Effective technology is essential for small businesses looking to increase the productivity of their people and business. Introducing technology such as a computer networks can help them to stay competitive by increasing productivity and by reducing hardware costs. Even simple networks make sharing information and resources easier, provide better security and enable easy backup facilities for any small businesses.

For small businesses in today’s high-tech society, Information Technology (IT) has become a significant consideration. Implementing new technology is a challenging job for small business owners and can cause numerous difficulties in day-to-day operations. Many small businesses are finding Managed IT Services as a solution to get the most from their IT investment.

Mobile technology is becoming increasingly vital to your small business as the number of employees working from home or away from office is growing significantly. More than 50 million US workers are considered mobile, spending at least 20% of the time away from their primary work space. Some of your employees, such as your salespeople or representatives, may be constantly on the move.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become a viable solution for even the smallest of companies as broadband internet access has become affordable and much more widespread. VoIP offers a low cost alternative to expensive traditional phone services, and is rapidly becoming the communications system of choice to reduce telecommunications costs. Hosted VoIP services are also gaining popularity among smaller companies since these services do not require any investment in hardware.

In today’s global business environment, the value of working together, or collaboration, can have a huge positive impact on your business. Your employees and teams need to work together, and share ideas and information across geographic boundaries. For a small business such as yours, effective collaboration is essential to improving productivity by empowering your employees to communicate and work more efficiently using the right communications tools.

The relationship between small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and Information Technology (IT) can often be described as a “love/hate” relationship. You absolutely rely on technology to help your business run efficiently, but IT is most likely not one of your core competencies – and just keeping your systems running can be a major undertaking that distracts you from business-building activities.