Technology Struggles For Small Business: Making The Most Of Technology

Oct. 11, 2010 - PRLog -- In today’s tight financial market finding ways to minimize cost while still being able to deliver on your baseline business goals requires some careful planning. If your business requires the use of technology than its imperative that you have a technology roadmap. Identify what systems are critical to run your business. Are you using standard off the shelf systems or do you use highly customized applications? Do you have other special support needs? Do you feel that having a dedicated information technology support staff is a requirement however the expense is too great? These are common issues that many small to medium sized businesses deal with… you are not alone. Even companies who have been established for years are now finding it difficult to provide their customers with the information they need due to old manual processes.  Here are some things that every small to medium sized business should be doing to maximize time, efficiency, and exposure which ultimately provides a better customer experience.

First and foremost, every business should have a web presence… regardless of what you do prospective customers want to be able to look you up online, often times as a means to view ratings from other customers or even something as simple as checking your business hours or searching for coupons.  With web 2.0 being the focus of today’s internet make sure you make it the focus of your business. What, you don’t have a website? Shame shame, but all is not lost. It’s easy enough to build a presence on Facebook and twitter without spending a dime or requiring a technically skilled person to design it. Simply create a profile, upload some of your images or company logo and start posting and communicating with your customers and more importantly prospective customers. Give your customers coupons, notifications, or other insights that relate to your business. Make sure that you invite your customers to visit you on Facebook and make sure you reward them for it with special incentives. Your existing customers become your “free sales people” by advertising to their network of friends and family. Nothing special is required, this is how Facebook works.

If you don’t have a website there are plenty of free solutions, try blogger or wordpress. The latter has an extensive list of plugins and extensions that allow you to take the standard blogging software and turn it into a system to meet all your business needs, even ecommerce if necessary. Granted these are not the most elegant solutions but done properly your customers will appreciate your web presence and the convenience it provides them. Did I mention that it was free, Blogger and wordpress allows you to create your blog, hosted and all for free. Take it a step further and purchase a $7-10 dollar/a year domain name and point it to your free blog. This gives your customers no doubt where they are being taken because they know your website address. Best of all when you decide you’re ready to upgrade to a more comprehensive solution its super easy to point your domain name somewhere else.

Need more? Well have you heard of open source? There are so many different open source applications available today up to and including the full blown CMS (customer management system). However if you decide this is the route to take for your business you will need to procure either server space as in a hosted solution or manage your own. The first option has the lowest upfront cost and is the best option for a small business strapped for cash. Typically web hosting ranges between $3-10 per month depending on the required feature set. Purchasing a server can cost on average of about $1000.00 and unless your business has other applications that utilize a server it might be too expensive considering its useful life span is about 3-5 years. If the website you choose can manage your entire business than a hosted solution is the way to go. All open source software is typically free to use, modify, and distribute. You don’t always have to pay for great software, even though many of the big software companies would like us to believe that. Try searching Google for “open source” to see what I mean.

So you say, “All this website stuff is great but how do I manage my IT staff needs”? Well, the first step is to determine exactly what those needs are. Do you have multiple computer systems that your employees require on a daily basis? What do you do when something breaks? Do you have staff members that have extended knowledge of computer systems that can help solve problems when they arise? Luckily, technology has reached a point in which pay per use technicians can help to solve problems remotely. This method offers several benefits and can save you a lot of time and money. Let’s consider the cost associated with removing a computer system from your environment.  Consider the cost associated with the lost productivity of the computer system and the user who uses it. Also you have to consider cost of gas, transportation time, and the cost of the repair. This can add up substantially and even worse is the cost associated with a technician coming to your facility to do an onsite repair. Now considering most problems that occur are related to software issues and seldom do they require replacement hardware so why go through all the trouble when these issues could be repaired remotely and much quicker than the alternatives. Many of the better remote computer repair services offer free analysis so they will tell you exactly what’s wrong before you begin.  Online computer repair services from www.connectandfix.com  will not charge you a cent if they can’t offer you a solution. For these services the only requirement is that you have high-speed internet and they can remotely connect to your system and fix all associated issues. Connectandfix.com offers flat rate services so there is no surprise hourly billing like the bigger corporate “geeks” charge.

Regardless of your business type, you can benefit from technology. Remember having good technology does not have to be expensive, as a consultant I often find solutions that exceed my client’s expectations. I try my hardest to keep up with different software applications in the open source market and make sure I’m familiar with their costly counterparts from the bigger software companies. This allows me to be aware of feature set differences, however in most cases open source software is 100% comparable to more expensive software yet knowing the difference can enable me to provide my clients the exact solutions they need.

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