Push your business online
Moving a business “online” is often viewed within the narrow confines of classical e-commerce. That is, taking products and services that are delivered via face-to-face interactions and instead delivering them via the internet. While that is clearly a significant aspect of online business activity, there are many other beneficial avenues to take your business to the cloud. And these avenues are not limited to transactions between you and your customers.
One of the most promising functional areas to move online, even for small businesses, is internal administrative and informational processes. Online HR and payroll systems are already widely adopted by businesses of all sizes, yet many companies still maintain their own internal staff or contract with a professional services organization. However, with minimal training, many such functions can be handled in a few hours per week with the support of online tools, providing the low cost and full service that each of the other options can only deliver in tandem. Customer and supplier contact lists have evolved from written ledgers to local CRM (customer relationship management) software purchased and stored on company-owned hardware to cloud services that are delivered as a service on an as-needed basis.
Similarly, office productivity suites that traditionally cost several hundred dollars for each computer installation, and often mismatch the needs of the individual user, have many online equivalents that can be purchased on an as-needed basis. Heavy spreadsheet users that don’t often develop presentations and technical writers that don’t need database access can get what they need and nothing more. Having software applications delivered via the internet from a central location also simplifies technical support and upgrade issues that otherwise have to be managed on a computer-by-computer basis.
The easiest sale for many businesses regarding moving online, and a step that many have taken already, is banking services. Whether as a replacement or an augmentation of continued visits to the local banking branch, having account information and transactional capability at your finger tips can save much time and money. Electronic downloads of account information can also be linked to accounting, bookkeeping and tax packages, eliminating the need to manually translate information from one place to another.
There are hundreds of other examples of everyday business activities that can be improved in terms of quality and cost, by adopting virtual and web-based services. Fleet-intensive business can provide drivers GPS information rather than expensive and obsolescence-prone map books. Equipment and component purchases and offerings can migrate to Craigslist versus ads in local publications. MagnaVaria is not endorsing a particular service or vendor. We are endorsing the power of online resources to reduce costs and improve the quality of the internal processes that make your business go. Contact us and let us help you.
