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IT Professionals Can Improve Time Management For Businesses

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The Struggle for Successful Time Management

There are only so many hours in a day, it always seems almost impossible to get everything done that you might require. In the world of business, this leads to a reduction in productivity and may end up costing you clients. However, when you look at everything and where your day went, you might not initially see what you are able to do. You probably know what aspects of the day take up the most amount of time, but outside of this, it may prove incredibly difficult to see where you can alter your routine to improve productivity. Perhaps you would save time if you took shorter lunches or went to work earlier? Of course, you could always do this, but it wouldn’t help you outside of saving a few minutes. Plus, once you start thinking this way you will most likely start going to work earlier and earlier and eventually, your work will begin to completely take over your life.

What Can be Done to Improve This Issue?

Hire an IT Professional

As a business owner frequently experiencing this problem, it is wise to bring in IT professionals who are able to look over the situation and determine what is causing you to lose time. An IT Consultant will also be able to make suggestions and put new processes in place that will help save time by making current routines more efficient so that employees can get more accomplished.

How an IT Professional Will Help

The IT professional is going to come into your business and look over your daily tasks and how they are being completed. You can help them understand by walking them through your routine and allowing them to converse and do the same with other employees. This is where, the professional is able to see where specific IT services such as programs, network features and applications would be able to save you a good amount of time. For example, if your business has not converted over to digital, employees may be running files between different individuals in the office, eating up a lot of time. Workers may even spend a considerable chunch of their day trying to dig up files off of their hard drive when needing to locate the right vender information. This again, wastes more time than you may think. Those minutes quickly add up but the good news is that from here, the IT professional is able to pinpoint what programs are going to work best for your company.

Maximizing Productivity of The Entire Office

In speaking with an IT professional that provides Phildelphia IT Services, it is confirmed that an IT professional will analyze business operations and point out ways for which, every employee can save time. If every individual is capable of saving time, it drastically improves the productivity throughout the office. Integrating a network system where everyone shares the same file system is going to prevent employees from having to waste time going back and forth between each other and searching for files that may have been improperly filed. If the IT professional thinks a cloud service is best for you, they can set that up on your behalf so that it will be possible for employees to access their work files from anywhere in the world. Depending on what is needed of the business, IT professionals can complete anything from custom designed software solutions to the integration of one-of-kind database designs. The option for hosting information in the cloud has become more popular over the years because even if you have to stay at home due to sickness or dangerous weather conditions, you can still access your files. After all, just because you can’t make it into work, does not mean the work is going to stop. For that reason, it is nice to have the option for accessing work-related files if needed.

Sarah Smith wrote this article on behalf of ION Technologoy Group (@IONTG), a IT Solutions company out of Voorhees, NJ.

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The Benefits of Using a Virtual Office for Your Home Business

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Running a business from home can be a great way to get started or in certain cases can even work in the long term. There are a great number of benefits to running a business from home including lower overheads, convenience and flexibility but there are also some downfalls. The following are ways in which using a virtual office service can benefit the operation of a home business.

Location, Location, Location

One of the biggest hurdles when running a business from home is trying to build up a brand image whilst using a home address. A virtual office will allow you to use a far more prestigious address in a big city such as London which will not only make your business more reputable, but also open you up to a much larger market.

Additionally, you will have far more personal privacy and security than if you were using your home address for business matters. This can be especially important if you hold a large amount of cash or stock at your home address.

Mail Management

Businesses can receive a huge amount of mail on a daily basis which if delivered to a home address can very quickly mount up. Mail management as part of virtual office services can be a very effective way to stay on top of mail. Mail can be collected and sorted and delivered to you on a specific day or alternatively mail can be opened and scanned to be emailed to you.

Where business is concerned there are obviously certain items of mail that need to be dealt with very quickly. Using a mail management service will mean that mail never sits waiting to be opened; it will be looked at and action can be taken immediately. In the case of cheques which will usually need to be dealt with right away, a good mail management service can even take care of getting them in the bank for you.

Telephone Answering

If you have ever run a business you will know that the phone never stops ringing. Answering and dealing with phone calls all day can seriously hinder your attempts to run and grow your business. You could of course hire a member of staff to answer the phone for you but this isn’t always practical, especially when running a business from a relatively small space in your home.

Virtual offices often offer a phone answering service to take all the hassle away. Phone operators are highly experienced and are fully briefed on the details of your business offering callers a fantastic level of service. Calls can be dealt with in whichever way suits you. Messages can be taken and passed on to you and important calls can be forwarded directly to you. Another great benefit is that the service is completely scalable; as your business grows, the number of people answering your phone calls can be increased.

The real beauty of using a virtual office to help manage your home business is the flexibility it presents. First and foremost you will be providing a great standing for your business with a prestigious, business looking address whilst maintaining the security and privacy of your home. You can then add and remove individual services as the needs of yourself and your business change and evolve.

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Joe Jones writes on behalf of Need More Time Ltd. a leading UK virtual services provider. His expertise and personal interest lies in the areas of small and medium enterprise and technology.

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4 Ways to Improve Communication in Your Company

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Communication is the backbone of business.  Whether it is with your clients or your staff, good communication leads to a smooth operation, happy staff and well informed clients.  Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings and mistakes which can lead to embarrassment at best and a loss of revenue at worst.  Communication is what builds relationships throughout your company, and strong relationships foster success.

It’s fair to say that you cannot have too much communication in your company. But where do you begin improving communication in your business?

Email

It might sound basic, but a solid e-mail system can be a deal breaker in the workplace.  You need to ensure that every member of staff has access to a fast and reliable e-mail program.  A decent spam filter is also a must, unless you want your staff subject to a 30 minute trial every morning deleting a shedload of bank scams.  Keeping spam out of the inbox will make sure that all the mail in there is pertinent, and nothing important gets deleted by mistake.  It’s also the whole team to have the same groups set up, so no one gets missed out on group e-mails.

Social media

Social media like Twitter and Facebook aren’t showing any signs of slowing down, and they can be an important communication tool.  Twitter in particular is a great way to network and generate buzz, allowing you to reach out to new clients, whose own network of followers can then get in direct contact with you.  When it comes to Facebook, a company could measure its success by the amount of friends they have.  If you want to make broad announcements or promote a new feature of your business, Facebook could be a great way to keep all your online “friends” informed.

Instant messagers

A good instant messaging service can be as useful as e-mail.  Cross-compatibility with PCs and smartphones allows you to keep in communication on the move.  A service that allows for video and file-sharing is a must so that you’ve always got the office at your fingertips. Skype would be a good start for instant messaging, it’s a well established a reputable service that offers voice, video, and file sharing and is noticeably better in quality than its peers.  Skype offer a business version, that is tailored to maintaining communication both business to business, and among employees, and notably offers 10 way conference calling for virtual meetings.

Invest in tech

It’s no use having the ways to improve communication, it you don’t have the means to follow through.  A digital telephone network will keep your office connected, and make internal communication easier. The ability to log into your computer system remotely can ensure that you can stay in the loop, even when you can’t make it in to work.  A fast and consistent broadband connection keeps your computers doing what they should, and avoids you having to say “my system’s down”.

Face to Face

Never underestimate the importance of communicating face to face when possible.  No matter what other facilities you may have, always take time for face to face meetings, even if it’s just a 5 minute chat at someone’s desk.  Not only does this give your company the all important human touch, sometimes the subtle nuances of conversation can be lost when communicated through other means.

I’ve said it once, but it bears repeating, you can never have too much communication in your company.  Using the tips above could help you to revitalise a poor communication system or simply bolster an existing one.  Just don’t forget that communication is key to your company’s success.

This is a guest post by Hudsonyorke – an international management consultancy focused on delivering strategic and commercial benefits to their clients in the specialist area of communucations technology.

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