Small Business Computers

Dotto Tech Season 6, Episode 21 Small Business part 1

Steve thinks green with Lenovo’s Think Center A61e, an energy star compliant computer designed for the small business market. He rounds out his look at small business computers with a peek at Lenovo’s R61 Think Pad notebook.

Small Business Computer Systems

Product Description
Written to cover the small business computer systems stream of BTEC National courses in computer studies, this book provides students with the necessary source material for the small business computer systems unit. The programme of problem based assignments is specifically designed to consolidate students’ learning at every stage of the course and to cover the BTEC specific objectives for this unit…. More >>

Small Business Computer Systems

Small Business Growth Through Stupid Ideas

You need more stupid ideas.  With the proper management of stupid ideas, you can achieve incredible success in the growth of your small business.   Stupid ideas are growth enablers.  Implementing stupid ideas is a great way to grow your small business.

Just stop and think a moment about all of the things that have a profound impact on how you live your life.  Most of the things that provide you significant benefit were once, stupid ideas.  Did you drive a car today? Use a computer?  Use a cell phone?  Pay with a credit card?  At some point, these things were all stupid ideas. Why would people need a car, when they had a horse or a computer when they had a calculator or a phone in their pocket, when there was a phone on the wall, or credit cards, when we already had cash? 

Your ‘stupid’ idea can provide explosive growth to your small business.  At the time of the writing of this book, texting provides 100’s of millions of dollars in revenue to the cellular telecommications industry.  Basically, this is typing on a phone:  stupid idea.  This stupid idea created thousands of jobs and enables and empowers people to communicate more effectively.

How can you evolve your products, services, and ideas in such a way?  How can you be revolutionary in thinking about your small business?  Stupid ideas can accelerate the success of your business while creating more value to the clients and more profits for your business. 

Create more stupid ideas in your business.  Stupid ideas are a great way to grow your small business. 

Could you use more tips like this to accelerate the growth of your small business?  Achievement thinking is a powerful concept that Mark Mikelat, the founder of Building Aspirations uses to coach his small business clients to double or even triple the size of their businesses. You can learn more and take advantage of a free strategic analysis at http://www.BuildingAspirations.com/BusinessSuccess.html.  Also, you can view his books on Amazon.com. 

Small Business VoIP Phone Services

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the latest technology in telecommunications which is utilizing broadband internet as its backbone to transfer communication signals around the globe. Also referred to as IP telephony or internet telephony, the technology is gaining much popularity among small, medium and large business firms alike. Small business VoIP phone services are cost-effective, when compared to regular landline and mobile communications and can help business firms save huge amounts in monthly telephone bills.

For small business firms, these IP based phone systems can serve as the best alternative to expensive PBX systems since all the functions of a PBX are available at reduced costs in hosted systems. All features provided by your regular telephone service provider such as caller ID, voicemail, and call forwarding are available in these voice over IP phones as standard features and most providers do not charge for them.

Some of the advanced features these VoIP based systems are providing to small business firms include:

•    High security for calls using protocols such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol
•    Parallel data exchange such as message or data file exchanges, simultaneously with phone calls
•    Free VoIP to VoIP phone calls
•    Cost-effective voice conferencing

IP services are also highly beneficial for traveling business persons since all calls coming to their office phones can be routed to their voice over Internet protocol enabled phones. With the help of an internet connection and an IP enabled phone, keeping in touch with your valued customers is now much easier and affordable, regardless of your location. Call center agents can also benefit from these services as they can work from any place, wherever there is an internet connection. Another advantage is that the entire system can be made to run through an existing computer network with computers serving as both calling and receiving terminals, thereby eliminating the need for dedicated IP enabled telephones.

Today with the wide availability of broadband internet, a lot of hosted PBX phone service providers are emerging in the market with plans ideal for small business firms. With continuous technological developments and improvements being made in this field and with increased competition among hosted PBX system vendors, more and more services are being offered to clients at much affordable rates.

Considering the features that come with small business VoIP phone services, it is evident that small business firms have a lot to benefit from these services apart from having a cost-effective regular telecommunication medium. The system can ultimately serve as a fully integrated new generation communication medium with a wide range of possibilities and services in the offering.

Basic Podcasting for Small Business

How much did you pay for advertising your small business this month?

With online tools readily available, you can advertise your business with nothing more than your computer and your telephone and have your own talk show to promote your business.

Podcasting has become very popular and the tools and hosting sites are available for anyone to use with little to no cost. You could be the star of your own show, promoting your business exactly the way you want to for as long as you want and never pay anything more than the cost of your phone and computer service.

There are experts online who can make the average person feel lost and inadequate when it comes to podcasting.

The best podcasts are not necessarily the ones with the rich deep voice announcing every word without error. The best shows deliver quality information, useful tips and tools, and make your voice and personality become part of the social community.

I am going to give you five tips to help you get started now and have your show up and running online in the next hour.

My suggestion because I have used it with great success is to go to a free hosting site like Talkshoe.

1. Set up a TalkShoe account – no charge

2. Schedule your first episode per their instructions (which is no more complicated than any online form)

3. At the time you have scheduled your show, call a friend a few minutes beforehand and ask them to call in and ask a question or two. This will give you the feel of having an audience for your show.

4. You end your show by pressing a button on the website that says “terminate call”. You can leave your show on the host site for others to hear, download, or stream from their computer.

5. If you are not happy with the recording, delete it, hide it, or fix it. Fixing it may include downloading a free program called Audacity to be used to delete segments or make it louder. This is not a mandatory step but may be useful as you grow more comfortable working with the audio files.

You have just created your own talkcast. Now what?

Promote the show in your store. You could get the online business cards that are free and print them with your show ID and number to call and keep them in the store to give customers. Ask customers to call you and give a testimonial of the products they are purchasing. Let your community know that you are the star of your own internet radio show and would love to have them as your guest.

After you have a few episodes under your belt, you might even make a Best Of CD to give to potential customers or to hand out at your next Chamber of Commerce event.

This new media is a fun way to interact with your community and let people know all about you. Add the tools of big business to your small business and have fun watching your own rise to stardom.

Small Business Backup – Data Loss Statistics

If you are not backing up the data for your small business, you are at risk of going out of business.

Here are some statistics that will give you some good reasons to backup your valuable data.

Key causes for unplanned downtime:

25% Hardware
25% Software
20% Network
15% Human error
14% Environmental

Source: Gartner Group 2001

Suddenly losing all your mission critical data can put you out of business.

25% of all PC users suffer from data loss each year. (1)

1 in 4 — Are you willing to risk your business or job with these odds?

7 of 10 small firms that experience a major data loss go out of business
within a year (5)

15% of all laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failures (1)
What if you or your sales people lost their laptop and it had no recent backup?

$61,881 …the average loss due to laptop theft. (6)

No. 2 …cause of overal PC loss is theft. (7)

$12 Billion annual cost of data loss.
Can you afford to not back up your data?

96% of all business workstations are not being backed up (3)
While servers are typically backed up, companies rarely back up individual PCs containing
valuable data generated by employees every day.

$55 Billion annual computer virus damages to U.S. businesses (4)
Even equipped with the latest antivirus software, viruses continue to pose a serious threat to your most valuable asset.

80% …of computer crime consists of “inside jobs” by disgruntled employees. (1)

80% …of surveyed companies admitted financial losses due to computer breeches. 6

100% the failure rate of disks and tape drives — all drives eventually fail.

(1) Gartner Group; (2) IDC; (3) Contingency Planning & Strategic Research Corp.; (4) TrendMicro; (5) DTI/PriceWaterhouse

Coopers, 2004; (6) CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey; (7) Safeware The Insurance Agency; (5) Gartner Group; (6)

CSI/FBI 2002 Cost of Recreating Your Lost Data

According to the National Computer Security Association, without adequate backup it takes:

19 days and $17,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost sales/marketing data;
21 days and $19,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost accounting data;
42 days and $98,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost engineering data.

Make sure to take the time to backup your data today. Don’t take the risk of going out of business.

Support Help Desk Software For Small Business

Help desks are now a fundamental and core part of good business service and operation. However, addressing the tricky issues, selecting the right tools, and managing the help desk correctly can actually be a very daunting task.

Typical help desk software functions include Helpdesk software systems range in complexity from basic ticket logging to fully integrated CRM systems, recording and tracking of support requests, reporting and service management and more, These are usually an automated benefit of the helpdesk application.

Sky Blue Support Help Desk Software (SBS) is is a flexable and strong CRM solution that puts you in control of your customer support needs. SBS uses the very latest technologies, to provide you with an efficient and easy to use Customer Relations Management Tool.

TSC2 Help Desk 4.1 provides a suite of integrated tools for managing a technical support department. It includes work order management, equipment inventory, scheduling, reporting, network auditing and a web interface. The software tracks all work order management system tracks all work requests and support issues, from computer errors and user-requested enhancements, to hardware and network upgrades.

LanHelpdesk 06.08.04, This stand-alone helpdesk solution is based on end-users submitting wizard-based Trouble Tickets directly from their computers. Users select from any of a large number of common computer problems, each of which requires the user to answer a series of relevant questions about the selected problem type. As the Trouble Ticket is sent, the local computer is automatically inspected, and dozens of relevant pieces of information about the user and the computer are attached to the Ticket.

LBE Desktop Helpdesk 4.0.152 is uses industry-standard databases like Access, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. Many reports are supplied. If you need more, you can build your own using any of the available reporting tools. You can group records and change fonts and colors.

DBS Help Desk 1.5a, This comprehensive tool lets IT support staff manage requests, computers, peripherals and program inventory. It is Web-enabled, so it lets users submit support request using Web browser.

QUAD Help Desk 2.5, Multi-user ready at no additional cost, this software provides basic functionality that does not require consultants to help you install and learn the program. Your CSRs will be able to record, search, update and report on calls about your products or services within minutes of installation. In addition, if you install the HTTP server on a PC with a static IP address, you won’t have to install the Windows software on the computer. The Windows software includes wizards for querying and reporting on calls recorded in the database.

These Software provide a scalable, customizable, easy-to-use solution for your business. Help Desk software for Small Business provides a computer helpdesk or/and web enabled help desk solution, helping you to improve customer service and automate your customer service.

Research and Markets: Vietnamese IT Services Spending Is Forecast To Reach Around US$343mn in 2010, Up From US$297mn …

Research and Markets: Vietnamese IT Services Spending Is Forecast To Reach Around US$343mn in 2010, Up From US$297mn …
DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/cb37d3/vietnam_informatio) has announced the addition of the “Vietnam Information Technology Report Q3 2010″ report to their offering. Vietnam Information Technology Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, information technology associations …

Read more on Business Wire

Small-business Servers Increase Efficiency

A small-business server can store all of a company’s documents, e-mail, calendars and images in one location, where all employees can access them from computers connected to the server. Files on the server can be downloaded anywhere in the world when the server is set up for Internet access.

One of the many benefits of a small-business server is that it allows companies to increase communication efficiencies. For example, the combination of e-mail capability and calendar functions enables executives to view any employee’s calendar, then send an e-mail meeting request that is automatically entered onto invitees’ calendars.

Outside the office, employees can e-mail co-workers through hand-held devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants. Employees working in distant locations also can access their office computer remotely and use it as if they were at their desks.

For example, Atlanta-based CCM Homes LLC, relatively new to computer technology, used 14 stand-alone computers to run its home-building operations. These computers helped streamline many of the company’s business processes, but sharing data was difficult due to varying PC configurations and software. In addition, a lack of centralized data affected the company’s ability to accurately price its finished homes.

CCM Homes resolved these problems by installing Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003. Employees can now work from outside the office without relying on co-workers to hunt down information for them. In addition, security has improved, communication has been transformed, and the company expects to save $100,000 each year as a result of more accurate budget forecasts.

VoIP Software Helps Make Small Businesses Competitive

Once upon a time VoIP was just a way for the extremely computer savvy to save a few bucks by making computer to computer “phone calls” to a limited circle of friends who were running the same software and had a microphone and a set of speakers or a headphone. Fast forward to modern times where VoIP provides economical phone solutions for consumers from all walks of life and can provide a competitive edge for businesses, especially small businesses. Today’s VoIP allows the use of real phones and users can call any phone number in the world using a service such as Skype for a very small fee. Add to that the voice technology software for things like autodialers and auto appointment reminders and a small business can really start to get competitive with the big boys.

They always used to say that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer and that has never been truer than in business today. The other old saying that helps to explain this phenomenon says that time is money. Traditionally big businesses with big budgets were the only ones who could afford the time and money saving solutions like autodialers and appointment reminders while small businesses were forced to use their already limited manpower resources making endless phone calls, with much of that time spent listening to the phone ringing or busy signals. There is a wide array of VoIP software solutions offered these days that make time-saving and money making phone solutions accessible for everyone and give small businesses a chance.

First impressions are difficult to change, especially for a small business. Using the same tools that the big companies do adds a certain level of credibility to a business that may otherwise be elusive. When marketing products and/or services via the telephone the customer is going to judge the company’s entire image based on how the phone call is executed as it is their only point of reference.
VoIP technology has made a great deal of progress in the last ten years and currently provides a practical alternative to the pricey services offered by the phone company. In today’s economy small efforts to save time and money can be the difference between success and failure, especially for the small business. VoIP software solutions can provide that competitive edge to keep small businesses profitable.

A company such as Voicent can provide software solutions such as autodialers, auto appointment reminders, text to voice and broadcast email solutions to give small businesses that competitive edge they are seeking. Couple those types of software solutions with an affordable VoIP service provider such as Skype and even the smallest business can project a successful image that will add to their bottom line even during the most trying economic times. A successful image, higher productivity and financial savings are all benefits of using VoIP software and services over those offered by traditional phone companies and Voicent and Skype are top notch choices available in today’s market.