Beating the credit crunch by saving money | part one
Financial doom and gloom is surrounding us all at the moment and it seems that the worldwide banking crisis is changing on a minute by minute basis. But what does this mean for smaller businesses and what do we need to be looking out for from an IT perspective?
Cost savings are of course important, and maybe now is a chance to take a look at your business and see if there are opportunities to save some money. One big cost for me has always been running an office. Even a small room in a shared facility can cost a few hundred pounds a month, so why not work from home and run a virtual team? There are a lot of IT solutions available that can help you share data and project information with remote team workers and we have a guide that offers some assistance around setting up a home office.
Another big cost for some small businesses is the telephone, especially those with active telesales teams. A good way of starting to reduce your phone bill maybe to start using some of the VoIP packages. This is Voice over Internet Protocol and it enables you to place voice calls using the internet for little or no charge, especially if your co-workers are using the same VoIP system.
Are you considering upgrading any of your PCs? If so you may wish to consider some of the cheaper hardware alternatives. Don’t forget that if you cascade PCs through the organisation you can also save money. This is because not everyone needs to have the most powerful PC available – only maybe product designers or others using advanced software. Most users are happy with a basic PC able to mange email and word processor applications. Don’t forget, if you are disposing of hardware there may be charities or other not-for-profit organisations that could benefit from your old PCs. Just make sure that you securely and completely erase all of your data from the computer hard disks.
Here are some guides that are bound to help you;
Setting up a Home Office
Using Internet Based Phones
Buying low cost IT for your business
Recycling your Computer Hardware
Mr BITG
The Business IT Guide
