Industry News Roundup December 2020

Wrapping up the year, we’ve got: a new study showing working from home cybersecurity vulnerabilities; spreading awareness of a nasty malware campaign targeting browsers; and announcements from Microsoft Teams. 

Cybersecurity Risks Threaten 2 in 5 Brits Working From Home 

Coronavirus forced many businesses into remote working during the pandemic, but how are UK businesses handling cybersecurity risks?  

new survey from Internet Service Provider and web-host Fasthosts reveals that 2 in 5 Brits are at risk of cyber-attacks while working from home due to a lack of cybersecurity knowledge, over half of Brits dont use a VPN, and a quarter of Brits have had household members come into contact with confidential data.  

This data highlights the importance of taking cybersecurity measures with work-from-home employees and protecting personal and company data through the use of VPNs, awareness of scams, data backups, virus protection software, and security best practices 

Read the full report over on Fasthosts’ blog. 

Persistent Malware Campaign” Targets Major Browsers  

Data from the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team revealed a widespread malware campaign that can affect multiple browsers. The browser modifiers, dubbed Adrozek,”  inject harmful ads into search results, add browser extensions, and change browser settings against the users will. 

Affected browsers include Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Yandex Browser. The multi-browser reach indicates a level of sophistication different from previous browser-modifier malware campaigns which typically target a single browser. Microsoft urges personal and business users to defend against malware infections and stay informed, alert, and cautious.  

For an in-depth look at the malwares problems and Microsofts tips for preventing infection, visit the Microsoft blog. 

Microsoft Teams Outlook Integration

Microsoft has announced that in March 2021, Teams will receive an update enabling Outlook integration. Outlook on the web and for Windows will allow sharing email conversations and attachments to Teams, and Outlook for iOS and Android will allow starting a chat in Team with email recipients.  

The feature, which should be useful for business users, especially when conducting internal meetings, should help to provide a productivity and efficiency boost amid remote working. 

Head to Microsofts website to view the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. 

10 Ways to be More Productive with Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 has become a staple of remote working, allowing thousands and thousands of businesses to make the transition to remote working with ease. Many of you will already be familiar with Microsoft 365’s core features that allow you to draft up letters, create graphs, and video chat for a good five minutes before realising you’ve been on mute the whole time. However, Microsoft 365 has a wealth of features that could enhance your remote working experience even further. Here are ten Microsoft 365 features you may not have heard of.

Chatting with the team whilst in Office apps

With some of Microsoft Team’s great in-app integrations, you can actually be having a chat, whether by text, audio, or video, all whilst you’re working on a Word document or a spreadsheet. This is extremely helpful if you’re going through reports in Excel or perhaps putting the finishing touches to a PowerPoint presentation for an important meeting.

Power Map in Excel

If your work has any link to geography or demography, then this feature will be of tremendous use. Power Map is a feature on Excel that uses data relating to geography and transforms your rows of boring data into a 3D interactive map. This will enable you and your team to visualise your data in new and exciting ways, whilst seeming like actual magic to your impressed boss.

Team Collaboration

Going back and forth on the editing of a document can be very time-consuming. With Microsoft 365, you can actually collaborate on a document in real-time, discussing, and making edits as you go. This is a tool that can be used by multiple people, allowing whole teams to collaborate on work without having to be in the same room.

Resume Reading in Word

If you’re prone to start reading a document and then be distracted by another hundred seemingly equally important tasks – this feature is for you. Word automatically bookmarks the last page you were reading, so that when you come back to it, it reminds you and saves you scrolling for ages to remember where you got to.

Freedom to Work from any Device

One of the most amazing things about Microsoft 365 is that you can use Office Web Apps. This allows you to access your cloud-stored files and work from the internet on any device from anywhere in the world, without having to download and install the Office suite. This type of flexibility and freedom has been a real gift for companies looking to make the switch to remote working.

Microsoft Planner

Microsoft 365 is the gift that keeps on giving. Whilst we all know about its core programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint – did you know that 365 has its own task management software? Not just that, but it’s genuinely very good. Microsoft Planner allows you and your team to manage workflows and collaborate on tasks, seeing projects through to the end.

Magic Inboxes

Okay, well not exactly magic – but as good as. Microsoft Outlook has a clutter feature that will use your mailbox rules to automatically organise and declutter your inbox so that your most important emails are visible first. Hands up if your inbox needs magic de-cluttering technology? That’s what we thought!

PDF Editing

This feature allows you to convert a PDF into a Word document without encountering the expected formatting issues that you usually get when slowly copying and pasting in chunks at a time. Edit your document and then re-save it as a PDF. Simple but a huge help!

OneNote

There’s something nice about making handwritten notes in a notebook, sure. However, when you later need to find that one number you wrote 3 weeks ago, it becomes not so nice. OneNote is an in-built digital notebook, that allows you to categorise and search your notes. On top of this, you can even turn notes into calendar events with the click of a button!

Sending Praise and Recognition

One of the moments lost with remote working is face-to-face praise when the boss walks into the room to the hushing of the team, only to reveal the great work of someone in the room. This lovely moment can now be replicated on Microsoft Teams by assigning a badge of praise to a particular team member and posting it to a public channel. This allows the rest of the team to send virtual high fives and enables the morale of the team to grow, even whilst apart.

Digital Transformation Of Social Housing – Top Five Trends

It is necessary for every business in every industry to adapt and change their business model to accommodate their customer’s changing behaviours and expectations, and housing associations are no exception. Digital technology is not only about conversions, transactions and growing revenue; it is vital for streamlining processes, optimisation and improving the customer experience.

As digital technologies take the world by storm, embracing these is vital for a housing association to grow and thrive. Some have already begun to tackle this challenge by transforming their IT infrastructures to keep up the high demands of today’s digital world.

Social housing is a rapidly changing industry with many housing associations struggling because of funding cuts, rent freezes and reduced investments. When it comes digitalisation, the social housing sector is not as far advanced as other industries, with many housing associations sceptical of investing in a digital transformation or not having the budget to do so.

However, this is slowly beginning to change as more and more housing associations are starting to see the benefits of going digital. Here are the top five trends we expect to see a rise with the digital transformation of social housing:

Five Digital Trends For Social Housing

 

1. A Remote Workforce

With the rise of cloud technologies, it is now possible for housing association teams to work remotely, allowing them to focus their time and energy on being out among their tenants. Having a digitally enabled and mobile workforce reduces the need for physical office locations within neighbourhoods.

Remote working allows workers to be more connected with those that need help the most. Less time will be spent on the mundane transactions, and more focus can be made on what really matters; enabling the organisation to become more human with greater face to face interactions.

2. Online Processes

Embracing advances in technology can reduce the amount of paperwork and manual processes required. Customer applications can be moved online which will not only provide a seamless and easy experience for customers but also reduce costs and response times compared with manual, offline applications.

Removing paperwork will free up resources for employees to focus their time and effort on other areas of the business. Moving transaction processes online also offers excellent cost savings for housing associations, with online payments being 20 times cheaper than phone transactions and an incredible 50 times cheaper than face to face.

3. Better Connected

The Internet of Things (IoT), connected devices and smart metres offer a great opportunity for housing associations to diversify their offerings. Embracing these innovative technologies within social housing can detect how people are using their accommodation and allow providers to alter services, such as heating, in real-time.

When used effectively, this technology can help housing associations to anticipate and handle issues faster, as well as be more proactive and strategic in commissioning repairs or replacements quicker in order to minimise costs and disruption.

4. Enhanced Customer Service

One of the most significant benefits that digitalisation has in the social housing sector is that customers will receive a better all-round service. Advice and help can be made available 24 hours a day, seven days a week with the help of a knowledge base and online account information that is always accessible.

The digital transformation of the housing industry will allow most actions to be completed online, meaning customers have no restrictions on when they can resolve their issues or speak with the correct department. Housing association workers will also be able to provide a better service to customers by spending more time out in their neighbourhoods offering a face to face service as opposed to stuck behind their computer screens.

5. Data Analysis and Record Keeping

In a world of GDPR, there are some real benefits to those within the social housing sector making a move to keep all customer data and records online as opposed to offline. A well planned online infrastructure can provide greater security for keeping online records safe and secure.

Utilising digital technologies for customer data is also an excellent opportunity for better data analysis and upkeep. Maintaining customer records online allows them to access and edit them as required, providing housing associations with current information that is easy and simple to manage.

How to embrace these digital trends

Embracing the digital transformation of social housing will bring significant efficiencies, financial stability and customer engagement. Currently, the social housing sector is being squeezed by reduced investments, funding cuts and rent freezes. At the same time, there is a growing demand from increasingly vulnerable and diverse citizens. Those housing associations that want to thrive rather than simply survive should be utilising and embracing digital solutions to transform their organisation for the better.

To help your housing organisation transform, speak to our IT specialists at Cyan Solutions. We can help your team to implement a digital strategy that can cut costs and increase the service experience.

Key Technology Trends Impacting the Energy Sector

The energy sector has been evolving rapidly in recent years thanks to new and upcoming technologies. 2018 is looking to be a milestone year for the energy industry, with the introduction of many new technology trends that are set to be revolutionary in the sector.

The rise of digital has affected many businesses over the years, and the electricity industry is no exception. With everything from artificial intelligence through to increased technological demands in the home, there are a number of technology trends set to impact the energy sector over the coming months and years.

Growing Cybercrime Threat

Cyber-attacks are increasing in every industry across the globe, and the energy sector is no different. Earlier this year the United States Department of Energy announced it was planning on setting up its own Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response to tackle the upcoming security challenges. There is also evidence that hackers have been targeting the energy and nuclear facilities for the last couple of years.

Cybersecurity concerns are one of the most pressing issues within the energy sector, and as companies introduce more complex technology systems, the risk and potential for an attack are increased. Many utilities are upgrading systems to provide a higher level of grid intelligence and better communication with customers devices, opening themselves up to more potential security threats.

The Rise in Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved rapidly in recent years and provided the energy sector with a variety of new capabilities such as machine learning, cognitive analytics, deep learning and robotics process automation. These advances in technology have led to powerful systems that can automate increasingly complex workloads and develop cognitive agents that can simulate human thinking and engagement.

AI can be used in the energy sector to streamline, automate and eliminate processes within customer interactions, taking customer experience to the next level. As well as customer service benefits, AI can also be an excellent tool for customer engagement by giving companies the ability to compute a customer’s smart metre data to develop invaluable insights into their consumption habits.

Blockchain

Blockchain has been on the cards for quite some time and is slowly growing in popularity across a variety of industries. While it is currently limited within the energy sector, the potential of this technology should definitely not be ruled out, in fact, it may end up being invaluable in the industry in coming years.

Blockchain offers a permanent and transparent solution that is entirely digital making it really easy to work with. Within the energy sector, blockchain could potentially be used for easily recording transactions and contacts in a transparent and searchable form. The energy sector involves a considerable amount of customer paperwork and blockchain could provide some significant operational benefits such as easily locating records, detecting fraud and clarifying bill disputes.

3D Printing and Smart Materials

In recent years there have been significant steps forward in 3D printing, particularly with print metals becoming significantly cheaper. This will likely be used widely in the energy sector for the creation and maintaining of equipment and systems.

An increased use of smart materials would also have a significant impact on the energy market, and the use of materials that can self-heal could potentially change the industry altogether.

Digital Transformation in Homes

It is no surprise that there is an increased demand for energy in homes across the world. With technology coming on in leaps and bounds in recent years, the amount of electricity being consumed today is very different from that of a few years ago. The introduction of smart technologies such as smart lightbulbs and smart metres has transformed the way consumers use their energy within their homes, and this is only set to become more complex and readily available in the coming years.

The uptake of smart energy products by consumers has been relatively minimal so far, and according to recent research, 72% of people are unlikely to introduce any form of smart home technology in the next five years. However, the individuals who already make use of smart devices have noticed a significant impact on the day to day running of their homes. Many believe the uptake has been slow as consumers are still sceptical of smart energy products, but the market is expected to accelerate rapidly once the popularity of the technology increases.

The energy sector is set for a rapid transformation for the rest of 2018 and the following years, and those within the industry should be preparing themselves or the upcoming changes and opportunities that these technology trends are sure to bring. Not embracing these new technologies will leave your business at risk of being left behind the curve. At Cyan we have experience of providing transformational technology infrastructures for growing businesses the energy sector. Talk to us today to see how we can help your business.

Top Benefits of Outsourcing Your IT Requirements

Top Five Benefits of Outsourcing Your IT Requirements

When running a growing business, it can feel like you’re a bit of a one-man band trying to balance various aspects of the businesses needs. In some areas of your business, it can be beneficial to keep the workload in-house, and even employ a specific team to handle it, but it just isn’t always practical to try and manage everything yourselves.

Outsourcing, or hiring an external company to manage specific areas of your business, is a familiar and popular option for many businesses, and thousands choose to outsource their IT requirements to seasoned professionals. There are a wide range of benefits to outsourcing your IT requirements.

Experienced and Certified Professionals

Information Technology is a complicated and challenging area to tackle, and without appropriate training and experience, it is impossible to get right. When it comes to hiring an in-house IT team, if you’re not IT trained yourself then how do you assure a potential employee is qualified? Certifications are great, but previous experience of managing a business’s IT requirements is invaluable.

By choosing to outsource your IT requirements to a professional company, you are guaranteed to get knowledge that an individual IT employee doesn’t have. IT service companies have a heap of experience in managing IT requirements for a business, and they often see related problems multiple times and will already know the best solutions and prevention techniques.

Controlled Costs

By outsourcing IT requirements, you are converting fixed IT costs into a variable cost that is much better for budgeting. You will only be paying for the services you use as and when you use them, as opposed to a fixed cost to the business every single month, even if no major IT changes have been made.

As well as reducing and controlling IT running costs, outsourcing can also result in considerable savings in labour costs. Recruiting and training IT staff can be costly, and with no guarantee as to how long an employee will stay with the business, it is a cost that you may have to pay every few years. Outsourcing allows you to focus your human resources efforts in other areas of the business where you need it the most.

Stay Ahead of the Game

When a business tries to manage all of their IT requirements in-house, it often takes a lot longer to get projects and developments completed. This is because there is a higher level of research, development and implementation time required compared with using an outsourced IT provider.

All of these things also increase the cost of new developments and slow down the whole process meaning your competitors might be making game-changing developments while you are still in the researching phase. A fully managed outsourced IT service will have the resources and knowledge to begin new projects immediately, compared with in-house where you may need to hire new staff, train them and provide the necessary support.

Increase Security and Reduce Risks

IT service providers will constantly be keeping up to date with specific industry knowledge, especially when it comes to security and compliance, that an in-house team simply might not be aware of. Outsourcing provides you with a reduced risk of coming across any issues, and an IT company will often have better expertise when deciding how to avoid certain risks to your business.

With the huge rises in cybercrime to businesses recently and the added pressure of GDPR, it is essential to keep your IT systems security as tight and secure as possible. Your in-house team may struggle to know the best practices and methods to keep your company and customers safe, but an outsourced IT team will be well aware of all PCI compliance standards and the best way to keep everything up to date and safe from attackers.

Strategic Planning

IT service providers have years of experience working with different clients and industries and will focus on keeping up to date with the latest technologies, making them the perfect team to help your business grow and expand. Many outsourced IT companies will be able to advise you on your business’s future IT requirements by evaluating your growth and planning how your IT infrastructure needs to support this.

At Cyan Solutions we work in partnership with our customers to support their technology ambitions. This allows us to deliver innovative solutions that meets your business’s specific needs now and in the future. With technology constantly changing, it is difficult to know yourself what IT requirements you will need in the future. But, by choosing to outsource to professionals, you will be getting expert guidance and support to help your business grow.

Switching over to Cyan is a simple, easy, seamless transition. It can seem overwhelming to make such a significant change to the way your business operates, but the benefits are clear, and successful growth often requires change. Call us today to see how we can help transform your business.

Managing Volunteer Teams Through Good Technology

Coordination and communication are key to running a successful charity campaign. Organisations often want to bring together large, transient teams of volunteers to raise money. Making sure everyone works from the same playbook to the same ends can be difficult and time consuming.  

Getting the management of volunteer teams right, of course, ensures more money is raised while overheads are reduced, and efficiency and engagement improved.  

The good news is that today’s digital options are helping many charities achieve their campaign goals in more flexible and beneficial ways. 

The Challenge of Organising Remote Volunteers 

There’s no doubt that volunteers are the life blood of all charities. They give their time and effort to raise money and promote important causes across the UK and around the world on a daily basis. Many small charities have very few full-time or paid staff on board, so volunteers are vital factors for any campaign and ongoing fund raising.  

Charities, particularly smaller ones, operate on a tight budget and building effective relationships with volunteers is necessary. Even the simple act of thanking someone for all their work can prove challenging if you don’t have the proper resources at hand.  

Better engagement requires charities to find new and innovative ways to reach out to volunteers as well as organise remote teams when campaigns are running to achieve maximum results. Focused and flexible solutions such as cloud technology are attractive options, certainly for charities that are seeking to improve performance and lower costs at the same time.  

The Benefits of Cloud Technology  

  • Cloud technology meets the challenges of working with large remote teams, especially volunteers. 
  • It allows charities to access better communication management, collaboration tools and benefit from online date, whether staff are working at the head office or in a remote team. 
  • Cloud services can quickly be scaled up and down to meet needs of any campaign. 

In its simplest sense, cloud technology is a way of storing and accessing files and programs on a range of different devices and locations independent of where you are and what time it is. Someone can sign onto a cloud service and access all they need on their tablet, laptop or smartphone, wherever they are in the world. All they need is an internet connection.  

What is more important for charities is how scalable cloud technology is. This delivers high degrees of flexibility for organisations who can expand or contract their services depending on their current needs. For example, if a charity is running a campaign, it can roll out services to volunteers and improve communication and coordination. Once the campaign is finished they can then scale back that provision.  

Cloud technology brings a high-value solution that can be tailored to each charity’s specific needs. It greatly reduces the cost of administration and can certainly help charities spend more of their time raising money rather than administrating. Neither is there the need to worry about licences and permissions which can all be handled by the cloud provider.  

Most charitable organisations are worried about security because they hold sensitive data on everyone from donors to volunteers. This is another area that cloud services generally cover more effectively than inhouse IT providers nowadays – security is updated automatically to help keep users safe online, wherever they are in the world.  

The Apps Helping Charities 

Better connectivity and the fact that so many of us have smartphones and tablets nowadays has also begun to change the way organisations such as charities view the use of apps. Developing an app is becoming increasingly common but there are also many off-the-shelf solutions available now that are aimed at volunteers and improving communication and engagement in the third sector.  

Charities often have large numbers of volunteers working across different departments and areas, sometimes all around the world. Checking what they are up to, producing reports and maximising performance has often depended on an old-fashioned form-filling exercise. An app like Track It Forward allows volunteers to log their activity and for charities to quickly access information that, in the past, would have taken weeks or even months to collate. Another similar app is Sign Up which helps get volunteers onboard and track their progress.  

Attracting volunteers has always been challenging for smaller organisations that don’t have the visibility or advertising power of some of their third sector peers. An app like VolunteerMatch is designed to put people in touch with their perfect charity – they sign on and browse for organisations in a particular area and which meet their criteria. Charities can post their details for free and reach new volunteers within a matter of minutes.  

The Challenge of Embracing Tech for Charities 

A survey carried out by Blackbaud in 2016 found that just over 7% of all charitable giving is carried out online. It’s a potential that smaller organisations have been slow to grasp but which presents a huge opportunity for not only encouraging donations but engaging with volunteers more effectively. Larger organisations like Oxfam have been moving forward in this area for a few years now, for instance, introducing opportunities for people to donate using contactless payment systems at points around the UK.  

While for smaller charities, who make up the vast majority in the third sector, it can be difficult to develop a dedicated app, there are plenty of low cost solutions out there than can improve efficiency and engagement, particularly when it comes to organising volunteers.  

Today’s cutting-edge cloud services not only provide a range of on demand IT support services that many can benefit from, they are highly scalable. That means charities can keep a tight control on where their IT is used and how budgets are spent. It also means that smaller organisations now have the capacity to explore new and exciting ways of bringing volunteers together and coordinating them during important campaigns.  

 

Cyan Solutions are the perfect fit for charities that want to be empowered using technology. Highly scalable cloud solutions mean that you can tailor your IT support to meet your immediate needs, including organising and communicating with networks of volunteers during campaigns. If you want to find out how the cloud can revolutionise your organisation, contact our friendly team today.    

Microsoft Office 365: Discounts and Subscriptions for Charities

All charities need to be careful about their spending, especially when it comes to administration. For many, it’s a constant challenge to find areas where savings can be made while ensuring that everything works as it should and donations are maximised.

Getting it right means more cash available for the good cause that is being supported. Getting it wrong can quickly drain valuable resources.

One area where charities always look to make savings is on IT licences and supply. The good news is that cutting-edge packages like Microsoft 365 come with heavily discounted rates for charities in the UK

Microsoft Office 365 For Non-Profit Organisations

Microsoft has a pretty good track record of working with charities around the world, providing cut price IT solutions with superb functionality. It’s one of the reasons why Microsoft Office has long been the industry standard for all sorts of organisations. The vast improvement in technology with cloud-based services nowadays provides all users with an excellent range of highly useful tools that can be used absolutely anywhere.

Microsoft are currently offering either free or heavily discounted licences for non-profit organisations. There are two packages available for small and medium size charities:

  • Non-Profit Business Essentials: For charities that are simply looking for email provision, cloud storage and sharing facilities for files as well as excellent team working tools, the donation licence is free for up to 300 users. Staff are able to access Office 365 tools such as Word and Excel through web versions.
  • Non-Profit Business Premium: For charities that require desktop business applications such as Word and Excel as well as all the usability provided in the Essentials package, the premium business licence is just £1.50 per user per month. That’s a massive saving compared to the normal premium business package which is currently £9.40 per user per month.

For larger charities there are 3 different licences to choose from:

  • Non-Profit E1: Similar to the Business Essentials package, this is free, available for up to 2,000 users, and comes with web access for Word and Excel.
  • Non-Profit E3: This provides desktop Office applications as well as a host of useful elements such as web conferencing, work management tools as well as the chance to broadcast to over 10,000 people via the internet. The licence costs £4.00 per user per month and allows unlimited accounts.
  • Non-Profit E5: The top package is aimed at large charitable organisations that need better security such as data protection with DLP, higher level analytics and advanced eDiscovery tools. The licence is £8.00 per user per month.

The Benefits of Office 365 For Charities

Apart from the low cost of running Office 365 and all its elements for your charity, these licences come with a lot of other advantages that make them some of the most powerful IT packages on the market today.

Many charities have workers that are mobile and out in the field. Office 365 is cloud based technology which means that files and other information can be accessed on the go, wherever someone is located. Everything can be synched across multiple devices in real time, so an employee can update files any time they want. It makes communication much more fluid and team working highly efficient, independent of where staff are based.

Changing to a service like Office 365 is also highly cost effective. Cloud based tech means that you no longer need to have expensive hardware driving your IT system. It’s simple to migrate everything to the cloud and easy to maintain at a much lower cost. The other good news is that it’s also highly scalable – the service grows or even shrinks to meet your personal demands as a charity and adding more users couldn’t be simpler.

Of course, one thing that all organisations worry about, particularly charities, is the issue of security. Microsoft have a strong reputation for providing a highly secure environment for businesses and charities of all types to operate in. Not only will you have all the tools you need, you can be sure that your data is well protected with security systems regularly updated to handle all current risks.

Eligibility for Microsoft 365

To qualify for the non-profits discounts and free subscriptions you need to be registered as a charity in the UK. In England and Wales, this means you need to be registered with the UK Charity Commission. In Scotland it’s the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) and, in Northern Ireland, you have to be registered Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI).

Other non-profits need to be registered with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as tax exempt.

Get a Free Audit Today

At Cyan Solutions we offer a comprehensive free audit to all charitable organisations. We’ll be able to look at your current provision and advise which licence plan is best for you. If you want to save money and streamline your IT, contact our team today to see how we can help.

How technology innovation can improve efficiencies for charities

Technology innovations help charities deliver critical services, engage new supporters and raise money faster than has ever been possible before. Through leveraging the range of options available, non-profit organisations can increase their effectiveness and agility, whilst future-proofing the technology investment. In particular, utilising the cloud can make the day to day running of a charity so much easier and is extremely cost-effective.

Here are our top 5 ways that such organisations can benefit from migrating their systems to the cloud.

1. Discounted Licences

Microsoft strives to make its software donation programme as accessible as possible to charitable organisations around the world. Globally, they give away £1.5 million worth of software every day. Office 365 Business Essentials (which comprises of Exchange email, OneDrive and browser versions of Office applications) can be free for eligible not-for-profit organisations. There are a range of subscription models available, so even if you are benefitting already it is worth having an expert review your licenses as you may be able to realise even greater cost savings.

2. Equipment Savings

By migrating your IT infrastructure and applications to the cloud you can significantly reduce the hefty hardware costs associated with maintaining or replacing your physical servers. Desktops can be repurposed instead of replaced. Plus, staff can take advantage of using their own devices to connect to the apps and data they need.

3. Improved Security

Cyber security is becoming a critical issue for all organisations. For charities who may be handling sensitive data, such as patient or supporter records and financial information linked to donations, security will be very high on their list of priorities. It’s therefore important to know that your valuable data is being protected. Having your data residing in a datacentre with high levels of security, governance and data protection, is a much better option than using on-site servers.

4. Greater Accessibility

Many charities rely heavily on remote and mobile workers or volunteers, as opposed to centrally based office teams. By migrating to cloud based technology services there is no limit as to what can be shared by the entire organisation. All files and applications can be shared with all users, ensuring consistent and timely communications.

5. Growth and Flexibility

If you are taking on more staff or a group of volunteers for a single campaign, then with a good cloud strategy it can be easy and quick to get them up and running with access to the data and applications they need. It’s also easy to close their accounts once the campaign is over.

We offer free licensing audits for all charities and can review where cost savings and operational efficiencies could be made. Contact our expert team today to find out more.