Concrete or Sand: Small Biz Tech Fundamentals
by: Ramon Ray
I was thinking that there's a lot of
technology being thrown at the small business person - LINUX, DSL, hosted
applications, mobile computing, Windows 2000 and more. Would I be wrong to
assume that MANY small businesses are darn confused about most of it?
My guess is that many small businesses are still struggling with the
simple aspects of technology like - Word macros, computers freezing for no
apparent reason and other things. I know that these things are frustrating
you.
Particularly if you look at your competition and you see the slick TV ads,
hear the funny radio ads and read the air brushed magazine ads, with the
"empowered" small biz executive slashing his competitions, rescuing his
clients, increasing her profits, and just being an all around wonderful
and loving Queen to her employees!
You drool with lust and wonder - what's wrong with me.
PUT YOUR BUSINESS ON CONCRETE (core technology fundamentals). Don't
rush out for the latest and greatest - or you're business will be a sand
castle -- e.g., one that looks great on paper, but a few drops of water
will make it go away!
Let me give you a ray of hope and some guidance:
1. Ignore all the slick hype
2. Concentrate on ensuring your business has the best implementation of
the following (as applicable to your business)
- email (not AOL, but real, myname@mycompany.com email)
- a great WEB site with information about your company
- if you sell products you want a site to sell your products online, and the site should be integrated with your back office functions
- high speed Internet access (if it's only you, then a 56k modem is fine, if 20 people then get DSL)
- well integrated and working business applications (word processing, finance/accounting, spreadsheet, presentation, and database)
- ensure your business functions are maximizing their use of technology (you may want to hire a consultant to help with this)
- a decent telephone system (voice mail, and some basic features like hold, conferencing, message forwarding and etc)
- the number of 1 or 2 great technology consultants
- make sure your hardware and software is up to date
a) check your software vendor's WEB site
to make sure you have a recent version of the software. No more than a
year or 2 old. Check out the features of their latest software and compare
it to the version you have - you may decide to get the latest version
b) your hardware - every small business should have a nice laser printer,
no more than a few years old, a nice HP Laser Jet III at the least I would
think, your PC's should have AT LEAST 32MB of RAM, but I would say 64 and
at least a 3GB hard. Less may be ok for you depending on what you are
doing. If a 133MHZ Pentium is working for you, then fine. But try to get
at least a 300MHZ or so Pentium, 500MHZ may be overkill. Of course
scanners, mice, and other peripherals are another ball game.
There's a lot more I could say, but take a nice Root Beer and Snicker Bar
and take this advice for now.
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