10 Hi-Tech Tips To Increase Productivity

More and more small businesses are taking advantage of advances in technology to increase productivity and reduce costs. In addition, a growing trend towards remote working has caused small business owners to place greater dependence on providers of hi-tech products and services to help them keep connected. Here are 10 tips to help you stay connected:

1) Get Broadband

More and more valuable resources are becoming available on the World Wide Web. In order to ensure that your have quick and convenient access to these resources and avoid painfully slow page download speeds it is advisable to get a Broadband connection from wherever you will be working. For some, this is just the office, and for others this is home as well. For most business people, many hours of your busy lives will be spent accessing the Internet in the coming years and if your are wasting time waiting for pages to load then your business is suffering. It is time to ditch the dial-up. For more information on Broadband, click here.

2) Wi-Fi connects you on the move

For the same reasons that you should consider Broadband for the office and perhaps for home, you should consider getting a Wi-Fi enabled laptop if you are on the move a lot. A Wi-Fi-enabled laptop or other device will enable you to connect to the Internet when in range of any access point. An access point will typically provide 'hot spot' range of up to a hundred metres and can be found in many major coffee shop chains, meeting places and transport links such as airports and mainline stations. For a small fee, you can connect to the Internet via your preferred access point. For a detailed explanation of Wi-Fi click here.

3) VoIP - Internet telephony

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) as pioneered by Skype, turns a standard Internet connection into a free telephone line by converting analog audio signals into digital data. With more advanced features such as SkypeOut, SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail, you can drastically reduce your business telephone charges if you spend a significant time on the blower! Get Skype for free here.

4) On-demand software

Small business owners work from many locations. Your office, home, Starbucks, trains, planes & automobiles have probably all met your opportunistic needs at some point - you never stop. Until a few years ago, business software arrived on a CD and was installed on the desktop computer. This presented the mobile workforce with the fundamental problems of accessibility and risk because a) you had to be in front of your office computer to access your data and b) if your PC died, you lost everything. The Internet has enabled on-demand software suites such as Business IT Online to offer Internet-based software applications for a fraction of the cost of traditional pre-packaged software with the added benefits of anytime and anywhere accessibility, elimination of the risk of data-loss and multi-user sharing.

5) Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Every day, thousands of pages of valuable news, views, tips and tricks are published to great sites on the web just like this one. If you are like me, you have found hundreds of sites which publish great information on a daily basis, specific to your industry, your region, your area of expertise and your business. Wouldn't it be great if, instead of having to remember to visit all of your favourite websites, their information came directly to you? That's exactly what RSS feeds achieve and with a free news reader, like Google Reader, Bytestart news can come to you. For a quick and easy guide to subscribing to RSS feeds, click here.

6) Podcasting

If you spend a significant amount of time commuting, running, or in the gym you may have considered listening to podcasts to fill the time. The term podcast refers to both the content (i.e. multimedia files such as MP3 music files) and delivery mechanism (via Internet to mobile device such as iPod or PC). Podcasts are both a great way to learn whilst on the move and also an exciting new way of communicating with your prospects and customers.

7) Internet banking

If you make a daily or weekly visit to the bank to pay in cheques or transfer funds you should seriously consider accepting and making payments with an Internet banking facility. All high-street banks now offer an Internet banking facility and it will save you a significant amount of time using it. In addition, many banks charge businesses more to pay in a cheque than they do to accept an online payment.

8) Online networking

The rise in popularity of online networking sites such as Ecademy has meant that more and more like-minded business people can get in touch with eachother via the Internet. In business, there is no substitute for face-to-face meetings but these tools do allow for quickly obtaining information about potential leads, prospects, customers, suppliers and partners without investing large amounts of time. They are also a good place to meet like-minded business people looking to build solid business relationships.

9) Internet PR

Google has made the concept of keywords ubiquitous in marketing to such an extent that press releases, articles and websites must all be keyword optimised for optimal return. The advent of these Internet marketing exercises has introduced the concept of Internet PR with sites such as FeaturesExec offering a facility for gaining press coverage through electronic press release submission and online features. Internet PR can be extremely productive at getting coverage for your business, and all of the information you need for landing 'that story' is at your fingertips.

10) Smartphones

A smartphone is an electronic handheld device that integrates mobile phone, personal organiser and Internet access tools into one. Often more expensive than traditional mobiles, they offer business people with greater flexibility. The cost of BlackBerry devices and Windows-enabled handhelds are falling and the wide range of features including email on the move, Internet access and file-sharing make the smartphone a mini-computer that can save you a lot of time.by keeping you in touch whilst on the move.

Article kindly provided for Bytestart readers by David Cruickshank from Business IT Online.