More on Cloud Computing and File Backup

 
A recent – and apparently irreparable – crash of my Microsoft Outlook got me thinking about cloud computing and backing up files, again.

So, I went online and located a web-based calendar program with every intention of using it to replace Outlook. But, I couldn’t do it. As I began entering personal information into the program, I realized that – even though I know it’s protected – I didn’t want that stuff just floating around in cyberspace.

I know it’s irrational, but it’s not the first time I’ve been accused of that. I bought a paper calendar and am now using it instead.

All this led to a slightly different approach to using the Internet to run your business. Perhaps, if you’re irrationally paranoid, like me, you’re better off installing the programs you need on your computer and storing your files in a safe place online, instead of just being “out there” in cyberspace. Your files are always backed up and you have access to them from wherever you are.

There are many options for regular online file back up and I should mention now that I haven’t signed up for any of them – yet – so can’t make any specific recommendations. Here are a few that I researched:

Mozy (www.mozy.com) offers 2 GB free and unlimited back up starting at $4.34 a month.

Norton – from Symantec – (www.symantec.com/norton/) offers 25 GB for $49.99 a year.

Mediamax (www.mediamax.com) has an interesting twist, adding a sharing and collaboration option. This addresses one of my concerns, easily accessing, using, and updating files stored online, which essentially uses your online backup like another hard drive.

Filesanywhere (www.filesanywhere.com) is a little pricier, with cost is based on storage size. It also has file sharing options as well as backup.

Long story short, online file backup is easy and inexpensive, so do it. With a little research, you may also be able to use a modified version of cloud computing, keeping the more robust software you now have, and still have easy access to all your documents from wherever you are.

Business Plan Free Download

 
Slowly but surely, the free downloads are, well, being uploaded…

The latest is How To Use a Business Plan to Build Your Business which is a brief overview of what you should have in your business plan to make it an effective business and marketing tool.

Outsourcing: A Blessing for Small Business?

 
Depending on your situation, outsourcing can be a blessing or a curse.

But for businesses, it’s almost always a blessing, which is way so many jobs that used to be done in the U.S. are now being done in other countries. And, the determining factor is profitability.

This is true for small businesses as well as large. You may never have to worry about moving a call center to India or opening a manufacturing facility in South Korea, but the same principle of outsourcing still applies. Your concern is the continued profitability and success of your business and one of the best ways to ensure that is through cost management.

Employees are a huge expense for any business.  Especially in this economy, you can’t afford to have employees that aren’t producing at maximum efficiency – and sometimes you can’t even afford to keep those who are if you want to keep your doors open.

Enter the contract employee.

A recent article in Time magazine, titled The Way We’ll Work, predicts that approximately 40% of the workforce in 2019 will be independent contractors, compared to 26% today. This indicates that as companies become more and more efficient, they’ll trim employees and other expenses and use resources outside their company to meet their needs.

This is good news for small business owners – and for contractors as well. It’s much more efficient and profitable to hire someone for a specific project than to keep them permanently on staff, just as contractors can charge a premium for their services.

Business owners:

1. Can save on salary by hiring contractors for a specific project, although they may have to pay a relative premium for the service.
2.  ave on benefits, because they don’t have to pay any (that’s one reason contractors charge more).
3. Can shop around for the best person or company to handle the project, whether they’re local, national, or international.
4. Don’t have to deal with as many employee hassles.
5. Can be flexible to handle a changing business environment, increasing or decreasing staff to meet their needs.

It’s a win for contractors as well. They:

1. Don’t have to sit in an office just to collect a paycheck – even if there’s nothing to do.
2. Don’t have to worry about being laid off.
3. Can grow their own business to whatever size they’d like.
4. Can reduce the effect of economic fluctuations on their profitability by developing a broad client base.

The shift to a contractor-based economic model presents some challenges, but the change is already taking place. How often does a small business have an accounting or legal department, or ad agency on staff? It’s just a matter of time before many of the functions once thought to be indispensable will be outsourced, to the benefit of everyone involved.  

Wise business owners will evaluate their needs and transition to an outsourcing model to remain competitive and profitable. And the employees whose jobs are eliminated? Well, they could be excellent contractors. After all, they already understand your business and the job they’re contracting to perform.

Finding the Right Telecom Carrier

 
There’s a lot to know about telecommunications if you want to make the right choices for your business. You should know the basics, but – as with so many other areas of running a business – you’ll quickly find that it’s important to have experts you can trust and turn to for detailed guidance.

What is “Telecom” Anyway?

Telecom is short for telecommunications, but you probably figured that out already. This abbreviation is just the beginning, though. This is an industry full of long, complicated names; abbreviations and acronyms are a fact of life. Knowing a few of the more common ones will help a lot and I’ll refer to them throughout my telecom posts.

What are Telecom Services?

While the broad definition of telecom services includes television, radio, and all the new technologies coming to market, for the purposes of your business – and our discussion – we’ll narrow the definition to any service that’s transmitted over telephone lines. These are, primarily:

1. Internet connections
2. Phone and Fax calls
3. Data transfer

And Why Do You Need Them?

Telecom links your business to the outside world. Without it, you probably couldn’t stay in business for very long – although there may be exceptions. There are several subcategories to the list above, any or all of which could be essential to your business:

1. Basic Phone Service
2. Toll Free Service
3. Data Service
4. Internet Service
5. Wireless Service

It’s essential to analyze your needs and current services before you decide how to proceed. Let’s start with the carriers.

Local Carriers

These are the companies that provide – well – local service: calls within your immediate area, emergency calls, information, etc. They also provide the link to long distance carriers. And here’s where the acronyms start. These local carriers are called LECs (local exchange carriers) and you’ll need one – or one of their competitors – to connect your internal business network to the outside world.

When the old AT&T was broken up many moons ago, one of the groups that was created was these LECs. The more official title is Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) and as competition entered the local phone market, they are also sometimes known as ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers).

The competitors to these ILECs became known as CLECs (competing local exchange carriers). And, thank goodness, that’s all the acronyms for this post!

Basically, they all provide the same services and can link your company to the outside world. Most also provide extensive add-on services, like voice mail. If yours is a small company, you may be able to do just fine working with your local carrier to provide all the services you need. They love that because you’ll be renting those services; making monthly payments just like you do for your home phone, cable service, and cell phone.

The second option is to rent the lines from your local carrier, purchase or lease the hardware you need and have it installed at your business, but that’s a subject for several other posts.

Long Distance

Because of the breakup of AT&T, you can’t just pick one service provider. You need local and long distance carriers. The long distance providers fall into two general categories:

1. Facilities-based – those that own equipment and lines
2. Resellers – those that lease space on the facilities-based networks and resell it

The Wireless Option

With the explosion in technology, features, and services, it’s even possible to use a wireless network. This can be your outside link, replacing local and long distance service, or it can be all or part of your internal network creating a wireless network within your office.

If you have a large sales or technical force that’s primarily out of the office, but still requires extensive voice and data access, this may be the way to go. Remember, though, any wireless network is much less secure than being “hard wired.”

So, from a carrier standpoint, here’s what you need to consider:

1. What services do you need?
2. Are they provided by a local, long distance, or wireless carrier?
3. Which carrier(s) will provide you with the best services at the best price?

Telecommunications: Neglected but Essential Aspect of Your Business

 
I must confess to an oversight on my part. In all the writing I’ve done about marketing and running a business, I’ve neglected an essential element: telecommunications.

In part, it’s because I’ve focused my posts on business and marketing. And I take some comfort in knowing that most other business owners don’t think about their telecom needs until something breaks, so I’m not alone in neglecting it.

But I still feel guilty. Your telecommunications network is probably the backbone of your business and deserves much more attention – especially if you want to keep your business up and running effectively.

Even if you’re selling knock-off sunglasses from a blanket on Venice Beach, you at least have a cell phone to contact suppliers and keep your inventory up-to-date, although that’s not much of a telecom system. In my own case, I have a cell phone, a desktop computer linked to the Internet through a cable modem, and a local wireless network for my laptop. At the other end of the spectrum are Fortune 500 businesses with thousands of phone lines and data cables as thick as your arm.

So, where do we start to rectify this oversight?

Disaster Recovery

Every business is different and has different telecommunications needs. A small retail store might have a couple phone lines to handle calls, faxes, and credit card approvals, a computer to track inventory and accounting, Internet access for those slow times when all you want to do is surf, and a cash register.

When all this stuff works, your business hums along just fine, but what happens when you can’t approve credit card sales or your computer crashes and you lose six months of accounting records? Then you’ve got a real problem – one that may be serious enough to jeopardize the continued existence of your business.

I’ve written before about the importance of being prepared for a disaster – whatever form that takes. Sometimes you just fry a hard drive for no reason at all and there’s nothing you can do about it…

So here are some basic disaster recovery ideas that will help keep you out of trouble and get up back up and running as quickly as possible.

1. Redundancy – You don’t need a complete backup system of phones and computers, just enough to help you limp along until your primary equipment is fixed. If your phone lines go down, have a cell phone handy – and who doesn’t these days? – so you can call tech support and get somebody out to fix your problem.
2. Back up Your Data Frequently – Honestly, some of the information on your computer probably couldn’t be duplicated even if you wanted to. Can you afford to lose it? Can you afford the time it will take to duplicate it, even if you can? External hard drives, DVDs, Internet services, all are easy and inexpensive ways to preserve valuable data. If you’re not comfortable setting it up yourself, pay for a tech call. It’s worth the money.
3. Maintenance and Service – Let’s face it: the average person just doesn’t understand technology anymore – if we ever did. And, do you really want to spend your time fooling around with a computer network or phone system when you should be running your business? Find a reputable, experienced technical support company to handle your technology needs for you. They can tell you what you need, how much it will cost, and how long it will take to install. Hold them to a high standard; after all, they make money by selling you new equipment. The good ones will even tell you that what you have works just fine, even if it’s ten years old.

There’s much more to the world of telecommunications and I’ll be delving into it in greater detail, but for now, here are some other things to consider – after you’ve backed up your files and have found a reputable tech support company!

1. Identifying and Assessing Your Carriers
2. Understanding Cryptic Telecom Terminology
3. Identifying and Evaluating Your Hardware and Software
4. Deciding What to Upgrade or Replace, When, and How
5. Maintenance and Service
6. Who’s Responsible for What and How to Get Help When You Need It
7. Voice, Data, or Both: Which System is Right for You

Yes, I know it’s not marketing, but, like a good business plan, without it you could be creating big problems for your business. Better to get the knowledge up-front and make the right decisions the first time around.