| Letter from
the CEO
Dear
Valued Customers and Partners:
Welcome to the
second issue of MasterLink’s eConsultant. One of
the questions most frequently asked by our
clients, particularly when budgets are tight due
to an uncertain economy, is “How do I know that
I am spending our technology dollars wisely? How
can we be assured that we are investing in the
right technologies?”
Most business
executives acknowledge that technology is a
valuable business tool – the right technology
can help your organization thrive, particularly
during an economic downturn, by giving you a
competitive edge through increasing productivity
and efficiency and decreasing costs. However,
the lure of these potential benefits is
sometimes offset by the fear of focusing on the
wrong solution or the possibility of short-term
obsolescence.
At MasterLink, we
agree that technology is an important tool – but
it is only a means to an end. Ultimately, what
your organization needs are solutions to its
business challenges. During each client
engagement, we utilize a five-step methodology
to uncover your company’s unique goals,
opportunities, threats, processes, customers,
competitors, etc. We need to know: what is
currently keeping you up at night, and where do
you want your business to be five or ten years
from now? Only after thoroughly understanding
these issues will we provide our
recommendation(s) for any process changes or
technology investments.
The articles in
this quarter’s eConsultant focus on questions
you should consider and discuss with your
technology partner prior to making any purchase
decisions. We hope the articles in this issue
help you as you are planning your budgets for
2009.
As always, if you
have any comments or suggestions on our
newsletter or how MasterLink can improve its
services, please contact me directly or send
them to
econsultant@emasterlink.com.
Sincerely,
Wayne Piontek
CEO
MasterLink Corporation |
How
do you ensure that your technology purchases
will provide for your future needs and not be
obsolete in a month? This is an age-old struggle
for many businesses. The good news is that there
are ways that you can “futureproof” your
technology purchase.
One of the greatest
challenges facing organizations today is
understanding where to utilize your limited
resources to reduce risk and improve your
security posture in the most efficient manner.
The process of managing your risk starts with
understanding what your risks are and what the
impact is to the business. A Risk Assessment is
an effective means of uncovering those risks.
When conducting a risk assessment, the most
productive method is a two pronged approach with
the first part being a very broad review that
looks at the entire organization (Business
Level), providing the foundation for determining
the areas of highest business risk. The second
part is a very focused (Technical Level) review
which provides the foundation for the highest
physical risk. Knowing the points of critical
and high risk enables you to focus the right
amount of resources -- at the right time -- to
resolve the issues. 
Data
infrastructure supports business’s core
utilities and data capabilities. Unplanned or
ill-planned changes to an environment may cause
a ripple effect throughout the organization. It
is critical to clearly understand the impact of
any planned and potentially unplanned changes
within your infrastructure. These changes could
be a simple anti-virus upgrade, a full data
center consolidation or renovation or a data
availability initiative. Any of these types of
projects will greatly impact uptime,
availability and budgets. Some of the key
questions to review are
As you
and your company start to tackle the pros and
cons of Unified Communications and how it can
provide value to your organization, the
questions become endless: 
