to-use project management solutions come with integrations for other workplace apps and collaboration platforms for streamlining the process. However, choosing such an option will come with certain restrictions and may not offer a complete solution for some organizational needs. That is why an all-in-one workplace app with all the features included is always a wiser choice.

Ensuring Health and Safety Measures With Unified Workplace Apps

Modern all-in-one workplace apps are also evolving with features to focus on the health and safety measures incorporated in the organization. For instance, you can use the workplace app to book meeting rooms and follow COVID-19 regulations when hosting a team conference. Some apps also allow businesses to calculate occupancy plans as per the office layout to follow all the social distancing norms.

Abiding by the new restrictions and ensuring safety compliance are crucial in the post-COVID workplace. So, businesses must choose the right workplace app that empowers them with all the necessary tools to resume their operations successfully.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work  

As your business operations often face disruptions, there is an urgent need to rapidly transition your operational model to accommodate a highly digital-friendly workforce that can work from anywhere. InfinCE takes you closer to this goal by creating the most secure and cost-efficient yet feature-rich experience for your business’s digital infrastructure. Get in touch with us to know more.

Leading Examples of How Technology Helps in Managing Virtual Teams

Technology advancements have eliminated the constraints of physical boundaries for businesses. Today, every business is looking to serve a global customer base leveraging different digital channels. Even organizations that only serve regionally are increasingly adopting digital tools to improve their business processes better and cater to their customer’s growing needs.

All of that has led to the increasing popularity of remote work culture and virtual team management. Employees nowadays find it more convenient to perform their duties from remote locations using team collaboration apps. It also helps companies cut infrastructure costs. Today, it has become vital to employ the right online collaboration software to manage the virtual teams and ensure the right outcomes effectively.

How Team Collaboration Software Helps Manage Virtual Workforce

Virtual work culture has benefits as well as challenges. Common challenges faced by entrepreneurs managing virtual teams include scheduling work across different time zones, lack of transparency, ineffective communication, and other technical and socio-emotional issues. Leaders need to be more disciplined with their team management strategies and use a robust all-in-one online collaboration software platform to ensure optimum productivity.

Modern all-in-one team collaboration software comes with multiple features, such as instant messaging, video conferencing, file sharing, data storage, time tracking, reporting, and other capabilities to keep your team engaged and ensure better results. This way, you can also instill individual accountability, clarify job roles, define team norms, and do a lot more. Below are some examples of how technology and remote work tools can enhance virtual team management.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software 

1. Improved Communication

Efficient and fast communication always plays a crucial role in facilitating the flow of ideas across the workplace. Online collaboration apps allow you to connect with team members at different locations via one-on-one or group video conferencing, audio calls, instant messaging, and other means. This way, you can remove all the communication barriers that often crop up among virtual teams and keep your team aligned with the business goals.

Read more: 5 Best Practices To Enable Seamless Communication For Your Remote Workforce 

2. Superior Brainstorming

Remote work removes time pressure and allows all team members to contribute toward achieving the business objectives. Generating ideas through brainstorming helps find the most suitable alternatives and devise the best plans for realizing your short-term and long-term goals. Besides, online collaboration software also makes project management more effective by facilitating real-time interaction and access to essential data. You can also set realistic deadlines so that the brainstorming process yields the best results.

3. Informed Decision Making

The cloud-based document storage features in the collaboration apps allow seamless cooperation across different departments. In other words, it overcomes the hurdles of not being in the same location. Having a shared space for communication and collaboration empowers employees to work collectively and figure out the best strategies, inspirations, ideas, and tactics to achieve the business goals. Moreover, discussing the possibilities over video conferencing can help make more informed decisions while keeping the entire team in the loop.

4. Seamless Information Access

Gone are the days when you needed to inform your team members about the changes in business policies or other strategies by email. Using online collaboration software, you can let your virtual team know of the updates in real-time while also sending individual notifications about the changes. You can even tag different team members to review the updates or take the necessary action. As you can store all the data and files in a centralized location, remote employees can easily access the relevant information to perform their jobs.

5. Easy Reporting

Working with virtual teams means collaborating with people in different time zones. It can make monitoring team productivity and efficiency a bit confusing for project managers. However, modern team collaboration software platforms can make it painless by providing employee performance tracking and time management features. You can also generate reports on the progress of different projects and advise the team about what needs to be done to meet the shortcomings.

6. Better Relationships

Building good relationships is a vital aspect of a successful business, which may seem quite challenging for companies managing virtual teams. Remote teams usually spend very little time engaging with each other than what happens in a typical physical workplace. That is why you need to schedule regular meetings and keep the channels open for social conversations to build better employee-management relationships. That will go a long way to develop rapport and boost the confidence of your team members.

Read more: 4 Tips To Attain Success In The New Normal Remote Work Environment 

All-in-one online collaboration software can effectively tackle your virtual work culture’s challenges and let you make the most of your digital workforce. By following the best practices and getting the right virtual collaboration tool, you can ensure the most productive outcomes.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

The pandemic showed us that it is possible to maintain your productivity levels while working from home to be on par with an office-based culture. Hence the only requirement is that you make the right collaboration platform available to employees. With secure information policies, seamless cloud-based deployment and management, InfinCE offers the best enterprise collaboration platform for today’s businesses. Get in touch with us to explore more.