Business technology can actually be pretty simple. It can also be frustratingly—even maddeningly—complicated and create all types of problems for a business. In this month’s newsletter, we thought we would go through a couple of tips that can help you keep your technology simple.
One of the largest problems with any business’ technology is that, over time, it starts to become extremely complicated. It may seem simple, but as you build on one system with others, they become increasingly linked. This means when you try to change an older system it could have negative effects on the systems that remain.
This is a two-way problem waiting to happen because no matter what your decision is on the problem, it will leave you with another problem. The best way to avoid this risk is to keep your IT as simple as possible so that you don’t hinder the growth of your company.
What We Mean By Simple
Basically, a lot of organizations out there will pay a premium to customize their technology to fit their specific needs. This is a completely understandable and legitimate practice, but it does cause some problems for them when the time comes to refresh the technology or if they want to integrate a new system that better meets their evolving needs.
Most of the systems used to manage the different aspects of your business have integrated complexity and many businesses exacerbate that complexity with integrations and workflow rules designed, in theory, to make things more efficient. Over time, it just may, but it’s going to take some time. Just like starting a business, every new change comes with a period of loss.
Simplicity in design of a network is basically using stand-alone solutions that can be added or subtracted when needed. Cloud computing can provide this type of simplicity. A lot of people might think that by adding outside, third-party computing environments to your onsite one, you make your computing infrastructure harder to manage, however many times businesses can utilize stand-alone accounts through a third-party provider to acquire the computing resources their company needs without having to make any alterations to their administrative workflow.
Here are a couple cloud-based computing solutions that can help your business move away from complexity.
Hosted VoIP
One of the most valuable services that an organization has is its telephone system. Traditional telephone systems are expensive and have to be managed either onsite or through a telephone provider. They require new hardware and most annoyingly, cables and wires to set it up. This can not only be costly, but it can be a hindrance when your business grows or contracts. With hosted VoIP, your business can gain the enterprise level communications solution that can help fuel your business, while also getting cutting-edge communication and collaboration tools, and do it all by paying a low cost per user per month.
Your whole telephone system is hosted in the cloud and provides a number that each user can have on multiple devices. This means that it doesn’t matter where a user is, as long as they have a working Internet connection, they can receive calls from their VoIP number. The added value gained from adding a mobile-ready telephone service makes a great bit of difference for a growing business.
Productivity
Another way that a business can add simplicity to their offerings is by getting a cloud-based productivity suite, The two most popular are Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. These generally provide cloud and workstation applications of a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, a presentation builder, a feature-rich notepad, cloud storage, and calendar and email integration.
These cloud-based productivity suites, like the VoIP account and most other cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings, are billed per user per month. This provides a simplicity as compared to the licensed software method that had been used for years, where you would purchase hardware and yearly software licenses and hope that you got your money’s worth out of them. With the SaaS method, you get the productivity apps you need in a secure and collaborative environment with enough cloud storage to make a difference.
The longer you are in business, the more complicated everything can get. If you would like to learn how to simplify some of your business’ technology and maintain security while you do it, give our knowledgeable IT consultants a call today at 978-798-6805.
