BlackCSI Blog

Business owners try to avoid downtime like the plague, but it’s often a challenge to do so. The impact of downtime can be devastating for even the most stable business, and this is even more so the case when you bring profits and bottom lines into view. We’ll take a look at how you can calculate the cost of a downtime event.

Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in a professional occupation knows that meetings come with the territory. After all, running a business requires a lot of coordination, communication, and teamwork, and meetings are opportunities for employees to gather and discuss important business-related ideas. However, the amount of time wasted and misused on unnecessary meetings is a topic of concern.

The best thing you can do for your employees is provide a good work experience, but what do we mean when we say this? In essence, you spend a lot of time trying to find the best fit for your organization, so you want to invest a solid amount of effort into making sure they stick around. This goes beyond compensation; you should consider the following for your business’ work experience.

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. 

If asked, most business owners would likely rank “improving productivity” as one of their overall business goals—and for obvious reasons. Often less obvious, however, is how to go about accomplishing this particular goal. Here, we’ve put together five different but equally effective ways to do so.

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.

AI is a major topic lately, whether it’s on the topic of new and upcoming chatbots that are capable of generating text or making art that can compete with even the most skilled of artists. AI is commonly targeted as a culprit in stealing jobs, as well, and with these applications becoming more sophisticated over time, it’s no wonder people aren’t sure how to react to these developments.

No matter how dedicated some of your employees might be, you will always have the others who are simply in it for the paycheck rather than a desire to be personally connected to the business. If there is too much of a disconnect between the way you see the business and the way your employees see the business, morale and productivity could take a drop.

Video conferencing is an essential communication tool for modern businesses and their team members. As such, we wanted to share some tips that can help everyone involved, from the conferencing veteran to the remote work newbie. Here are four.

Your business’ operations and performance will vary depending on how you choose to invest your IT resources and budget. If you see marked improvements over the years, then you are doing something right. If things remain the same, however, perhaps you could benefit from a different approach to your technology investments. Let’s examine the subtle art of IT investment and how you should approach it.

Collaboration is key in the business world, but it’s not always as easy or as simple as it might seem at first glance. Naturally, when you try to get people to work together, you add even more moving parts to the puzzle, and if you aren’t careful, you can accidentally influence your bottom line, and not in a good way. Here are three helpful tips you can implement for better collaboration strategies.

Customer relationship management software, or CRM tools, are not just for use by large corporations with a large workforce. They can be used by small businesses, too, and there are several benefits for an SMB to use one. Here are some of the many benefits you can expect to receive from using a CRM for your organization.

Just about everyone has a smartphone these days, but it takes a little know-how and self-awareness to use it in a productive way. Instead of your smartphone turning into a time-wasting device, you can use it to get more work done and reduce your stress levels in the workplace. Here are three helpful tips you can implement to use your smartphone in a better, more productive way.

How often do your employees find themselves stuck in repetitive task loops that not only kill their productivity, but also their motivation? Depending on the task at hand, it might be more often than you, and especially more often than they, would prefer. Workflow automation solutions provide a remedy to this challenge by taking some of the frustration and repetitiveness out of the equation and relying on technology to ensure things get done without a hitch.

It doesn’t really matter what your stance is on remote work, as it has become quite clear that it is one of the aspects left over from the ongoing pandemic that is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon. Despite these new developments, however, employers are still demanding that employees return to the office, a prospect which some do not take kindly to. How can you ask your employees to return to the office while also making it worth their while to do so?

Do you have technology problems with your business? If so, you’re not alone; countless small businesses all over struggle with maintaining their technology, and it’s not due to any fault of their own. If anything, it’s a combination of limited resources and limited time. How does working with a managed service provider help to mitigate both of these problems? Well, let’s find out!

News flash: the workplace is somewhere work needs to get done. Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as this. There are plenty of factors that can influence an employee’s productivity. You can make things easier for them by creating a productive environment. Here’s how you might go about doing so.

There are plenty of companies out there making technology investments, and chances are you are ready to take the plunge yourself by investing in the appropriate business technology solutions to take your company to the next level. However, we want to caution you to only invest in the right technologies, those that push your business forward. Here are some tips you can use to make sure you are keeping this strategy at the top of your mind.

Today, collaboration software’s use is widespread, no doubt as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the hands of businesses everywhere to implement them while operations were still remote. However, now that many workers are returning to the office environment, businesses are finding that these collaboration platforms still offer immense value. What features can you look for and expect from your collaboration platforms?

Automation is a great tool for businesses of all types, even smaller organizations that might have limited access to tools and resources. Through the use of time-saving automation solutions, even a small business can empower employees to save time and focus on other aspects of their duties by automating specific tasks and processes. Here are five ways small businesses can use automation to make operations just a little easier.