Tips to Improve Business Connectivity with Technology

Back in the pre-internet and pre-mobile phone dark ages, it was difficult for business owners to stay up-to-date with the happenings within their company when they weren’t in the office. A lack of connectivity ultimately meant a lack of knowledge – but thankfully that’s changed (for the better!).

To enhance the overall productivity of your company you need to be connected (or have the ability to be connected) at any point during the day. From standard email checking and call-taking, to more advanced things such as team management and task delegation, there are now ways to keep track of almost any aspect of your business no matter where you are in the world.

Below are some tips to improve business connectivity with the latest technology.

Applications

Although most people think of games when they think of apps on a smartphone, there is actually a whole wealth of knowledge that can be gained from a variety of different sources. If you’re dealing with freelancers you may wish to use oDesk, and ultimately the oDesk app. If you’re managing a team then the mobile version of Basecamp may be useful. If you have to view and transfer documents quite regularly, then drop-box may be the perfect solution. You get the gist.

If you are going to be away from your primary place of work then that doesn’t mean you have to be away from the nuts and bolts of how your company functions – and smartphones now allow you to do this by keeping you connected 24/7.

Phone Connectivity

Mobile phones (or smartphones) are obviously the ideal solution to making and receiving calls on the move, but they still had a limitation… until VoIP came along. VoIP (or voice over internet protocol) allows you to send and receive calls over the web, meaning you can be connected to a phone system almost anywhere in the world (providing there is an internet connection). The huge benefit of VoIP is that you can be connected to your business phone system even though you may be out of the office – and the web-based management of the system allows you to monitor and manage the rest of the phones on your network.

Similar to the above point, VoIP can be integrated into your smartphone. Through the use of a soft phone, you can make and receive calls with your mobile as you normally would, but the voice data would actually be transmitted over your business phone network (thus saving you money too).

Cloud Computing

The rise in mainstream cloud computing technology has now led to make companies moving their data “to the cloud”. What this essentially means is eliminating the need for hardware such as servers that are stored in your office, and moving to a web-based storage model that allows you to access your files from anywhere in the world (again, as long as you have an internet connection). There are obviously huge benefits of this from a connectivity point of view, as it means you can access all of the files relating to your business without using a VPN or without physically being in the office. Cloud hosting is fast becoming a fundamental way in which business files are handled, and using a cloud-based model is much more secure and efficient than standard server storage.