Editors Note: This was one of our most popular articles in 2020 even though it was written way back in 2018. Many of its points remain true even today. Enjoy!
Starting a business is difficult and quite capital intensive. We realize that new businesses can’t afford all necessary technologies and services at once, so use this article as a guideline for key things your business should get as soon as possible. Feel free to reach out and let us help you with any of the following.
VoIP Business Phone Systems
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a must for business communication. This is an enhanced service suite of calling features that will help you reduce your communication costs, allow you to have a professional phone presence with features such as department extensions, active business hours, and much more. This can even be set up to work as an automated help desk, helping you steer customer questions to pre-recorded answers. We recommend that you partner up with a technology and communications company that has a solid understanding of where you currently are as a business and what your potential growth is expected to be in the next two to five years. A good technology and communications firm will make sure that you never outgrow your technology needs and at the same time stay within a comfortable operating budget. Think of them as both a coach and a consultant who will make sure you can easily expand with additional numbers, calling features, and so on.
Strong Security Infrastructure
Whether you’re working on proprietary science and research, or simply have loads of highly critical information on your network, you must make sure that it’s all fully secure and that your computer systems and your network is impenetrable. Down time can be very expensive, both in restoration costs as well as lost revenue. There are increasingly more bots, scripts, malware and other threats that are constantly testing your network’s security. All of this must be protected and constantly monitored. Have a vigilant security plan that keeps your business safe and worry free. If this not possible for you to handle alone, make sure you have a trustworthy IT company you can work with to set everything up for you. There are numerous IT companies where you can pay a monthly fee for taking care of your security work.
Offsite Backups
There are many physical threats that can completely destroy all of your data. We are based in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area and we have seen the value of offsite backup after 9/11. Not only was infrastructure severely damaged, but large groups of people had to work for many months far outside of their normal office environment. Offsite backup was a huge component in allowing people to continue doing their work, miles away from their offices. This is a must for any business, and if you’re not sure how to get this setup, please contact us and we can help you take care of your offsite backup needs.
Cloud Based Office Suite and Software Ecosystem
Expanding further on the offsite backup is the importance of running your critical applications in a cloud based environment. When your physical office computer is unavailable to you and critical work must get done, cloud based applications allow you to log into your virtual office environment and perform whatever tasks you need to address. A good technology partner can help you set up this environment and make sure that you never have any connectivity, lag, or security issues.
Web Site and Online Presence
Although not mission critical, an easily found and easy to understand web site is also a must. There is a very high likelihood that most of your clients will come to you after finding you online. Make sure you have a good online presence that shows up in search engines and does a superb job spelling out your who, what, where, when, and why information.
When you have a strong relationship with a technology and communications company you will have a great resource to insure that the above can be obtained and set up for your new business. We realize that you have many options out there and we hope that we can be part of your success strategy. We have been offering solid conferencing and technology solutions to the tri-state state region for two decades and would welcome an opportunity to chat with you.
We invite you to take a look at the conference and technology services we offer to any size business. We also recommend staying on top of technology by reading something simple such as WIRED web site.