The business landscape is changing. With advances in technology, more and more businesses are allowing their staff to work remotely. There are many benefits to this however, there are also challenges that come with remote working.
A regulatory requirement is a law or rule that businesses must adhere to in order to operate legally. There are many different regulatory requirements, and it is important for businesses to be aware of them all.
Leading a small business is a challenging endeavour. According to a January 2021 article published by Entrepreneur, 20% of small businesses fail within their first year of operation. And a staggering 50% fail within five years.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic rendered many business practices obsolete, such as; face-to-face brainstorming sessions, team building activities, even the entire concept of the office.
A great IT strategy is not just about the technology. It's also about how it can help your business grow and succeed. With a good understanding of what an IT strategy entails, you'll be able to build one that will work for your business.
An IT strategy helps you identify your business goals and how IT can be used to make them happen. It also makes sure everything in your organisation, from operations to marketing strategies, are aligned with your business objectives.
With Christmas season officially open (at least in shops and supermarkets), the end of 2017 is now within clear sight. This makes it the perfect time to review your achievements from this year and start thinking about the next. Here are 3 often overlooked but proven methods for nailing your yearly business review: 1.Prepare an agenda and share it ahead of time
Are you struggling to build and develop a solid business strategy? Do you have an IT strategy in place that is helping you grow in an ever-changing digital world? At Onestop IT, we believe having a solid IT strategy in place is key to your overall business success. That’s why we have decided to run a workshop to focus on all things strategy.
Why is preparing an IT budget within SMEs (small medium enterprises) essential? And, how can having a strategic budget propel your organisation towards success in the modern, competitive marketplace. Here, we delve into the main steps involved in creating an IT budget.
Here, we explore how IT system failures, however occasional, can affect businesses negatively – both operationally and financially. As well as these important considerations, we provide an overview of the benefits of using a downtime calculator to highlight potential issues. That way, an organisation can be proactive and make improvements, before any weak areas or vulnerabilities become problematic.
One of your most important jobs as an IT manager is managing your organisation’s IT budget. As your budgeting and planning here will affect everyone in your organisation, it’s essential that you put in the time and effort to make sure you get it right.
We all know that backing up our files is important, but unless you happen to work in IT, chances are you don’t really know what the best ways to do this are. Today, we’re covering what problems you might face if you don’t back up your business’ files, some best practices for keeping your files safe and staying GDPR compliant and the best solutions for storing your backup data. So, if you’d like to learn more about ways to safeguard the future of your business through IT security, read on.
Today, we’re breaking down the pros of having an asset register for your IT resources and how to optimise it so that you’re never left in the dark. We’ll go over what an asset register is and how to set one up or optimise your existing system. This will help you make the most out of this resource that offers greater visibility into your business.
We’ve quickly become very dependent on our smart devices. The average Brit checks their phone 28 times a day; that’s almost twice per hour if they get 8 hours of sleep. So it’s no wonder that personal mobile devices – smartphones, tablets and laptops – have become a very common sight in the modern workplace. Not only that, but with the rise of remote working, people are doing more and more work on their own devices.
When a layperson is asked about cybersecurity, “firewall” is likely to be one of the first phrases that come to their mind. You might well be one of these people. But do you actually understand what a firewall does and how it protects your device and company network?
Remote and flexible work go hand in hand, and together, they present the future of work. As we mentioned in last week’s blog post, we might soon see half of the UK’s workforce telecommuting at least some of the time. Meanwhile, having some flexibility over the hours you work is a very attractive perk, especially for millennials, 75% of whom said they’d choose flexible working hours over a pay rise.
The word ‘marketing’ might make you think of sleazy sales tactics or glamorous 50s ad execs straight from Mad Men, but in reality, modern marketing is neither. Marketing is vital for any business that wants to make a name for itself and these days, focusing on all things digital is key.
Remote and flexible working is the way of the future, and the recent Coronavirus pandemic has helped to drive this fact home for more employees and employers alike than ever before. But what are some of the specific benefits small businesses can gain from adopting remote working practices and what are the main hurdles they need to avoid?
Many people wonder whether they can trust Microsoft with their proprietary data, and the short answer is yes. For the most part, you can trust Microsoft with your data, as it’s unlikely this huge multinational corporation will run into a cybersecurity attack large enough to risk losing your data. That being said, and as we’ve discussed on our blog in the past, it’s very possible that a data leak takes place on your end within Teams, in which case the amount of support Microsoft will offer you is limited. This is because it’s ultimately your responsibility to protect your sensitive information against data security breaches targeting your organisation. Failing to do so can result in hefty fines under GDPR. While we already touched on cybersecurity in our article on Teams vs. Slack, the topic is important enough to warrant its own dedicated article. Today, we’ll take a look at three potential sources of cybersecurity threats within Microsoft Teams and ways to counteract them.
Over the past two decades, companies have invested billions (probably even trillions) in converting analogue content into digital information. At the same time, we are producing data at a rate unimaginable just a generation ago. Today, we generate and save vast amounts of critical information in the cloud, primarily in Microsoft 365. Data breaches and ransomware attacks regularly make headlines. So how can you be sure that corporate data, whether located in the cloud with Microsoft 365 or on-premises, is protected?
Who wouldn’t want their staff to be more knowledgeable and productive? All training programmes promise this, yet it can be hard for managers to justify the cost of them – especially if they’ve been let down in the past. However, the benefits of offering your people continued development opportunities far outweigh the potential drawbacks once you find the right courses, which is why today we’ll dive into some of the reasons you should seriously consider investing in staff training for your team.
At the end of the day, the success of your business is solely in the hands of your customers. While you could spend all of your money developing great products and services and running sales and marketing campaigns to promote them, this doesn’t guarantee a positive customer experience. This might seem like a slightly depressing reality, but if you think you can’t affect the way people see your business, you are dead wrong. In order for you to effectively optimise your customer experience, you first have to understand what things they like and dislike about you. With a number of great, simple tools out there designed to help you do exactly that, it’s easy to start improving your customer satisfaction. Read on to discover why you need a customer survey tool and what you can do with them.
In this day and age, having a good flow of genuine customer reviews posted about you online is integral to making your business a household name in your local area. Google reviews are one of the best ways to raise your online profile and improve your company’s offering which is why today, we’re going over the reasons behind this as well as how to start getting more reviews from your customers.
As we said in our previous blog post, your business reputation is incredibly important and online reviews of your products and services can make or break your business. That’s why you need a strategy for getting more reviews from your customers and ways to use these to display your excellence. Don’t assume your clients will remember to review you without you offering them some gentle reminders – you can do just this with Ratings & Review Optimisation. Read on to find out how you can use this tool to get more reviews, gain more visibility for your business online and improve on your customer experience.
Microsoft’s Teams promises easier internal communications through its chat-based workspace within Office 365. But how does it work and is it the right option for you? In today’s blog post, we’ll go over what Teams promises, some of its best features and positive effects using it could have for your staff’s productivity, teamwork and company culture. We’ll also name some of the most common pitfalls new users of Teams face and how to avoid them. Without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about Microsoft Teams.
These days, most of our messages are delivered via the internet: from emails to texts, calls and voice memos sent via free services like Messenger and WhatsApp, there’s no longer a need to worry about your monthly text allowance since WiFi and 4G have irreversibly changed the way we communicate with each other. And why should business calls be any different? In today’s blog post, we’re taking a look at how IP telephony – or more simply put, calls made via the internet – can support your business, drive down costs and generally simplify the day-to-day life in your company. We’ll also go over how VoIP (voice over internet protocol) works in Office 365.
Collaborative work is key to greater productivity and a more satisfied staff and with today’s digital tools, teamwork is easier and more agile than ever. In recent years, Microsoft has added new collaborative tools like Teams to their repertoire as well as building new functionalities for better teamwork to existing applications within Office 365. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over how you can use Office 365’s cloud-based tools for better collaboration within your organisation as well as sharing tips for better communication using Office 365 so that you get the most out of your subscription.
Remote working is definitely a trend on the rise. As much as 50% of the UK workforce will be telecommuting by 2020 if this practice keeps growing at the same rate as it has in the past decade. Whether you’re simply curious about working from home, are interested in offering the option of telecommuting to your staff some of the time or want to shift into having a fully remote team, this article is for you. Here are some of the positive and negative aspects of remote working as well as a description of some of the digital tools that can help you with the switch.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation, a digital marketing practice that improves your online visibility and helps get more eyes on your business’ website, spreading your reputation far and wide. Talking about SEO can get complicated and technical very quickly. That’s why we’ve put together the guide below with a simple overview of what SEO is, why it’s important for your business and what some of the best practices you should follow are. Read on to discover what SEO is and how you can start improving your company’s online presence with it.
Search engine optimisation and paid search – also known as PPC (pay-per-click) – have many things in common. They both relate to your website’s visibility on search engines like Google and are cornerstones in most digital marketing strategies. Additionally, both use keywords to promote your business’ website to the most relevant people. That being said, these two digital marketing practices have plenty of differences too, as well as their own, unique strengths and weaknesses. The good news is, paid search and SEO are complementary services, supporting each other for better overall digital marketing. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over the pros and cons of both marketing practices and explain why you should implement both for better online visibility for your brand.
If you’ve done any amount of research into marketing your small business, you’ve likely come across the term “inbound marketing” at one point or another. But what exactly is inbound marketing – and is it right for you? Inbound marketing is a highly valuable form of digital marketing that we believe should be part of any small business’ marketing strategy. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over exactly what inbound is, why you should be taking a largely inbound approach to your marketing and how you can get started.
Technology has completely transformed the way we do business over the past couple of decades. With quick developments happening in the world of tech all the time, it can be hard to keep on top of the latest updates. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over the many benefits of technology recommended practices around cybersecurity and cloud computing for small businesses, from making sure you stay GDPR compliant to happier, more productive staff and improved communication. This way, you can see the wide-reaching benefits of updating your technology to meet the latest standards and following best practices related to them.
As you might have noticed on our blog in recent months, we’ve moved to a model where every month we focus on a different aspect of business. October was all about getting more business through marketing and November focussed on IT security and the role this plays in the everyday running of your small business.
As we outlined in last week’s blog post, cloud accounting is one of the key components of getting results and making informed business decisions. In today’s article, we’ll take a closer look at how cloud accounting works and what its most important benefits are. Because no technology is perfect, we’ll also consider the potential pitfalls of using cloud-based accounting software and what you can do to minimise these risks.
Using a business reporting or analysis tool provides an attractive opportunity for small businesses: they allow you to gather and analyse large quantities of data without the help of a dedicated business analyst, presenting findings in a way anyone can understand. A reporting tool is a great addition to your business performance management, but before you rush to buy one for your organisation, have a read through our brief guide to the pros and cons of using one to understand what you’re in for.
Does Office 365 back up your data? In short, the answer to this question is yes – but only to an extent. Microsoft will help you recover your data in case something like a natural disaster or a fire, or if you suffer a hardware failure that means you lose important files or emails. They also provide you 30 days of time to recover files moved to the recycling bin before it deletes them completely, offering you some protection against human error as well.
G Suite is a highly attractive collection of tools for SMEs: they’re cheap, even free to use, widely known and cloud-based, allowing you to work from anywhere. Since the productivity suite is owned by one of the world’s premier tech giants, most people trust their data is in good hands when it’s stored with Google.
Over the past couple of weeks on this blog, we’ve been going over the limitations popular cloud-based productivity suites Office 365 and G Suite have when it comes to backing up your data. Clearly, if you take your data security seriously and want to minimise downtime and having to redo lost work, you need a third-party backup solution for your files and messages.
Did you know that 64% of data loss happens due to accidental or malicious deletion? Or that 32% of organisations will at one point experience a data loss event? This means every organisation would benefit from a data backup service that saves a copy of their files and messages automatically to protect them from disasters. But what should you keep an eye on when shopping for an Office 365 data backup service? In today’s article, we’ll go over eights features your organisation could benefit from in a third-party backup service.
Data backup is not what it used to be. As we’ve discussed on this blog in recent weeks, neither Office 365 nor G Suite offer comprehensive data backup tools for most organisations which is why investing in a third-party backup solution is so important. This is because the modern features now commonly associated with data backup products are so useful it makes perfect sense even for the smallest of organisations to invest in one. Read on to discover how data backup has changed in recent years and how Backupify, one of our recommended backup solutions, can help with your data retention, business continuity and compliance.
These days, small businesses everywhere are facing a very fortunate conundrum: which high-quality, intuitive and affordable productivity suite to pick. When it comes to the G Suite vs Office 365 debate, both offer powerful, popular tools and competitive pricing, so at the end of the day, which one is right for you and your organisation comes down to your personal preferences and what you value and need the most in your day-to-day life. To help you choose between G Suite and O365, we’ve put together the brief guide below to talk about the similarities and differences between the two. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know when choosing your productivity suite.
Within the last decade, businesses have become increasingly reliant on digital communication to operate efficiently and provide more value to their customers. As a result, VoIP has been leveraged by sophisticated businesses around the world to vastly improve their ability to communicate. So, what exactly is VoIP? VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a form of modern technology that allows you to make calls over the internet rather than using your telecommunications provider. Put simply, you can make a phone call via the internet using any data-driven device, including laptops, tablets, phones and computers. Since its introduction in the early 1970s, the VoIP market has grown exponentially, with the industry valued at $145.76 billion by 2024. VoIP is recognised as a valuable asset for a variety of reasons that we’ll explain below.
The quality of your phone system determines the quality of your communications which in turn has a lot to do with your business success, and no business can afford to constantly be on the back foot due to poor connectivity with employees, clients, and business partners. When it comes down to it, you need your business to be versatile enough to make calls at any time, at any place and on any device — all without breaking the bank. If you’ve been reading our blog posts from the past few weeks and are looking for a dynamic VoIP phone system that ticks all of these boxes and many more, we recommend you look into switching your small business over to 3CX PBX.
Remote work has been in the news a great deal recently, with attention-grabbing headlines announcing how working from home is better for both employees and their bosses, saving money and promoting a better work-life balance. This is all well and good but doesn’t answer one key question: how you can make sure that your small business can achieve those lofty goals.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked a lot about employee monitoring and its benefits on our blog. Today, we thought we’d take a closer look at our preferred product for productivity tracking, Phoenix Team Analytics. We’ll go over five key features of this software product so that you can better understand the unique value it could bring to your organisation. Without further ado, let’s get started.
The Coronavirus pandemic has changed a great deal about how we do business – and meetings are one of the aspects of the typical workday that have been changed the most. With people working from home, a robust and convenient video conferencing software has become a must – and its importance will still be felt when we return to offices. Zoom and Microsoft Teams are the two leaders in this space – but which one of them is better? That’s the question for today’s article. So let’s dive right in.
Microsoft Teams is a powerful piece of software within the Office 365 suite that can handle all your internal communication needs and keep your entire organisation working collaboratively within a well-organised digital framework. You can do a lot with this software product, but first, you need to set it up and get to grips with using it.
Remote work comes with many benefits, such as a better work-life balance, more time for hobbies and flexible hours. But there are many challenges that come with it, too. Many of these relate to communication because we are a social species. Problems with communication can in turn cause issues for collaborative work as well as employee wellbeing and your company culture.
These days, we rely on our screens for a huge part of our communication, and work is no different – even if your whole team works in the same office. Whether it’s shooting a quick question to your manager who is working from home that day or chasing up a coworker on something when they’re sitting across from you but clearly focusing on something with their headphones on, shooting a quick message is the easiest option.
Telecoms or telecommunications is a broad term that encompasses technology services designed to connect people and businesses. Telecom’s systems are used every day by millions of people all around the world. The telecommunications industry has been around for over 150 years, with the first telegraph being sent in 1844 when Samuel Morse sent an electrical signal down two miles worth of wireline with his assistant Alfred Vail located just 100 yards away from where he would then decipher it into letters and numbers using light pulses – this laid the groundwork for the business telecoms systems we use today.
