How to ready your business now and in the future

We are now living in a very different world to the one we started 2020 in. Covid-19 has dominated the world news and may also affect how we will live for the foreseeable future (or until it is under control). It’s impossible not to worry as a person, parent, employee, or business owner. We are truly all in this together. 

We now need to ready ourselves for the future of working but how will we do this, and what changes will we see? We’re likely to see some very real changes in how people and businesses progress from meeting to purchasing. We all have a responsibility to make a workable future for others and also ourselves.

For most businesses, pre Covid-19 was probably very similar across the board with some staff using a CRM, some not, some staff using Microsoft Office documents saved locally, some using Google Docs saved in a folder in the cloud and so on. How many of us pressed print on our laptop only to find out that it’s set to the company printer and you can’t print from home as you need access rights which only the IT department have? We’ve also had several calls from friends and clients having these issues and also their friends’ businesses having the same issues!

However, businesses are adapting worldwide. ‘Zoom’ is no longer the sound a child makes when playing with their cars.  Remote desktops and cloud based applications don’t seem so scary.

The importance of a managed office environment for emails and applications is something companies do now need to plan for.  We have had great experience in providing this service to Seabrook Crisps and, as a result, their office staff have been able to work seamlessly from home.   Business planning for services such as remote desktops allows professional set up with all staff utilising the same platform as well as offering scalability and adaptability to both office and home based workers by making sure all applications and work is backed up.

Similarly, CRM systems are proving to be vital to businesses looking to provide a single view of their customer data and can be utilised in a number of ways.  The fact that most of them are cloud-based means accessibility is not an issue.  We have great experience of Salesforce (who are the market leaders of the CRM industry) but it is important to utilise it properly and understand what it is you want it to do.

We work alongside Sandyx who have an outstanding reputation in the UK for salesforce implementations and have developed the platform for many different uses.  Their customers include some amazing names, such as Amazon, Hermes and Sainsbury’s to name a few.  Their staff are highly professional and happy to chat with anyone looking to embark on a CRM system, whatever its need may be. Sandyx are strategically placed in Manchester making them an accessible leader in the North West – Sandyx can be contacted here.

Business websites are now more critical than ever and we have had a lot of calls from businesses who can’t get support or realised they don’t have support from their current provider. The struggle for them to cope with high levels of traffic or ability to upgrade or change their service is something we want to help with. Our hosting solutions are bespoke and we will recommend the service that’s going to be the best fit for your business.  It goes without saying that we offer great levels of support on both cloud hosting and dedicated server hosting. We can also offer migration support and, should you need assistance with the move, advice on which service might be best can be found here.

Backup and its storage location is something that people are reviewing because recently a number of businesses which had systems running in-house suffered from outages which have left them without vital data, with no-one on the premises to resolve the issue quickly.   Data back ups still need to be performed and data storage needs to be managed correctly using the appropriate software solution to conform with the GDPR and other security considerations.   When you have backups and multiple storage locations, it will give your business peace of mind that you are prepared for an emergency. Further information about backup can be found here.

What’s clear is that a number of us need to change quickly to keep ahead in the very near future. Planning is important in order for businesses to stabilise and grow.  We are offering a professional consultation and conversation for any business looking at making changes.

We have also provided the opportunity to submit your current hosting information to see if we can help you reduce any hosting fees.

Please feel free to drop us a call or email at anytime on 0161 464 6101 or hello@datacentreplus.co.uk