SIX STEPS TO RECESSION PROOF YOUR TECHNOLOGY

As a Small Business owner, you are no doubt watching the economy very closely and giving serious thought to how it may impact your business. Will you have to downsize suddenly? How will your customers be affected?

Experts agree that things will get tough before they get better again. Is your business prepared?
How about your computers? Do you have the right infrastructure to adapt to the changes?
If you had to get lean and mean very quickly, is your technology ready?

Foreverwarm Consulting can help you recession proof your business technology. If you can answer yes to the following questions confidently, you are probably in good shape.

1. Can anyone in your business locate critical documents quickly and easily?
2. Is all essential information backed up weekly to ensure up-to-date versions?
3. Do you have a foolproof system to manage multiple email accounts?
4. Are all staff in sync in terms of business documentation and technology data?
5. Is someone minding the store as far as technology troubleshooting?
6. Can you maintain technical efficiency with fewer staff if you had to?

1. Can you locate critical business documents quickly and easily?

If you have to reduce staff, you don’t want to waste time searching for key documents or information on “somebody’s computer somewhere”. Now is the time to make sure all your data is in one place, available to whoever needs it, at any time, regardless of which computer they are sitting at.

If you don’t have a central server, data consolidation can be accomplished in other ways: Designate one computer as the “main” computer and share out a folder that everyone has access to. Then, on the other desktops, map a drive to that shared folder. Alternatively, you can buy an external shared hard drive with network capabilities and, as above, enable folder sharing from this drive with mapped drives from each desktop. It may take some time to consolidate the files from each computer work station, but the rewards of centralization far outweigh the risk of not being to located documents when they are required urgently. If it all sounds a little overwhelming, don’t worry, call us at Foreverwarm Consulting and we can help.

2. Is all essential information backed up regularly to ensure up-to-date versions?

Now is NOT the time to be missing important data. If you have followed the consolidation recommendations above then you are in a good place to back up all that data regularly. The easiest and cheapest way to do this is by using external USB drives – some even come with their own backup software. If you don’t already have a central server, you must designated one computer as the “backup computer” and use it to control when and how backups occur. You should be backing up overnight at least weekly and, for efficiency, we recommend doing incremental backups if your software provides that option.

Foreverwarm Consulting provides customized backups for a number of clients, rotating USB drives so that a copy of the data is always off-site. Call us to find out more 604.715.5107.

3. Do you have a foolproof system to manage multiple email accounts?

How do you make sure you receive emails from team members who are absent or no longer there – and that the right person now gets them? What about historical emails from staff who have long gone? You can merge those old emails into another account so that you are able to retrieve them. You can even make sure emails to that missing team member are automatically received by the person who needs to see them.

Managing multiple e-mail accounts is a specialized activity and we would be happy to help you figure out what’s best for your business and how it can be accomplished efficiently.
Taking care of customer requests will become even more important this year. Make sure your e-mail accounts are working for you and not against you.

4. Are all staff in sync in terms of business documentation and technology data?

Does every person on your staff have their own version of customer contacts and standard business forms? How do you know whose version is the correct or the most up-to-date? If you have five or more staff and aren’t doing so already, you need to seriously look at email collaboration software. Outlook can be programmed to share data without defaulting to a Microsoft Exchange Server. Other programs such as Act! And Maximizer also provide optional features to get all staff literally on the same page.

Documents and standard forms can be easily consolidated with Folder shares. If you have centralized all business data, as described in 1. above, you are already ahead of the game. There are even collaboration options available online, such as SalesForce and other CRM type software.

Don’t have the time or technological knowhow? No problem, leave it to us.

5. Is someone minding the store as far as technology troubleshooting?

If you lost your internal tech troubleshooter, would you be ok? We’re talking about documentation here — do you have any? Or is it all in the mind of your technology support person? Who knows the passwords for all the equipment and software?

Most techies are not good at keeping these kinds of records; at Foreverwarm Consulting, we believe it’s good business practice. Our goal is to provide complete peace of mind, as a result, we provide our customers with full documentation for all their computers and networks. If you don’t currently have documentation, make it a priority for your technical support to provide it. Alternatively, call us; we can probably inventory most of what you have in about two hours.

6. Can you maintain technical efficiency with fewer staff if you had to?

Assuming you have downsized, your remaining staff will need to do more in the same amount of time. Make that job easier with clean up and regular computer maintenance. Windows hard drives slow down over time through normal use and need to be re-optimized and checked for errors. Now, more than ever, you need things to be running smoothly. A computer clean-up should include a disk clean-out, error check, and defragmentation. You should also take the time now to check for and remove any unwanted software.

None of these tasks are particularly difficult; however they do take time and planning. If you would like to talk us about how we can help, call Foreverwarm Consulting 604.715.5107.