HOW TO SIMPLIFY IT: Making IT Intuitive

Simple. Easy. Efficient.

People think that if it’s complex, it must be good. This can’t be farther from the truth. Complexity doesn’t equate to efficiency in IT. In the past there were cumbersome systems that can do a bunch of different things but how many times did you say to yourself “how do we…” or “what happened to…?”

The acronym KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, doesn’t ring truer than it does today. IT staff is almost a necessity if you don’t want to be left behind. Competition, with more streamlined systems can wiz right past you and deliver a better experience for customers.. So how do you compete? How do you keep it simple and powerful?

Cisco Simple IT is a solution to the problem of complexity that most businesses experience. Simple IT is essentially a holistic IT strategy. Let’s break down what it means and what possibilities Simple IT opens up for your business.

SIMPLIFY POLICY

First, take a look at your security strategy. Do you have one? A major problem for many organizations is that security is a patchwork of disparate solutions that don’t work well together. That just fundamentally won’t work long-term. Most often, multiple point products duplicate the same area of protection while completely ignoring others – leaving you vulnerable.

Simple IT brings all of your security components under one roof. This gives your system the power and visibility to make quick changes, remediate threats that are missed and communicate efficiently with all other systems. Leaving you to manage one appliance for security instead of three – simplicity!

{ Watch the full Simple IT Webinar Here }

SIMPLIFY NETWORK

What about your network? Are you tied to on-premise solutions? On-premise solutions are great for some situations but applications are becoming more dynamic and need the flexibility to scale with the business. What’s a business to do?

Simple IT is designed to give you the network visibility you desperately need. With visibility comes security and efficiency. If you have a small IT staff and limited budget then visibility can help you maximize your operational expenses.

The Simple IT strategy includes Cisco Meraki, a cloud-based platform designed around centralized management of your appliances. Its main purpose is to give your IT staff the ability to diagnose problems, manage inventory and secure your network all from a single dashboard.

When there’s a problem on your network today, your IT staff has to diagnose the issue. They have to manually check each appliance and trace back the problem to the source. Not anymore. Today’s Simple IT network administrator would simply view the management dashboard, identify which AP is down, which systems are not communicating, or where the attempted breach occurred.

SIMPLIFY COMMUNICATIONS

The least consequential but most noticeable part of the Simple IT strategy is collaboration. Your network is optimized to meet your business needs for today but what about the future? The Simple IT strategy is all-encompassing which means it’s got your collaboration covered.

You may be asking yourself – why is this better than any other collaboration tool? Good question! It’s a PART of the system, not an add-on. If you have an ECOSYSTEM where all the components are designed for each other then bottlenecks don’t happen because the pieces are designed to fit together. There is no overlap or lag within the system. This system uses Cisco Spark which is a system that essentially aggregates the best features from various collaboration tools. It’s a desktop application that has custom rooms where participants can whiteboard from their phones while others do it in a conference room. They can save, edit and even share those whiteboard sessions.

The Spark solution reduces operational costs by minimizing scheduling and coordination issues by allowing participants to join and participate from anywhere. Just share it your Spark Room! Everything shared can then be permanently deleted, all in a secure manner where permissions block unwanted peepers.

I mention Spark because managing collaboration systems can be a headache for IT staff. Managing QoS and video traffic can be a huge hassle. Simple IT and Spark were designed in tandem to reduce time waste and frustration. They have the connections to ensure no mechanical problems hold your business from reaching it’s growth potential.

The “Simple IT strategy” frees IT staffs from wasted time troubleshooting and reactive network maintenance allowing them to think proactively, strategize, and innovate.