Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Technology is a staple for business improvements, which is why it is always important to keep a few basics in mind as you go through your operations. Let’s go through a few key strategies, just to really drive their importance home.

Today, every business needs a certain amount of technology. The more that people depend on the Internet to manage their affairs and procure goods and services, the more businesses will need to focus on getting the IT infrastructure in place to help them succeed. Over the past several years we have begun to see a lot of businesses dipping their toe into the cloud computing pool. Many started with cloud backup and moved to some type of hosted software platform like hosted email through Outlook or Gmail or cloud-based productivity suites offered by Google and Microsoft. Today’s business is moving past these platforms and actively hosting their computing infrastructure online. It was only a few short years ago that this strategy was looked upon as far too risky. Let’s take a brief look at hosted infrastructure and its benefits.

Finding ways to save money is something that most entrepreneurs take pride in. Today, as costs of doing business continue to climb, VoIP can present the business owner with the rare solution that actually saves them money. Hosted VoIP, in particular--where your phone system is hosted in the cloud--presents an innovative and straightforward way to reduce your business’ operational costs. Let’s take a look at some ways it goes about doing this.

While remote work has been possible and somewhat popular for some time now, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made it indispensable for many businesses to survive. Nevertheless, as it has spread, it has become apparent that remote work isn’t likely to go away as our immediate need for it does. Let’s look at how remote operations are influencing businesses to see why.

Are your company’s policies and procedures documented? If not, they should be. Having a policy and procedure manual will act as an easy-to-distribute guide to educate your staff on the expectations you have for them. It will also provide a physical document that can be referenced if employees have questions about anything pertaining to your business. Today, we will give you a few tips on how to best go about completing an employee handbook for your business. 

As businesses everywhere are now operating with a remote workforce, many are seeing an issue common enough in the office settling in with their at-home employees: burnout. Let’s examine this phenomenon and see what can be done to avoid it.

It has been pretty difficult for most small business owners to stay positive lately. They’ve had to deal with more in the past few months than many have in their entire entrepreneurial careers. Today, as businesses are gearing up to get back to work, we thought it would be helpful to explain some ways that you can stay positive. 

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak businesses have been trying to find ways to keep revenue streaming in without having to suspend operations. This week we thought we would take a look at some of the cybersecurity you will need to get through this difficult economic point. 

Coronavirus is on everyone’s mind, from the public at large to businesses of all shapes and sizes. While the impact of COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on small businesses, corporations and enterprise businesses have also felt these changes. However, unlike small businesses, larger companies seem to be able to do much more than just survive.

Business is moving faster than it ever has and a lot of that uptick in productivity comes from the speed of the computing networks that are being used. Cloud computing is a big benefit for most businesses because it extends the reach of the business outside the confines of the brick and mortar place of business. Today, we’ll look at some of the major benefits that cloud computing brings to the modern small business.

For many years, there have been occupations and careers that are largely occupied by either males or females. These discrepancies have been declining, thanks in part to the greater adoption of technology solutions in businesses. As a result, today’s workforce has shown a greater level of inclusivity than has been demonstrated in the past.

Business owners have a lot of trouble finding top talent--especially some that are limited by certain geographical factors. Rather than go all-in on finding the much-coveted full-time job, many professionals are instead opting to provide expertise as a service. This is essentially freelancing, and the number of workers who partake in this “gig economy” has increased substantially. It has quickly become the norm for a lot of organizations.

With all the stories in the news about data breach after data breach, it’s easy to get the idea that the only threats to your organization are those that are trying to break in. This can be a dangerous oversight--one that could cost your business’ future. If you ignore the possibilities, you could very well be putting your organization in jeopardy. We’ll discuss some of the major internal dangers that your business could face.

Prioritizing tasks is one of the hardest parts of being a business owner. Countless tasks will pile up every hour of the day, and you might be lost trying to figure out how to proceed. Thankfully, you have us to offer you some strategies to approach your workday and be more productive with your time. Let’s get started!

Running a business can be a fulfilling and rewarding endeavor, but on the same token, the technology that is needed for it to run can quickly become a stressful obstacle to struggle with. Fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take that allow you to minimize these moments and prevent them from occurring. We’ll review a few basics for this week’s tip!

“Even the Lone Ranger didn’t do it alone.” - Harvey MacKay

In business, there’s a good argument to be made that the most important capital is your social capital. In other words, your relationships with those around you hold quite a bit of value. Below, we’ll review some ways to form positive relationships with those that you have connected with as a result of your business operations.

High degrees of productivity can be difficult to achieve for a lot of organizations, and this is primarily due to everyone’s least favorite part of the workplace: rampant distractions. Your business’ productivity can suffer from even the most unlikely reasons. We’ll help you address them so you can minimize distractions in the workplace.

While it may not be fun to consider the worst-case scenario, it is important that you have a plan to ensure that your business will be able to survive when the chips are down. This plan to ensure that your business will continue is called (appropriately enough) a business continuity plan, and needs to address a few things that we will go over here.

Have you ever heard of the term “bias?” It has a negative connotation to it, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. A bias can predispose you to a skewed consideration or thought when met with what is known to be a seemingly neutral stimuli. In some cases, they can cause more harm than good, which is why it’s a good thing to take another look at how you approach certain situations. Researchers have discovered several trends about why we hold certain biases, as well as how we can overcome them.

Your signature has a lot of power, particularly in the business world. Because of this, it’s curious to see how so many companies are moving over to the more digital alternative. In order to fully take advantage of digital signatures for your organization, you need comprehensive security measures that can reinforce the authenticity of your signatures.