Cambium Data Blog

Running a small business often inspires dreams of rapid expansion and immediate success. However, it’s crucial to balance ambition with realistic expectations to ensure sustainable growth. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss how entrepreneurs and managers can set achievable goals while maintaining business stability.

Technology has enabled us to achieve more than ever before, but with that progress comes higher expectations. Increased productivity demands can sometimes feel overwhelming, making it essential to find effective ways to manage tasks. There's a natural limit to how much we can do, however, and certain obstacles can push us to that limit more quickly. Today, we’ll explore two common productivity pitfalls that many face.

Imagine leaving the house without your smartphone. What a tragedy that must be for some people. Today, we want to highlight some of the many tools you can utilize to make your smartphone experience more enjoyable and productive.

Sometimes the simplest tips are some of the most powerful, as seen in the case of the Undo button. If you make a mistake, most Windows programs (and many other visual-based programs) allow you to undo your previous actions. Today, we want to remind you of Undo and Redo, as well as three other well-known and effective keyboard shortcuts out there.

Internet speeds have significantly increased over the past few years, driven by the growing demand for online activities. This acceleration offers numerous advantages for businesses across various sectors. Here are five key benefits that businesses can leverage with faster Internet speeds.

Your customers—both those you currently work with and those you have yet to onboard—are the key to unlocking your company’s potential. Therefore, it stands to reason that you’ll want a solution in place to help you manage the interactions you have with potential customers. This is what a customer relationship management tool, or CRM, is all about. With the right CRM, you can fully leverage your organization’s customer base to maximize profits and attract new leads.

PDFs, or Portable Document Format files, are something many people come across in the course of doing business. Not everyone knows all the cool stuff you can do with them, like changing things in them. This week, we'll talk about some simple ways to make and edit a PDF file.

Technology can bring many dynamic benefits to an organization, but it can also derail its successful trajectory. One of the significant considerations that must be made is whether the technology your organization is implementing fits your business needs. Today, we will describe how having a knowledgeable perspective can help you avoid making investments that may not produce the rapid returns that most small businesses require. 

The idea of “finding time” for particular tasks has always been a bit of an odd saying. After all, there is a finite amount of time in any given day. No matter how hard you search, you’re not going to magically find more of it. What you can do for those tough-to-schedule projects and tasks, however, is make more time by freeing up time that is already in use.

Let’s go over some strategies you can use to make more time for the projects that matter most, whether they are for business or for life.

Sometimes it can be really handy to take a screenshot of something on your computer screen. Sure, there are tons of applications you can download and install that let you do this, but with the modern version of Windows 11, you don’t need any of that if you just need to take a quick screenshot and share it with someone or put it in a document. Let’s jump right into it!

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a few years since circumstances… “encouraged”... so many businesses to suddenly adopt work from home policies. As these circumstances have gradually normalized, many businesses have elected to keep these policies in place, either maintaining fully remote operations or shifting to hybrid operations.

However, some notable businesses have taken efforts to roll back remote work capabilities, if not discontinuing them entirely.

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 Cambium Data 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 (402) 514-3200 today.

Modern laptops are great, in principle. Not only do you have a ton of options to get a device that does everything you need, but you get the added benefit of having a portable workstation. That being said, working on a laptop all the time isn’t exactly the most comfortable way to get things done. Fortunately, most modern laptops can easily be used like a desktop PC with just a few components.

Communication and collaboration tools are central to the success of any business—especially in today’s connected business landscape. More than anything else, you cannot let your collaboration tools put your company data at risk. We have some tips you can use to avoid some of the common challenges that businesses face with collaboration and data security.

One of the more challenging issues to deal with as a business owner is bridging the gap with your unhappy employees. While it’s certainly true that unhappy employees could be upset for any number of reasons, some of which are completely unrelated to work, there are others that you might have complete control over without necessarily realizing it. Let’s go over how you can help your employees be happier and more fulfilled during their time with your business and, thereby, more productive as a result.