Sustain Your Business with Technology

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Sustain Your Business with Technology

Today's technology solutions for small businesses can make sustaining your business significantly easier on both you and your employees. By streamlining procedures, becoming more organized, and placing institutional knowledge online, you can lay the foundation for a smooth transition into your deployment.

TVC has a special relationship with HyperOffice to make it easier for you to remotely manage your company. With just an internet connection, your team can use email, share calendars and contacts, run projects, and manage documents from the office or the field. You can collaborate online anytime, anywhere, using any browser on any PC, Mac, or handheld device. HyperOffice can be set up in minutes without any IT overhead.

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Accounting Software: simplify your business finances with intelligent software designed for small business needs. Doing so can organize and streamline your records, sales, and expenses, allowing you to more easily hand the job over to someone else. Plus, with online accounting software, you can be more confident in your finances and be better prepared when speaking to an accountant or tax attorney.

Intuit Quickbooks (http://quickbooks.intuit.com) has tools to help you run reports, prepare invoices, store vendor and customer information, and more. Quickbooks products can help you process payroll, print checks, and even accept credit cards.
w/Ease (www.w-ease.com) is business accounting software for small businesses that helps you estimate sales, track jobs, store customer information, monitor inventory, perform invoicing, manage accounts receivable, and prepare tax reports.

Customer Databases: track your customers and clients with online databases designed to store more than just contact information. By keeping records of sales and contacts, along with notes and details of client interactions, it will be easier to speak to existing customers with confidence and knowledge. Plus if you are the primary contact point for your business, your knowledge will be passed on to employees filling in during your deployment.

Prophet (www.avidian.com) is sales, customer relation, and contact management software that is built into Microsoft Outlook, making it a very desirable option for those who already use Outlook for their mail and calendar.
ACT! (www.act.com) enabled small businesses to instantly access key contact and customer information, manage activities, and track contact-related communications. One benefit of ACT! is its ability to plug into accounting software such as Quickbooks.
Goldmine (www.goldmine.com) helps midmarket businesses (100-999 employees) manage relationships and opportunities, forecast management, automate marketing, manage sales leads, and provide customer support

Data Backup: the last thing you want to have happen is a loss of data, particularly if you are deployed and are the person who knows the data best. To make sure you don't leave your business without the institutional knowledge it needs to survive, make sure your data is backed up.

Maxtor Shared Storage (www.maxtor.com) allows you to back up all of the PCs or Macs on your network automatically to a single, secure location with up to a terabyte of storage. You can schedule automatic data backups and protect all of the data in your network, and you possess the backup data (rather than storing it on another server).
Mamut (www.mamut.com) is a UK-based company that offers free data back-up up to 500MB for small businesses. Mamut Online Backup works automatically in the background and creates a secure copy of your files the moment they are updated or changed. Mamut stores backup data on their servers which you can access through an encrypted password.
Simple Tech (www.simpletech.com) External Drive allows up to 750MB of storage for files and data. Data is transferred from each computer via a USB port. This solution is idea for backing up one computer, but should not be used for entire networks.
Mozy (www.mozy.com) is a secure, automatic, remote backup service for any PC and allows the option of unlimited storage space for your computer.

Digital file cabinets: digitizing your files will reduce storage, make it easier for you and your employees to find paperwork, and allows you to maintain the image and color quality of original documents. You can also save money on regular mail and faxes by emailing documents and corresponding with clients online.

ScanSnap (www.fujitsu.com) is a scanner that allows you to scan documents to PDF with the touch of a button and digitize both sides of a document in a single pass, in color, up to 18 pages per minute. You can also scan directly to Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
Cabinet NG (www.CabinetNG.com) is a document management product that organizes files and data, manages workflow, has security safeguards, and tracks data management. This product is ideal for larger companies who want to create consistent filing protocol across the company and secure access to certain documents.

Secure Remote Access: find a way to check in on your business from wherever you are deployed through a remote access program. Remote access allowing you to securely access your computer from another computer anywhere you have an Internet connection, allowing you to view paperwork, contracts, emails, and anything else stored on the computer.

Hyper Office (www.hyperoffice.com/deployproof/) builds a company-wide intranet for your business through its web-based, fully hosted platform. Loaded with business features such as email, document management, calendars and more, Hyper Office provides remote access through its secure interface in additional to collaboration tools and solutions.
GoToMyPC (www.gotomypc.com) is a fast and secure way to access your work PC from any web browser or wireless device in real time. Once you have downloaded GoTo's software to your computer, simply leave the computer on to access your work PC through GoTo's homepage.
Symantec's PC Anywhere (www.symantec.com) is a remote access solution that allows you to manage computers and resolve help desk issues quickly and connect to remote devices simply and securely. Unlike many programs that work only with Microsoft programs, PC Anywhere works with Windows, Linus, and Mac OS X.

Email: are you using your personal email for business matters? Increase the credibility of your business by creating a business specific email address. An email address such as info@yourcompany.com allows you or anyone else working for you to respond to general inquiries and sales emails in a professional manner. Plus, it is an easy switch for someone else to begin answering inquiries when you are deployed if the email address is not your personal address.

Build a Website: in addition to incresaing credibility through a business email address, you may decide to put your business entirely online through a website. A website can increase your potential market, simplify business procedures, and streamline work. From a DIY site to calling in a professional, here are three web solutions to get your business online:

Hire a consultant: the best way to get a top-of-the-line website is to hire a consultant or web professional who can design the site from scratch and tailor it to your company's specific needs. The downsides are that this is the most expensive option, and you will have to pay to change the site or its content. If you have constantly changing material, this is not the best option for you.
Use a template to make your own: Website Tonight (www.websitetonight.com) offers hundreds of customizable templates that you can plug in and update easily. Once you choose your template and colors, simply type content into the pre-arranged text boxes and download your photos into the photo boxes. There are sections logos and photos, options to create Flash introductions, photo albums and more.
Design it yourself: if you want a scratch that is all yours without paying the fees of a consultant and you are already slightly web savvy, you may choose to build your own site using a design program such as Dreamweaver. This is by far the hardest option and the most time consuming (and it is expensive to buy Dreamweaver just for one website). If you want complete control, however, this is the only way to go.
Get a domain name: for any of these options, you will need a domain name. Just imagine it... yourbusinesshere.com. Check out Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) for cheap domains plus tons of extras for your website, including hosting, PayPal and more.