Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Coronavirus is on everyone’s mind, from the public at large to businesses of all shapes and sizes. While the impact of COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on small businesses, corporations and enterprise businesses have also felt these changes. However, unlike small businesses, larger companies seem to be able to do much more than just survive.

Business is moving faster than it ever has and a lot of that uptick in productivity comes from the speed of the computing networks that are being used. Cloud computing is a big benefit for most businesses because it extends the reach of the business outside the confines of the brick and mortar place of business. Today, we’ll look at some of the major benefits that cloud computing brings to the modern small business.

For many years, there have been occupations and careers that are largely occupied by either males or females. These discrepancies have been declining, thanks in part to the greater adoption of technology solutions in businesses. As a result, today’s workforce has shown a greater level of inclusivity than has been demonstrated in the past.

Business owners have a lot of trouble finding top talent--especially some that are limited by certain geographical factors. Rather than go all-in on finding the much-coveted full-time job, many professionals are instead opting to provide expertise as a service. This is essentially freelancing, and the number of workers who partake in this “gig economy” has increased substantially. It has quickly become the norm for a lot of organizations.

With all the stories in the news about data breach after data breach, it’s easy to get the idea that the only threats to your organization are those that are trying to break in. This can be a dangerous oversight--one that could cost your business’ future. If you ignore the possibilities, you could very well be putting your organization in jeopardy. We’ll discuss some of the major internal dangers that your business could face.

Prioritizing tasks is one of the hardest parts of being a business owner. Countless tasks will pile up every hour of the day, and you might be lost trying to figure out how to proceed. Thankfully, you have us to offer you some strategies to approach your workday and be more productive with your time. Let’s get started!

Running a business can be a fulfilling and rewarding endeavor, but on the same token, the technology that is needed for it to run can quickly become a stressful obstacle to struggle with. Fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take that allow you to minimize these moments and prevent them from occurring. We’ll review a few basics for this week’s tip!

“Even the Lone Ranger didn’t do it alone.” - Harvey MacKay

In business, there’s a good argument to be made that the most important capital is your social capital. In other words, your relationships with those around you hold quite a bit of value. Below, we’ll review some ways to form positive relationships with those that you have connected with as a result of your business operations.

High degrees of productivity can be difficult to achieve for a lot of organizations, and this is primarily due to everyone’s least favorite part of the workplace: rampant distractions. Your business’ productivity can suffer from even the most unlikely reasons. We’ll help you address them so you can minimize distractions in the workplace.

While it may not be fun to consider the worst-case scenario, it is important that you have a plan to ensure that your business will be able to survive when the chips are down. This plan to ensure that your business will continue is called (appropriately enough) a business continuity plan, and needs to address a few things that we will go over here.

Have you ever heard of the term “bias?” It has a negative connotation to it, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. A bias can predispose you to a skewed consideration or thought when met with what is known to be a seemingly neutral stimuli. In some cases, they can cause more harm than good, which is why it’s a good thing to take another look at how you approach certain situations. Researchers have discovered several trends about why we hold certain biases, as well as how we can overcome them.

Your signature has a lot of power, particularly in the business world. Because of this, it’s curious to see how so many companies are moving over to the more digital alternative. In order to fully take advantage of digital signatures for your organization, you need comprehensive security measures that can reinforce the authenticity of your signatures.

The primary reason that businesses are opened is to make money. Whether it’s to sustain a lifestyle, provide funds for a cause, or some other goal, a business needs an incoming cash flow in order to stay open. However, this is a fairly large problem for many small businesses, as their invoices often don’t return in a timely manner.

Your business’s IT strategy is of incredible importance, especially when you consider how much your operations stand to benefit from a functional infrastructure. More than anything, though, IT can ensure that your business remains competitive in a world where the slightest advantage can mean all the difference.

As a business owner, how do you handle employee complacency? A feeling of complacency among your employees can come from many sources, including an apparent inability of advancement. People want to develop professionally, so they’ll look elsewhere if they feel like their current job doesn’t allow for growth. How can you eliminate employee turnover due to a complacent and unchallenged workforce?

Email may be crucial to the functionality of your business, but at times it can seem like your inbox is far beyond your control. You might find yourself throwing away hours on end just to clean up the pile of unread messages in your inbox. Thankfully, with a bit of effort, you too can free yourself from an overburdened inbox.

Big data continues to be a big topic for businesses, as organizations stand to gain much from analyzing data and identifying trends. This can help you understand how your business will function in the future, but there are two topics of concern that you need to consider before using the data: how exactly do you want to use the data, and will the data that you’ve collected help you in achieving that goal?

As a business owner, we understand that you’re an exceptionally busy individual. Even when you’re not keeping operations moving forward, you have other important matters to attend to, like your real life. However, science has (almost) proven that there’s one activity that you may (or may not) do that can inadvertently improve the way you do business: read literary fiction.

If we asked you to tell us how many hours a day you actually work, what would the figure look like? Chances are that you as a business owner put in a little more than the average worker, but would it total over the requisite eight hours? A recent study shows that while eight hours of work 200 years ago was considered revolutionary, it might be a bit on the long side to expect good work from good employees.

Tracking metrics is a major part of today’s business world. Many organizations use time-tracking software and other KPIs to ensure that their team is working at maximum efficiency, all day every day. Yet, some organizations are so bent on doing so that they’ve forgotten to ask the question of whether they should be doing all of this.