Technology impacts the business landscape more than it ever has, and its impact shows no sign of slowing down. This is especially the case for the small business, which now has a much larger pool of competitors to deal with. As a result, it is more crucial than ever that small businesses take advantage of technology to assist them. Let’s go over a few tips that every small business should act upon.
1. Adopt Technology Solutions
Regardless of your industry, who your business serves or where you operate, there are some universal changes that technology has brought to how the average small and medium-sized business functions. Methods of collaboration have shifted to digital formats, coming to work is no longer a prerequisite to working, and the filing cabinet has been rendered woefully obsolete by other, better options. Cloud solutions are a major contributor to this. Take a moment to consider why any of these changes were made in the first place.
It is for the same reason that the assembly line process was adopted or why we cook our food before eating it. It provides greater benefits than the old way. It is the same with business technology, and you will see this as a common theme throughout these tips. Don’t disqualify yourself from competing by removing your ability to do so.
2. Don’t Shortchange Email
Email is now the gold standard for business communications. While a small business might find it redundant to email an announcement, doing so can prove useful to their operations. For instance, let’s say Mary manages a small office with four or five employees. She could easily just announce an important message to the room, but what if employees were away from their desks?
Email provides an easy way for you to communicate with others in your workplace that ensures everyone gets the message without disrupting operations too much.
3. Go Mobile
While we’re on the subject, let’s consider something else. In the past, making a phone call would tie people to their desks, so any distractions in the office would be an unavoidable issue. Nowadays, there are many ways one could hypothetically remove themselves from the situation while still fulfilling their responsibilities. For instance, a Voice over Internet Protocol solution could allow you to make and take calls from anywhere you could establish a connection, so you could presumably find a quieter area to work without sacrificing your ability to do so.
Other solutions also offer some form of mobility, assuming they’re backed up with enough security. This allows employees to still complete their assigned tasks from home with the right cloud-based solutions. Again, this helps eliminate his reliance upon getting to the office in order to produce.
4. Don’t Underestimate the Cloud
We’ve already touched on how the cloud has shifted businesses, primarily focusing on how useful it is for hosting and storing data. However, this isn’t the only thing the cloud can do. Cloud technology enables today’s businesses to make use of tools that would ordinarily be out of reach. Yes, its storage capabilities can help make data more accessible to team members who need it, but it can also assist you in preserving your data in case of some disaster, give you access to computing resources that you couldn’t procure yourself and provide you flexible access to your business applications.
5. Improve Your Security
A small business’ size once protected it from cybercrime, but nowadays, all businesses are fair game. In order to remain secure against these attacks, the right defenses need to be put in place. Things like firewalls, spam blockers, antivirus and assorted other solutions help to reduce these risks. Additionally, any employee could potentially let in a significant threat, so all need to be educated on how to spot them and the proper procedures to dealing with them.
Advisors Tech is here to assist you in implementing these modern IT essentials, as well as maintaining them for you through our remote monitoring and access capabilities. To learn more about how else we can help your growing business, give us a call at 844.671.6071.