Tip of the Week: 5 Ways to Improve Your Business with Technology

Technology has become an indelible part of business, being used in companies large and small. Small companies need to consider it even more, as the leveling of the playing field technology has wrought has increased their competition considerably. Therefore, every business needs to take advantage of technology to the fullest. Here are a few tips to help you do so.

1. Use All That Is Available

Technology has rendered quite a few universal changes to the workplace, regardless of business size or industry. Teammates no longer need to physically be in the same place in order to “work together,” remote work abilities are increasingly available to a growing population, and the filing cabinet has become as much of a punchline as the floppy disk. The cloud makes these truths possible.

But why? Why change the way that things were once done? The same reason that people have moved from a one-horsepower horse to the ill-fated Titanic’s 46,000-horsepower coal engines, to the Boeing 777’s 110,000 horsepower jet engines… As needs have changed, our demands to meet those needs have also changed. The exact same scenario has played out in the business technology landscape, establishing that your competitiveness is directly related to your willingness to accept innovation.

2. Don’t Forget About Email

Email is another technology that offers utility to organizations of any size. Sure, while it might seem silly to email an announcement to your small business’ users, there are a lot of positive aspects to doing so. Consider it: John owns and manages a small business. One day, he needs to make an announcement to the company, but Richard happens to be out sick that day and Paul has been in and out all day making phone calls. He doesn’t want to leave it to George to pass on his message and potentially get it wrong. 

Email provides a way to communicate for contemporaries and customers, alike, and unless an individual is obsessive, won’t be a large drain on organizational productivity. 

3. Embrace Mobility

Mobility isn’t just a convenience nowadays, it is the way people get things done most effectively. In the modern business there is no room to deny the benefits of mobility. Sure, there are detriments of doing anything, but by embracing mobile strategies (and solutions) not only does business move faster, more can get done than ever before. Solutions like Voice over Internet Protocol, video conferencing, and file sharing and synchronization can go a long way toward moving your business outside your scheduled hours of operation. 

4. Don’t Underestimate the Cloud

Speaking of technologies that promote mobility, the cloud presents businesses with more options today than ever before. If you can host a solution onsite, you can pay for access in the cloud. Today there are utility computing options that extend from hardware and development platforms, to line-of-business and productivity software, to database management, to security, to communications, and beyond. If your business is looking for a solution to a business problem and doesn’t have huge swaths of cash laying around to make this happen, the cloud can present you with an affordable option with very little upfront cost. 

5. Improve Your Security

There was a time when a small business’ size would protect it against cybercrime.

Those times are sadly in the past. 

Today, every business needs to be cognizant of the security of their network and the sensitive data that they have. Solutions like firewalls, spam blockers, antivirus, and other tools can actually go a long way toward reducing your risks. The most important strategy, however, is to properly train your staff on the best practices of maintaining network and data security. To protect your business, you have to prioritize your security strategies. 

Your IT can be a big benefit for your growing business, but it can also be its undoing. Call BEI and our knowledgeable consultants today at (844) BIZ-EDGE to learn more about getting the most out of your business' technology.