A help desk can be an important and essential component of a successful business. The HubSpot Annual State of Service in 2022 reports, “A remarkable 91% of respondents agreed with the statement ‘our help desk system increases productivity.” Not only do help desks provide service to organizations, they also deliver a lot of value. To capitalize on this value, businesses should look to increase help desk efficiency. One of the best ways to do this is to utilize help desk software.

IT help desk support has been a constant need in organizations from small businesses to enterprises. Then, the pandemic spurred an increase in demand for help desk employees, and the tried-and-true tactics and strategies that were previously used to hire in-house help desk employees don’t seem to work as effectively. Recruiting and hiring for these positions has been very difficult in the current candidate-driven market.

Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 21h1 will go in End of Servicing (EOS) on December 13, 2022, and a month later, on January 10, 2023, they will put Windows 8 in End of Life (EOL)—Windows 8.1 End of Life will also occur on the same date. What does this mean for you as an MSP or internal IT team… should you care? The short answer is “probably”.

If you've felt like it’s been hard to find new tech talent lately, you’re not alone. IT recruiting has been an uphill battle for employers, with inflation causing increased salary requirements and a high number of competing offers for IT professionals. With increased competition, the benefits and compensation you offer is the first step in getting more candidates in the door.

As 2022 draws to a close, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the past 12 months and highlight some of the great new features we’ve seen added in N-central. I got the idea for this blog recently when I was helping a partner and was shocked to find discover how old the version they were running was. Of course, I get that not everyone wants to jump onto the latest release straight away.

“Some things age better with time; unfortunately, the software is not one of them,” iLink Digital explains in their patch management review. Whenever software malfunctions or becomes outdated, enterprise patch management systems come to the rescue. In this overview, we’ll uncover the challenges, benefits, and case studies for enterprise patch management.

MDM Features for MSPs: The benefits of managed services are mostly technical. You can have access to expert help, advice, and implementation if you do not have anyone in-house. MDM solution companies are experts who can reactively guarantee the continuity of your information services in the event of a breakdown or failure. Most of the time, the managed services formulas from MSP solutions include access to technical support 24/7. Troubles can be solved with quick intervention and little downtime.

Recruiting potential job candidates is a huge challenge that IT companies are facing right now. With the tech unemployment rate down to 1.7%, hiring is extremely tough and competitive. Splashtop’s 2022 State of Remote Support Market Trends Report found that 94% of responding organizations have dealt with difficulty in hiring, retention, and skill shortages this past year. What’s more, two-thirds of help desk teams are feeling stressed and burned out.

With 2022 winding down, many MSPs will be using this time to reflect on their performance during the past year, and strategizing on how they can improve in 2023. There are many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that MSPs should be continuously tracking as part of their normal business activity to help measure the health of their organization. In this blog I’m going outline what I believe the five most important ones are.

It’s always been important for managed services providers (MSPs) to exercise backup best practices but this has become even more important with the pandemic having reset employees’ expectations around remote work. Up to 74% of professionals believe that remote work is here to stay according to Growmotely, while 16% of companies globally are already completely remote and 40% offer hybrid working.