Posts

AI in Google Workspace – NotebookLM

Gemini AI in NotebookLMGoogle Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. In this post, we cover AI in NotebookLM

AI in NotebookLM

NotebookLM is a research and learning assistant, powered by Gemini, that helps you navigate and understand your information more effectively. Its responses are accurate, relevant, and tailored to the specific context of your inquiry.

Here are 4 Gemini features in NotebookLM you should know:

Source Grounding
  • NotebookLM bases its responses solely on the sources you provide (e.g., PDFs, Google Docs, website URLs, YouTube videos, audio files). This significantly reduces “hallucinations” and ensures the AI’s output is directly relevant to your material. Every response is accompanied by citations, allowing you to easily verify the information against your original sources.
Audio Overviews/Podcast Generation
  • Use NotebookLM to transform your source material into an engaging audio “podcast” with two AI hosts discussing the content. This allows for “listening and learning on the go” and can help in digesting complex information in a more accessible format. With interactive mode, you can “join” the conversation and ask questions of the AI hosts.
Precise Question Answering
  • NotebookLM can understand nuances in your questions. It’s like having a helper who can instantly recall specific details from a vast library of information and give you relevant answers to different types of questions, however simple or complex they may be.
Conversational AI for Deeper Understanding
  • Interact with your uploaded sources via chat interface. Ask direct questions about your documents, explore connections between different sources, or even ask the AI to explain complex concepts in simpler terms. Gemini AI in NotebookLM acts as a personalized research assistant, helping you delve deeper into your material.

And More …

You can also use Gemini AI within NotebookLM for …

Intelligent Summarization and Information Extraction

NotebookLM excels at summarizing complex documents and extracting key information. You can generate:

  • Overviews/Briefing Docs: High-level summaries for quick digestion.
  • FAQs: Automatically generated frequently asked questions based on your content.
  • Timelines: Capture sequential information contained within your documents.
  • Study Guides:  Create study materials, including short-answer questions, answers, and glossaries.
Idea Generation and Content Creation 

Beyond summarization and Q&A, NotebookLM assists with creative tasks and content generation.

  • Brainstorm new ideas based on your research.
  • Generate scripts, outlines, or other structured content from your notes.
  • Receive suggestions for improving your writing style or structure.

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud AdvisorWe will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

Microsoft Recall: Tool or Trouble?

Windows RecallWindows 11 now includes Recall, a productivity feature that lets you search and find information you have previously seen on your screen. Like most productivity tools, increased capabilities and benefits come with new risks to consider.

What is Windows Recall?

Windows Recall takes a snapshot of your screen every few seconds and when your screen content changes. Contextual information derived from the screenshots is saved as well. You can use an explorable timeline or semantic-powered search to find the content you remember having seen.

Pre-Requisites

In order to use Recall, you PC must meet stringent technical requirements, including:

  • A certified Copilot+ PC that meets the Secured-Core Standard and includes a 40 TOPs Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
  • At least 8 logical processors, 16GB RAM, and 256 GB of local storage

In addition, you must 

  • Enable Device Encryption or BitLocker to encrypt local storage
  • Enroll in Windows Hello Advanced Sign-in Security with at least one biometric sign-in option for physical device security

Is Recall Secure?

Recall relies on several security measures.

  • The data is stored locally on your computer and is NOT shared with Microsoft or any other parties.
  • You must be able to log in securely to your local machine
  • Your local storage must be encrypted
  • You can ask Recall to filter out automatically filter out information that may be sensitive
  • You can manually block specific websites from being captured in snapshots
What are the Risks?

Recall can capture account information, passwords, and other sensitive information. 

A cyber attacker with access to your device and identity can access and exfiltrate the information.

What Should You Do?

Our recommended best practice is to disable Recall by policy.

If, however, you want your team to be able to use Windows Recall, set the following policies:

  • Limit your exposure by limiting:
    • The amount of time that snapshots can be saved on the local disk
    • The amount of local storage available for snapshots
  • Create a list of websites and apps that will be filtered from snapshots
    • Include any and all internal systems with sensitive, protected, or confidential information

In addition, you should have security protections in place to minimize the risk of user account breaches and compromises. In line with our Security CPR® managed security model and services, we recommend these protections include:

  • Enhanced email threat protection against email-based cyber attacks
  • Nex-Gen endpoint protection
  • Multi-Factor Authentication enforces for all systems and applications with sensitive data (preferably all systems and apps)
  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for managing access and permissions to applications and data, including information within Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace

How Can Cumulus Global Help?

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you do not overspend on services and to focus your IT dollars on the capabilities and services you need.

Check out our IT Assessments and schedule a meeting with a Cloud Advisor. We will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

AI in Google Workspace – Sheets

Gemini AI in Sheets

Google Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. In this post, we cover AI in Sheets.

AI in Sheets

Google Sheets is a spreadsheet and data analysis tool built for ease of use and collaboration. Using Gemini AI in Sheets, you can build spreadsheets, summarize your data, generate formulas, and improve your data skills.Gemini in Sheets helps you build more effective and efficient sheets.

Here are 3 Gemini features in Sheets you should know:

 

Create Tables
  • Gemini in Sheets helps you build contextually relevant, formatted, and styled spreadsheets in a snap. 
Create Formulas
  • You can ask Gemini to create formulas for you, combining and nesting functions for your desired results.  
Summarize Spreadsheet Data
  • Gemini in Sheets will automatically summarize the data in your spreadsheet. You gain a better understanding of your data, creating actionable information. You can also ask Gemini questions about the summary for deeper insights.

And More …

With Gemini AI in Sheets, you can also …

  • Build and enhance spreadsheets using content in other files and your emails.
  • Use prompts to edit your sheets with actions such as adding checkboxes or dropdowns, applying conditional formatting, and sorting data.

You can ask Gemini to create formulas for you, combining and nesting functions for your desired results.  

Summarize Spreadsheet Data

Gemini in Sheets will automatically summarize the data in your spreadsheet. You gain a better understanding of your data, creating actionable information. You can also ask Gemini questions about the summary for deeper insights.

And More …

With Gemini AI in Sheets, you can also …

  • Build and enhance spreadsheets using content in other files and your emails.
  • Use prompts to edit your sheets with actions such as adding checkboxes or dropdowns, applying conditional formatting, and sorting data.

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud AdvisorWe will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

AI in Google Workspace – Docs

AI in Google Docs

Google Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. In this post, we cover AI in Docs

AI in Docs

Google Docs is an editor built for collaboration. Using simple prompts, Gemini AI in Docs helps you create professional, stylized, and structured documents with images, tables, and more. Get help refining your content, see the latest summary of your work, and ask questions to improve and finalize your document. Gemini in Docs can help you build better docs.

Here are 3 Gemini features in Docs you should know:

Create Your Doc

Gemini in Docs lets you build a stylized, structured document using content in Drive from a single prompt. Gemini in Docs helps you transform your long-form document with cover images, in-line images, stylized text, tables, and more.

Create an Image

Create unique inline and cover images with Gemini in Docs. Personalize your documents, add your branding, or elevate promotional content. With Gemini in Docs, you can also apply different styles, such as photography or watercolor.

Help You Write

Gemini in Docs can help you write. Use Gemini in Docs to:

  • Brainstorm
  • Create an outline
  • Build your first draft
  • Fix grammar and punctuation
  • Help adjust the length and/or tone of your content.

And More …

Gemini in Docs can reference files from your Drive and Shared Drives when generating responses in Docs. You can also summarize files from Drive and emails from Gmails. Access to your content empowers Gemini to help you create and refine. 

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud AdvisorWe will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

AI in Google Workspace – Meet

AI in Meet

Google Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. In this post, we cover AI in Meet.

AI in Meet

Google Meet offers business-grade video and voice conferencing designed to enhance collaboration. Gemini AI in Meet takes care of the details, enabling you to focus on participating instead of meeting management and logistics. Beyond providing a smarter meeting experience, Gemini in Met can help you look and sound your best.

Here are 4 Gemini features in Meet you should know:

Take Notes
  • In addition to generating a transcript, Gemini in Meet will automatically take notes during a meeting.
  • While a transcript captures every word spoken, notes provide a summary of discussions, highlight key points, and identify action items.
  • Notes offer a great way to share information from meetings with others and to help create minutes. Notes are placed in a Doc and save it to your Drive. Gemini also notifies you on Gmail for quick access to your notes.
Captions with Real-Time Translation
  • Gemini in Meet provides real-time captions and can translate captions into more than 65 languages, breaking down language barriers and helping everyone feel included.
Adaptive Audio
  • You can join hybrid meetings without conferencing hardware or rooms.
  • Attendees can use their laptops in any space. Gemini AI in Meet will synchronize microphones and speakers to avoid echoes, feedback, or distortion.
Show and Tell
  • Gemini in Meet includes tools to enhance your appearance and audio, with lighting and look adjustments and audio filtering/noise cancellation.

After the Meeting …

  • Gemini in Meet can create summaries of key points and identify action items. You can create custom summaries to identify information such as most discussed or “best of” topics.

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud AdvisorWe will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

AI in Google Workspace – Drive

AI in Workspace: DriveGoogle Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. In this post, we cover AI in Drive.

AI in Drive 

Gemini in Drive helps you quickly find answers and insights from across your files. Catch up with summaries of long documents, query project folders, and automatically classify your most sensitive content.

Features you should know when using the Gemini Drive

The Gemini Side Panel is available when you are looking Drive. In general, you can:

  • Specifically direct Gemini to analyze a particular folder by typing “@” followed by the folder name in your prompt (e.g., “Summarize files in @Marketing Reports”).
  • Explicitly select a folder as a source for Gemini to focus on when you ask a question or request a summary.
  • Use Gemini’s ability to understand folder content is currently focused on non-media file types like text documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, and presentations.
  • Use or modify “nudges”, or suggested prompts, which are provided based on your content in Drive.
Q&A for Understanding Folder Content
  • Gemini can analyze the files within a folder (including documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, and presentations) and provide a concise summary of the main points or themes. This allows you to quickly understand the content of a folder without opening each file individually.
  • Gemini can answer specific questions about the information contained within a folder. Gemini can synthesize information from multiple files in the folder to provide an answer. For instance, you could ask, “What are the main risks identified in the documents within the ‘Q3 Planning’ folder?”
  • Find specific pieces of information or quick facts related to a project or topic by analyzing the files within a designated folder.
  • Identify the overarching theme or topic of the content within a folder.
AI Classification
  • Automatically identify, classify, and protect your organization’s sensitive content with precision and scale.
PDF File Support
  • Get the gist of a long document with Gemini’s help, summarizing it, or ask Gemini complex questions about any PDF in your Drive.

File and Folder Management

  • You can instruct it to “Create a new folder” or “Create a new folder named ‘Meeting Minutes’.
  • Use Gemini to create new Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides within your Drive. Specify the name, for example, “Create a new Google Doc titled ‘Project Proposal Draft’.

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud Advisor.

We will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

AI in Google Workspace – Gmail

AI in Workspace: GmailGoogle Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. In this post, we cover AI in Gmail.

AI in Gmail

AI in Gmail lives in the Gemini Side Panel.  Gemini in Gmail is your productivity partner that can help draft, reply, sift through, and summarize your emails to save you time at your desk or on the go.

Features you should know when using the Gemini Side Panel in Gmail

The Gemini Side Panel is available when you are looking at your inbox and when you have opened an email or email thread. From the inbox, or at any time, you can:

  • Find specific messages or information in your inbox
  • Identify trends and topics
Draft Emails and Respond
  • Summarize an email thread. You can ask for a more or less detailed summary than the initial response
  • Draft an email based on keywords and the context of your inbox
  • Edit emails to polish your tone or change the length of your message
  • Ask Gemini to suggest a response to the email
Access Calendars and Events
  • Create events using your natural language requests
  • Search for calendar events by dates, participants, or subject
  • Request details about specific upcoming events
Access Files and Drive
  • Search Drive for documents related to the topic of an email thread
  • Use the “@” prompt to search for and add specific documents to your query

The “One-Click” features you should know when working in an email message

  • When viewing, the “Summarize this email” link gets you an instant summary of the message and thread
  • When composing a new email message, the “Write an email for me” link prompts you for information and drafts your message

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud Advisor.

We will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

Service Update: Updated Service Plans and SLA Effective July 1, 2025

Managed Cloud Services by Cumulus Global

Service Plans and SLA Updates take effect July 1, 2025.

Overview of Changes

Effective July 1, 2025, Cumulus Global is updating our Service Plan options and our Service Level Agreement (SLA).  The objectives of these Service Plans and SLA updates are to:

  • Clarify differences between our Service Plans and our Managed Cloud Services
  • Create new Service Plan options that better meet client needs and budgets
  • Update out-of-plan service expectations
Service Plans vs Managed Cloud Services

Our Service Plans remain consistent with traditional IT services.  Through these plans, we offer unlimited, remote, admin of the cloud and IT services we provide. Our focus is on helping your internal or other IT resources best configure, manage, and support these services. Our Service Plans do not include active monitoring and management. They also exclude cyber attack recovery services.

Our Managed Cloud Services add unlimited, remote, co-management of your cloud and, optionally, other IT services bundled with security, admin, and management tools.  Our Managed Cloud Services let you partially or completely hand-off responsibility for monitoring, managing, and supporting your IT services to us.

Service Plan Changes

We now have four Service Plan options, you can select the Service Plan that best meets your needs and budget:

  • Self Service: We include this free Service Plan option with the cloud services we provide. Self Service provides subscription and license administration and assistance with hardware warranty service claims.
  • Limited Service: Our economy plan provides assistance with basic user account management — adds, changes, and deletes — and user-license assignments. We will also help escalate vendor support requests when applicable. This ultra low-cost plan is designed for clients wanting assistance with user account and license management that do not yet need or want our Admin or Premium services.
  • Admin Service: Our most popular plan provides unlimited, remote assistance for the IT resources responsible for administration, management, security, and support of your cloud-based and other IT services.  We bring expertise and experience to help the helpers with back-end and end-user issues.
  • Premium Service: Our top level service adds Tier-2 end user support to our Admin Service offering.

Our current Basic Service plan is discontinued as of July 1, 2025, for new and monthly/flex clients. To remain on a free plan, you may opt-out of moving to our Limited Service plan.

For clients with annual or multi-year commitments, your Basic Service plan ends at your first renewal after July 1, 2025.  We may, at our option, move you to our Limited Service plan at no cost through the end of your current commitment.

Out-of-Plan Services

We have updated the minimum and incremental times on which hourly and prepaid hour services are tracked and billed.

The new SLA clarifies that our Service Plans and Managed Cloud Services do not cover any cyber attack recovery services. The SLA outlines rates and surcharges for these services.

More Information

About Cumulus Global

Managed Cloud Services for Small and Midsize Businesses, Governments, and Schools

Cumulus Global (www.cumulusglobal.com) is an industry-leading managed cloud service provider with a mission to deliver solutions with tangible value.

  • What We Do: We translate your business goals and objectives into solutions and services.
  • How We Do It: We start with your business needs and priorities. Planning and migration includes guidance to help your team adopt and utilize new services. Your team benefits from co-managed services, ongoing support, and client success services that help you adapt as your business changes and grows.
  • What We Offer: Managed cloud solutions featuring Google, Microsoft and over three dozen providers.

For more information, schedule a no-obligation introductory meeting with a Cloud Advisor.

AI in Google Workspace – Gemini App

AI in Google Workspace - Gemini AppGoogle Workspace is a comprehensive and secure platform that empowers organizations to be more productive, collaborative, and creative. This series explores the power of AI built within Google Workspace across each of the workspace apps. We begin with the Gemini App in Google Workspace.

The Gemini App

The Gemini App is a Large Language Model (LMM) service built to help you get more done in less time. It’s great for brainstorming ideas, researching topics, and improving your writing. Use Gemini to pressure-test your work against target personas, with enterprise-grade data protections. 

Choose from multiple versions specifically designed for advanced reasoning, complex tasks, deep research, and everyday queries.

Three features you should know

Deep Research

Explore complex topics and get findings from different sources across the web in a comprehensive, easy-to-read report that brings hours of research to your fingertips in mere minutes. The reports can also be exported into Google Docs to easily share with your teams, allowing you to dive into industry trends, understand the competitive landscape, or even research customers ahead of a sales meeting.

Gems

Gems are customizable versions of Gemini that help with specialized or repetitive tasks. It’s like having an expert to help craft compelling marketing copy, prepare for job interviews, brainstorm new ideas, and so much more. You can even feed Gems your documents and other information, making them smarter and more tailored to your needs.

Integrations

Gemini seamlessly connects to other Google Workspace apps. Pull schedules from Gmail, PDFs from Drive, and content from Docs into the Gemini app without switching tabs or windows, so you can stay focused and get quality work done faster.

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you get the most value from the IT and cloud services you need and want, without overspending, to best support your business objectives.

Unsure of where to start? Check out our IT Assessment or schedule a meeting with a Cloud Advisor.

We will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.

Save or Spend? IT Decisions for Turbulent Times

Radical changes in government policies, along with unpredictable tariffs and trade policies,  create a level of economic uncertainty that impacts our business decisions. Across all aspects of our businesses, including IT services, is it time to save or spend?

Background

Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index

Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index through March 2025

US Economic Policy Uncertainty Index

US Economic Policy Uncertainty Index through March 2025

According to Economic Policy Uncertainty*, the Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index is the highest it’s been since the index was created in January 1997. For the US, and globally, the Index is at or above record highs seen at the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

With this level of uncertainty, we need to reassess our existing strategies and plans. The trends and assumptions used to create long- and near-term plans may no longer hold true. The lack of clear policies that we can use guides further complicates matters. 

Impact on Our Decisions

How does economic uncertainty impact us as small and midsize business owners and leaders?

Downturns

Generally, when we expect an economic downturn, we focus on saving. With the potential of stagnant growth or drops in revenue, we seek ways to reduce costs. With respect to IT services, these savings can be tangible. Delaying equipment replacements and software upgrades is one common example. Savings can also be intangible, or indirect. Increasing automation and streamlining processes to improve productivity can mitigate staffing needs and reduce the need for additional IT resources and services.

Growth

When we expect a period of economic growth, we tend to spend. More specifically, we focus on investments that enable us to take advantage of growth opportunities. For IT, direct spending often looks like investments in new technologies and services. Indirect investments commonly focus on productivity and automation to mitigate staffing needs as your business grows.

Should We Save or Spend?

For your business, and specifically at your information technology and services, should you save or spend?

You should do both! Save and spend.

Save

Most small and midsize businesses overpay for portions of their information technology and services. The most common culprits are duplicate services. Poor license management, shadow IT, and a lack of lifecycle management often contribute to overspending.

Now is a great time to assess your IT services, for example:

  • Identify areas where you can standardize and consolidate
  • Examine on/off boarding to ensure you remove unused licenses and services
  • Work to eliminate shadow IT services
  • Monitor consumption-based services for saving opportunities
  • Explore using cloud services, such as VDI / Remote Desktops to extend the life of laptops and desktop
Spend

The economy is changing and may require you to adapt to new market realities. These changes may also create unexpected opportunities. 

You want (and need!) to be ready. Investing now can help ensure you are ready to exploit new opportunities, adapt to changing market conditions, and leverage future growth opportunities.

Tactically, look for opportunities with quick returns. One-time expenditures can provide long-term value. 

  • User Training and Support: Help your team get more value out of current IT services; improve productivity and job satisfaction.
  • Migrate more to Cloud Services:
    • Expand support for hybrid, remote, and flexible work patterns
    • Improve security and meet security requirements more cost-effectively
    • Replace fixed capital expenditures with variable operating expenses you can scale based on need and usage

Strategically, explore opportunities to invest in technologies and services that will enable your business to grow.

  • AI-Powered Solutions: Look for ways to improve marketing, sales, customer service, or internal team productivity.
  • Replace or Upgrade: How well are your key systems servicing your business? Could you benefit from better customer relationship management, marketing and sales tools, financial systems, or reporting?

We Will Help

At Cumulus Global, our priority is ensuring that you have productive, secure, and affordable managed cloud services. We work to ensure that you do not overspend on services and to focus your IT dollars on the capabilities and services you need.

Our IT Assessment may be a good place to start. Let us know or schedule a meeting with a Cloud Advisor.

We will help you adapt while keeping your IT services secure and cost-effective.

* Economic Policy Uncertainty is a non-profit research collaboration from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, Stanford University, and the Hoover Institution

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.