- Is your business limping along using outdated computers or an ad hock network that is constantly giving you problems?
- Are you planning on employing more staff, opening a remote location or adding an additional office?
- Are you sick and tired of dealing with issues, error messages, and downtime?
This post will reveal if a network or server is right for your business!
If like most small businesses, you buy desktop computers, phone systems, and software in a random fashion as your business operations demand it. However at some point, this patchwork of technology you’ve acquired is going to end up costing more than it would to rip out and replace everything. If you suddenly experience more in downtime, crashes, errors, and troubleshooting and ever increasing problems, it’ll not take you long to stop purchasing more software and hardware in a ad hock fashion and get serious about planning for your future growth inline with business operations so you don’t end up with a big pile of expensive hardware and software spaghetti that no longer meet your business needs.
One Big Secret To Saving Money In Business
The one big secret to saving money is on IT costs, strive for as much uniformity and functionality as possible across your communication and computer network – and the first place to start achieving this is by networking your computers, then gain extra functionality through the use of a server. If you have more than two computers that would benefit from being networked to allow sharing documents, printers, scanners, and even Internet access, then you could benefit a great deal from the simplicity, productivity, and security with a small business server. In very simple terms a server is a big and powerful computer that allows all of your other computers (known as “clients”) on the same network to access the same documents, databases, and systems they need, faster, and with fewer problems. It acts like a centralised storage area making sure data is secure, organised, and easy to backup/restore.
No… Servers Aren’t Just For Big Businesses Anymore
Originally servers only made sense for large organisations and corporations due to high cost and complexity. However, these days, servers are very affordable and easy-to-implement and even integrate with telephone systems. Technology giants are developing hardware and software specifically for a growing small business environment. If you’re not absolutely certain that having a server could help your business enough to justify the cost, below are 12 signs that your business could definitely benefit.
12 Signs That Your Business Is Ready For A Network or Small Business Server…
1. You have more than two computers that need to share office equipment or resources such as; documents, databases, printers, scanners, and internet access.
2. You have vital “mission critical” files and data/files on more than one computer that need to be secured from loss, corruption, or unauthorized access.
3. You would like to have secure access to your business files while your out of the office or working from home.
4. You need to backup critical files on more than one computer, and be able to restore accidentally deleted files or revert to previous versions of files.
5. You need a CRM (customer relationship management) system or accounting program to manage, communicate, and record activity with your growing list of clients and suppliers.
6. You need to manage different versions of one file.
7. You need a central communication system that makes it easy to arrange group meetings and easily share information with employees, suppliers, and customers.
8. You need to allow all employees to share databases and other software.
9. You would like to send group faxes and e-mail broadcasts to customers.
10. You want to save money by hosting your own company website and e-mail.
11. You want to control employees’ access to sensitive financial records and personnel data as well as monitor internet access.
12. You would value a central access point for all information without having to hunt down various files on various computers on your network.
The Concept of the Slight Edge
All master craftsmen demand excellent tools to complete their work, this is especially true when looked at from the perspective of a small growing business. Everybody knows that the best tools allow you to focus on creating the next masterpiece rather than being sidetracked, frustrated, or limited by the tools you are using. Computers, software, and office equipment are the tools you use every day to create your greatest masterpiece: your business. If technology in the office is not simplifying your business and making it easier for you to get more done, then it’s costing you a lot more than the price of a server. There is no shortage of white papers on the topic of ROI (return on investment) for technology upgrades, you know as well as I that this is truly a hard cost to quantify, while there certainly will be a cost, it depends very much on your business operations and how you use computers, technology and the Internet in your office, this cost may be significant.
The “Latte” Factor
In his book “Automatic Millionaire”, the author David Bach talks about the “latte” factor. Put simply, people end up financially broke not because of the big purchases they make, but all of the small seemingly innocent day-to-day spending over the year. For example, you might not think twice about spending £3 for a cup of coffee at Costa coffee each day. Add that up over the course of a year and you realise that you’ve invested £1,095 into your local coffee shop. Imagine the return on this type of investment would on the stock market, shares in Whitbread (the parent company of Costa) from the beginning of 2009 would have translated into almost triple. Why am I telling you this?…. Well because massive loss of productivity in any business plays out exactly the same way. Think the stock investment as being the server investment: a faster processor and a faster hard drive with greater capacity allow you to open and use applications faster, saving a few minutes every hour. Information is centralised, which saves a few more minutes every hour in finding files. There are fewer crashes and errors, even disaster recovery and business continuity implementation time is reduced. Each of these little things adds up to significant employee hours saved over the course of a year. Then there’s the cost savings associated with outsourced IT support. A properly configured and maintained server and network is far easier to support and troubleshoot than a patchwork of random computers that are loosely connected. All of this translates into higher revenue from your technology investment and will no doubt impact positively on your bottom line.