Many East Coast companies are finding it easier and more economical to outsource their IT needs to Boston IT consultants for their ongoing operation, maintenance and upgrade needs. Why?

The fact is that corporate IT systems are take a sizable chunk of the operating budget – and this chunk is not exactly shrinking. In fact, by the time one factors in employee salary and benefits packages, the need to monitor IT use and the cost of software tools needed for such monitoring and maintenance, it could add up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars – and seriously cut into profit margins.

Rather than take from CEO salaries and shareholder dividends, isn’t it smarter to simply outsource the entire operation to a qualified Boston IT consultant? This is fact is the conclusion to which more business owners seeking to externalize operation costs while internalizing profits are finding out.

Once the services of a Boston IT consultant has been secured, this expert will begin by doing an extensive assessment, or audit of your company’s current IT operations, strengths and weaknesses. From such information, it is possible to determine the location and nature of any security leaks as well as bottlenecks. Based on these findings, a Boston IT expert can then determined system needs and how best to deal with them.

For example, does your company need a firewall? SPAM – unwanted emails that result from “bulk mailers” attempting to sell everything from Viagra to timeshares in Dubai – can clog server space and compromise productivity. Did you know there are many ways to insure than such emails never even make it past the electronic front door?

Hackers and viruses are also another concern. Boston IT consultants can make sure your data is protected and can recommend the most effective solutions at the lowest costs. This includes not only the most effective software, but the proper hardware as well.

Hardware and software is an entire conundrum in and of itself; it seems as if these must constantly be replaced, or at the very least, upgraded. The good news is that with PC-based IT systems, upgrades are relatively simple and inexpensive for the Boston IT expert. Such IT consultants are aware of what works and what doesn’t, and can provide valuable guidance as to what to install and what to avoid.

Information Technology consulting companies in United States hire foreign nationals from other countries. Dealing with immigration issues is one of their major challenges. Having worked in a Lawfirm and Information Technology consulting company, I can relate to the challenges that a business owner goes through. I am not an expert, but from my experience I would like to share my observation on IT Consulting companies that have say less than 50 employees. Let us name this group as IT-50 Business owner. Typically IT-50 business owner handles almost all the functions such as Business development, Recruitment and Immigration on her/his own. In my opinion here are the three major CONCERNS faced by these business owners, when hiring a Non-immigrant worker:

To hire an employee in the shortest possible time

While some companies choose to process their work permit applications in-house, others hire Immigration attorney/consultants. Typically an immigration team comprises of the business owner, Immigration Department (In-house or outsourced team) and Immigration Law firm. One of the biggest concerns is to hire a Non-Immigrant worker in the shortest possible time. This means the Immigration team needs to be aware of the time line, have checklists and systems in place to collect the documents from the prospective employee/employer. These documents need to be submitted in time to the Immigration Law firm for processing the work permit applications as per USCIS guidelines . Premium processing option is offered by USCIS for some petitions for quicker decision. Both the prospective employee and the employer needs to be aware of the document requirements for work permit and make sincere efforts to submit in time. In my experience I have found that having an efficient Immigration Department (In-house or outsourced team), that truly cares, commits and does timely follow up will definitely help in cutting the time in terms of proprietary work.

Record Keeping

For an employer to run his company with peace of mind, he wants to ensure that records pertaining to both the employer and employee are kept safe and are compliant with Governmental regulations. Many companies receive training from Immigration attorney/consultant to ensure compliance and proper record keeping. Some Immigration attorneys/consultants visit the employers’ facility to provide on the job training.

Employees need to be taken care of THROUGH the immigration process

In my experience this seems to be the biggest concern for IT-50 business owner. Immigration is a very important component for an employee’s retention. Hence the IT-50 business owner wants to make sure that the company provides proper and correct legal support. Some are very keen in hiring Immigration attorney/consultants that are conversant with the language/culture of the employee. This makes communication easy and facilitates smooth flow of the process. In addition to employee’s immigration issues, an IT-50 business owner wants his dependent’s Visa issues also to be addressed in correct and timely manner.

Action Exercises

Here are the two things you can consider doing:

Review your Immigration team’s performance. Are there any areas you can reduce the time taken to communicate effectively? Do you need to create checklist or automate? Just do it.

As you know Immigration is a very important component for an employee’s retention, survey your current employees, find out one key area that needs their attention and implement it right away.

Lalitha Brahma

As an entrepreneur you deserve to run your business passionately with peace of mind. If you are serious about protecting your FAMILY and growing your BUSINESS, sign up for my FREE educational series at

What is EMR or Electronic Medical Record? It is actually the newest sophistication in a doctor’s office environment that enhances any document management system. To achieve this level of sophistication, you will have to undergo an EMR consulting process to properly accomplish everything you need to have in the EMR software.

The Electronic Medical Record will have all the health documentation for each of your patient thus lessening any paperwork done in your office. This saves you time, money, and manpower in the long run. Before implementing any EMR software, a physician should contact an EMR consultant for the EMR consulting process.

The EMR consultant’s duty is to help the physician navigate through the EMR software for better understanding and better application. This allows the physician to properly discern whether the current EMR software is sophisticated enough for his medical practice. If not, he can ask for other customizations to be done on the current software installed or upgrade to newer versions.

With the appropriate EMR consulting, the doctor won’t be caught off guard and dumbfounded when using the EMR software for the first time. Since the sophisticated system is connected to the internet, the doctor can freely contact his patients regarding their diagnosis, get exam result charts directly from laboratories, and even get the latest updates from the medical world such as recalling of medicines and latest medical reports. His patients will also be able to view their charts online and even educate themselves about their current situation.

The EMR software is really the much-needed upgrade in the medical field. Through this, a patient can consult their doctor online and the doctor can charge an online consultation fee. It’s like having your medical check up without leaving the comforts of your home. As a doctor, the software allows you to prevent any malpractice from happening because the EMR software will help you decide the best treatment and medication for your patients. The medical history of your patient and their family health history are properly recorded and organized to help you decide the correct treatment. There will be no more lost charts and other document-related problems in your office.

Your patients can fill out their medical history and family health history in a computer terminal while waiting for their turn in the waiting area of your office. Your patients will surely be overjoyed with the latest developments of your high technology and will certainly tell their friends about it. You can also teach them to take online medical tutorials about their ailments to aid them to better understand their condition. This gives you a more personal touch to your patient’s hearts.

As you can see the initial EMR consulting process you have undergone can go a long way from saving you money to preventing any medical malpractice and even any unnecessary losses inside the office. As a result, more benefits for you and your patients as time passes by. The EMR software can also boost your reputation as a doctor in the medical field that’s why a lot of doctors are adopting this new kind of technology in their medical practice.

Linux operating system.

This is not for the technologically faint hearted, Linux is a ‘community engineered’ alternative to the Windows operating system. Benefits to recruitment agencies are

The machines are often cheaper and faster than a Windows PC

They carry equivalent packages (e.g. word processor, spreadsheet, presentation etc.) for all available Windows office software with one key difference, the Linux software is all open source and is therefore free!

Linux machines do not suffer virus attacks. With Windows I used to loose 2 to 3 days per year (plus sleep) over virus attacks and then having to recover data. With Linux in 2 years I’ve had none!

The one thing to be careful of here is that Linux is different kit to windows, so you will need a specialist Linux company to support you. But, if you can get this, my opinion is, and I stress it’s my opinion, Linux is fantastic for recruitment consultants, cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, faster and more reliable!

Open source software.

Office software, and in particular CRM systems can cost recruitment agencies large amounts of money to set up and run. Open source software is free, created and updated by a large community of techies it’s presents highly sophisticated alternatives to traditional software. There are now excellent open source CRM packages, totally free as they are open source and perfectly usable as recruitment agency database software. As with Linux, it’s advisable to find a company who will support you through it, but other than support, the software is free to obtain and use on an ongoing basis, and it’s web based, making it easy for recruitment consultants to view from any location. Have a look at Sugar CRM.

Messenger.

This is not that new, but essential technology for any recruitment agency, messenger enables staff to communicate from anywhere, real-time, so long as they have an internet connection. There are a number of benefits:

Saves on phone and text charges, messenger communication is free.

Highly effective for team working with channels to all open all of the time.

Excellent to support home working in maintaining your contact with staff.

Works on any PC or mobile device with an internet connection.

Smart phones.

Today’s mobile phones offer exceptional functionality with broadband speed internet connections enabling full mobile e-mail capacity and internet browsing whilst out interviewing. If your company places it’s database on a server which is attached to the internet, you’ll have full access to your recruitment database whilst out with clients or interviewing. The days of recruitment consultants having to synchronise with outlook when you’re back in the office are gone. Run a web based e-mail package (try Zimbra) for all your e-mail, calender and notes and you will never need to synch again, simply use in on your phone over the internet

IP phones.

To look at and use these are just the same as any other phone. However, they don’t need a phone line, simply a connection to the internet, but here’s the good bits.

No phone line, no monthly rental charges.

An IP Phone comes with a an 0845 number which follows the phone. If you travel to the other side of the world and plug into the internet, and you have your same 0845, your same office extension (so your PA can still put calls through) and free calls to anyone else on an IP phone, or at worst a local rate elsewhere.

The biggest application for recruitment consultants is home working. You could be in the office one day, and at home the next, and still on the end of your office extension, the potential savings to recruitment agencies here are huge.

Web based e-mail.

Gone are those days when web based e-mail was just hotmail, which was convenient but lacking the sophistication of packages like outlook, which carried calendars and other useful office functionality. Now, packages such as Zimbra offer unparalleled functionality on a web based package, also now configured to work on smart phones for mobility. Rather than having to synchronise e-mail packages on PC and smart phone, now mobile recruitment consultants can use the same package where ever they are, on any computer, anywhere in the world. The software is open source, so it’s completely free!

If you are a recruitment consultant like myself, you may find it difficult to focus on things like this which are visibly related to generating another fee. But be warned, recruitment consultants who embrace these developments are giving themselves the advantage before the recruitment has even began.