Quercus IT Blog

Quercus IT has been serving the Edmonton area since 2005, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Five Controversial Technologies You Need to Be Careful With

Five Controversial Technologies You Need to Be Careful With

With many compliance and regulation laws existing in today’s business world, it’s no small wonder that ethical dilemmas surrounding business technology are more common than you might expect. Let’s go over five of the more controversial uses of technology so you can avoid facing them during the course of your operations.

Continue reading

Reducing Support Costs Can Help Your Tech Budget Work for You

Reducing Support Costs Can Help Your Tech Budget Work for You

Businesses are increasingly reliant on technology, and effectively managing IT support costs has become crucial. With approximately three to six percent of a company's revenue allocated to technology expenses, exceeding the monthly budget can have adverse repercussions on the ability to allocate funds elsewhere.

Continue reading

Downtime Is a Predator. Is Your Business the Prey?

Downtime Is a Predator. Is Your Business the Prey?

Downtime in a business context can be considered a "business predator" because it can have detrimental effects on a company's operations, profitability, and overall success. Downtime refers to the period during which a business' critical systems, processes, or equipment are not functioning as intended. Here are some reasons why downtime is often seen as a threat to businesses.

Financial Impact

Downtime can result in significant financial losses. When key revenue-generating systems or production processes are unavailable, businesses may lose sales, incur extra expenses, or face penalties for failing to meet contractual obligations. Downtime can also prevent a business from pursuing new opportunities or responding to market changes. In a rapidly evolving market, missing out on opportunities can have long-term consequences, and can be the difference between business growth and stagnation.

Operational Impact

Downtime leads to decreased productivity as employees cannot perform their tasks efficiently. This results in wasted time, missed deadlines, and a drop in overall output. In cases where downtime is due to data loss or system failures, it can result in the loss of critical information, which can be difficult or impossible to recover. This can have severe consequences for businesses, especially when it comes to sensitive or irreplaceable data. Frequent downtime can demoralize employees who must deal with the frustration and stress of interrupted work. Low morale can lead to higher turnover rates and decreased employee engagement.

Customer Impact

Prolonged or frequent downtime can do significant damage to a company's reputation. Customers and partners may perceive the business as unreliable, which can be challenging to overcome. Also, these unfortunate companies may find it challenging to compete effectively in markets with companies that show better reliability.

If you struggle with downtime, you can do better. If you don’t, you need to ensure that continues. The IT professionals at Quercus IT can help. We can introduce you to technologies and strategies that are designed specifically to reduce downtime and improve operational efficiency. Get a professional perspective by calling (780) 409-8180 today.

Continue reading

Nine Actions to Help Build an Effective Business

Nine Actions to Help Build an Effective Business

Organizing your business for better efficiency is crucial for maximizing productivity, reducing costs, and achieving your goals. Here are some best practices to help you organize your business effectively.

Continue reading

The Most Common and Frustrating Errors to Make with Your Technology

The Most Common and Frustrating Errors to Make with Your Technology

With the right technology at your side, you can ensure that your operations, productivity, and customer satisfaction are maximized. However, even with all these benefits, small businesses make mistakes, particularly in regard to the implementation process. How can your business overcome the hurdles that stem from improper technology implementation strategies? Let’s take a closer look.

Continue reading

Inefficiency Can Cripple Your Business. Here Are Two Tools That Can Keep Business Moving

Inefficiency Can Cripple Your Business. Here Are Two Tools That Can Keep Business Moving

Inefficiency can be a real killer for a business’ ability to take in revenue, but sometimes it seems like this lack of continuity can be unavoidable. It isn’t. Technology can go a long way toward helping you build more efficient processes. In this week’s blog, we discuss a couple of key pieces of technology used by many small businesses to keep their processes streamlined.

Continue reading

Your Business Can (and Should) Use Technology to Streamline Operations

Your Business Can (and Should) Use Technology to Streamline Operations

Your business should always strive to prevent interruptions and issues related to operations. With the right technology and appropriate management of it, you will find that you experience far fewer of them. Let’s examine some strategies you can use that will help you build better processes and how technology can aid in this.

Continue reading

How Google Maintains Its Monopoly on Search Engines

How Google Maintains Its Monopoly on Search Engines

It’s no secret that Google has a monopoly on the search engine market, but have you ever wondered how it maintains this stranglehold when other equally capable competitors, like Apple, could produce similar products? Well, it’s not as simple as you might think, and it even involves a considerable amount of funds that influence Apple’s decision.

Continue reading

What are Some of a Leader’s Most Valuable Skills, in the Context of a Small Business?

What are Some of a Leader’s Most Valuable Skills, in the Context of a Small Business?

It’s no surprise that larger businesses, with more access to more resources and far more capital have more people in leadership positions that are better positioned to get through tough periods than smaller businesses do. That’s why it is so important to have strong leadership. Let’s look at a couple of questions that you should ask yourself to help you get through stressful periods.

Continue reading

Consumer VPNs Are Not Tools for Businesses

Consumer VPNs Are Not Tools for Businesses

If you spend any amount of time on YouTube, chances are you’ve seen videos bring up the names of various sponsors, including consumer VPNs. VPN providers take advantage of the trendiness of these influencers to spread awareness of their products. We want to make one thing abundantly clear: the consumer VPNs offered by these sponsors are not the kind of VPN your business should be using.

Continue reading

Hybrid Operations Can Solve a Lot of Your Business’ Challenges

Hybrid Operations Can Solve a Lot of Your Business’ Challenges

Remote work has presented considerable challenges for employers and businesses around the world, and while many of these challenges are still present, some have been resolved through the use of hybrid work accommodations. This strategy allows companies to provide flexibility to employees while still retaining the advantages of in-office work.

Continue reading

Cloud Tools Can Present More Value for Cost-Conscious Businesses

Cloud Tools Can Present More Value for Cost-Conscious Businesses

Running a business is often a circus. Many times it requires several juggling acts and a dog and pony show to just get things done. This couldn’t be more true nowadays as business owners are considering how to operate with rising inflation and labor shortages threatening to stymie their organizational progress. Today, we’re going to look at some ways you can stretch your capital.

Continue reading

Ensuring Your Organization Meets Compliance Standards

Ensuring Your Organization Meets Compliance Standards

Protecting your clients’ and employees’ personal and financial data has to be a consideration for every single business. Not only do you have a responsibility to protect this data, you also may have to do so to remain in compliance with regulations mandated by governments, industry organizations, and even your own business. With data privacy becoming a growing concern, we thought it would be useful to discuss the basics of compliance a bit in this month’s newsletter. 

Continue reading

Tip of the Week: Mellow Out When Things Aren’t Going Your Way

Tip of the Week: Mellow Out When Things Aren’t Going Your Way

There is a lot made of the importance of productivity when it comes to running a business. Of course, without a consistent output, revenue growth is impossible. As a result, many workers expect the same kind of effort that they give. When they don’t see that effort, tensions can get high and they can get stressed out pretty easily. Today, we will go through a couple of tips that will help you maintain composure when your job delivers more stress than you’d like. 

Continue reading

You Can’t Outsource Everything: 3 Parts of Your Business that Need to Remain In-House

You Can’t Outsource Everything: 3 Parts of Your Business that Need to Remain In-House

Businesses today have more options than ever before for their needs. With so many vendors available outside your typical in-house office environment, you can get most of the services you need via outsourcing. That said, there are certain processes you shouldn’t outsource, even if you think it might be a good idea.

Continue reading

Solving Your Business Problems Isn’t Always Simple

Solving Your Business Problems Isn’t Always Simple

Remote work doesn’t come without its fair share of issues, but with a little creativity and ingenuity, you can help your remote employees overcome them. Let’s examine structured problem solving, a particularly helpful approach to issue resolution that can help your team be more productive throughout the workday.

Continue reading

Security Pain Points Every Organization Needs to Confront

Security Pain Points Every Organization Needs to Confront

Over a quarter of all data breaches happen to small businesses. The cost of a data breach, well, it sure isn’t worth it. To keep your business’ data and infrastructure free of threats and relatively secure, small businesses will need a combination of useful technology tools and well-designed strategies. Let’s take a look at several steps your small business can take to secure itself from digital theft.

Continue reading

4 Communication Strategies that Will Help You Get More Done

4 Communication Strategies that Will Help You Get More Done

Communication is a major part of any relationship. In business, there is no way to have a positive working relationship without great communication. A lot of time and effort goes into getting your employees the tools they need to potentially be successful, but without the right mindset and practices, nothing will go the way you anticipate. Let’s look at four variables that are needed by you and your employees if you want to have crystal clear communications.

Continue reading
Request a Consultation

Quercus IT strives to provide the best comprehensive IT, Computer, and Networking services to small businesses. We can handle all of your organization's technology challenges.

Contact Us
Contact Us

Learn more about what Quercus IT can do for your business.

2-15015 123 Ave NW,
Edmonton, Alberta T5V 1J7

Call us: (780) 409-8180

News & Updates
Wow, it has been busy these last couple of months! We've gone through many iterations of our public Website over the last 17 years, with this one having the most content. Our hope is that you can find the information you're looking for, so you can ma...
Web Analytics