Datalyst Blog

Planning your IT budget for 2025 is a crucial task. It requires strategic foresight and a keen understanding of technological trends.

This guide aims to help you navigate this process. It will provide insights into key areas such as software costs, hardware expenses, and cybersecurity.

We'll also delve into the implications of Windows' End-Of-Life (EOL) and the importance of regular upgrades.

By the end, you'll be equipped with actionable strategies for effective IT budget planning in 2025. Let's get started.

Funerals are never to be taken lightly, which makes it all the worse that there are people out there willing to use these events to scam those in grief. Recently, Facebook has seen many groups that supposedly offer links to streamed funerals in exchange for credit card data, with different events being added more recently.

Unexpected downtime can wreak havoc on businesses large and small, which is especially bad when so many paths lead to it. Let’s explore some of downtime’s causes, and equally importantly, how it can be avoided.

It’s easy to look at IT services (and most technology investments) as an expense. We’re not going to argue against that. Even in our own business, we know we need to pay a lot of money for hardware, software licenses, subscriptions, and internal labor, employee training, certifications, and a whole lot more just to keep things running smoothly for ourselves and our clients.

It also might seem a little funny that an IT services provider is talking about how IT services can help your business be more profitable. At first glance, that might feel sort of like a bakery telling you that donuts are the key to losing weight. 

But I have your attention so far, and it’s likely because you understand that modern technology is inherently designed to make you and your staff more effective and productive. It’s not designed to simply be an expense, and if you implement it properly and measure it, much of the time technology can be shown to help organizations do more in less time.

This article explores 13 ways these services can help small businesses save or make more money. 

If your business is looking to cut costs, one area to focus on is printing. While paper documents have traditionally played a significant role in business operations, they can consume a lot of office space and are challenging to manage efficiently. Let’s explore how you can reduce your printing expenses and streamline your document management processes.

A successful business thrives on building beneficial relationships, which generates a lot of data and contracts that need to be efficiently shared and stored. While this might seem straightforward, leveraging today’s technology can significantly cut down on filing costs and enhance file-sharing efficiency. Let’s explore how.

Data is at the heart of all successful modern businesses. The information you collect and store can help you make better decisions, plan better strategies, and gain a competitive advantage. Let’s look at how your raw data can be refined into more meaningful insights through the use of business analytics tools.

We recently wrote an article showcasing the benefits of managed IT services. In short, we know a lot of IT companies that claim to offer managed IT services, but really just cover the bare minimum in order to get you into a contract. It’s not the same, and it’s not the intended nature of managed IT services.

It’s a good article, I think you’ll like it. Our first point was that true managed IT services can actually save your business money, and we wanted to take a moment to dive into that deeper.

In this article, we’ll explore 10 ways we can save your business money and help you achieve your financial goals.

As a small business, we’re sure you want to improve your profit margin so that you can offer more exciting and innovative services or products. One way that many businesses bleed capital is through their IT expenses. While it might make sense on paper to address technology challenges only when they present themselves, the truth is the exact opposite.

Information technology—IT—is a necessity for the vast majority of modern businesses to function. For the sake of these businesses and their operations, it pays to optimize this IT by any means available.

Let’s go over the benefits that a relationship with a managed service provider gives businesses, particularly regarding the overall efficiency these businesses see as a result.

What is art? It’s not an easy question to answer, especially with new techniques and mediums being developed all the time. By definition, art can be basically summed up as the creative expression of an individual through some medium.

For Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi, that medium is one that is familiar to those in and out of the art world.

Businesses need money to operate and sometimes it can be awfully difficult to find enough financial wiggle room to do the things that you want to do after all the bills are paid. Finding the right technology can help. By building a more efficient business, tasks take fewer resources to accomplish and that provides opportunities such as better revenue generation or the ability to reallocate certain resources to better fit your organization’s immediate goals. Let’s take a look at some tech that can help achieve this goal.

As we’re in the midst of Q3 of 2023, common wisdom says that now is about the time that small businesses should be planning their budgets for the next fiscal year. As such, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to give managed IT services some serious consideration.

If you are on the purchasing end of software, you know it can be pretty expensive and it can cost just as much or more to maintain over its lifecycle. You know what is more expensive? Not having a plan for either thing. This month, we thought we would discuss some topics that can help you not waste money on technology. 

Modern technology offers serious benefits to businesses looking to outpace their competition and increase productivity, but it’s difficult to manage and run a business while keeping your thumb on the pulse of modern IT. On top of that, organizations of all shapes and sizes have had to contend with the growing threat of cyberattacks, as that landscape has vastly shifted over the last several years. It’s a good practice for any organization to meet with an IT consultant at least once a year. Let’s take a look at what New England businesses have as far as options, and go over some key features to look for.

Your decisions with capital will bleed into every part of your organization, so it’s crucial that you are able to determine the difference between capital expenses and operational expenses. When you know what each of these accomplish, you can do more with the same amount of capital.

When times get tough, businesses are pretty quick to start cutting costs wherever they can…and frequently, the business’ IT is the first thing to hit the chopping block.

While we contend that IT is the last thing you want to cut back on when times are tough, you may not have a choice. Therefore, we wanted to take a few moments to explore how you can resist some of these cuts—and if not, what you need to prioritize.

There is a scam going around that convinces organizations to pay for their Google Business Profile, and if you paid for this free service, you’ve fallen for the trick. Google is taking legal action against the scammers who have dragged their name through the mud, using Google’s notoriety to defraud businesses who just want to look competitive.

Sad to say, but for the foreseeable future, cost control is going to be the number one priority for almost every business. With the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic still lingering, and revenue streams interrupted, many businesses are still being extremely cautious with their capital. One place where most businesses can cut back is on printing. Let’s discuss how to cut your organization’s printing costs. 

In today’s economy, or honestly, any day’s economy, it’s wise to make smart, planned investments. You don’t want to be stuck spending money you don’t have, or forcing yourself to cut corners because an emergency evaporated your funds. That’s why it’s important to establish an IT budget, and align it with your other business goals.