Five Tips to Help SMBs Optimize Technology Systems

The world of technology has become increasingly complex and the speed at which it changes has left many businesses struggling to keep pace – especially small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that typically have fewer IT resources as compared to their large enterprise counterparts.

For most SMBs, they need to focus on customer service and revenue growth rather than managing internal IT issues, according to Jeff Uphues, vice president of sales at Cbeyond (News - Alert), a provider of cloud communications.

“With the right partner, companies can shift the burden of managing IT systems and spend their time in a more strategic manner – serving customers to grow their business,” Uphues said.

Cbeyond recently outlined its top five tips to help businesses address such challenges. The guidelines, which are part of Cbeyond’s “Technology Ally” best practices series, are designed to help SMBs sustain existing technology infrastructure while realizing the full potential of their IT investments. To optimize technology systems, Cbeyond recommends the following five best practices:

• Simplify Complexity: To start, SMBs should use a roadmap to identify technology and define its value to the business. Classify technology within three main categories: commodity, core or strategic. This provides a simplified overview of the company's technology and a better understanding of which particular technologies are mission critical in helping move the business forward and remain innovative.
• Understand the Importance of Business Continuity: There is a huge difference between disaster recovery and business continuity. Business continuity is much more than backing up files; it is how to keep a business up and running. To achieve this, businesses need to maintain the flow of information and stay connected to employees, vendors and customers. Correctly understanding business continuity enables a company to have a plan in place to maintain operations during an unexpected event.
• Build the Ideal Environment for IT: Examine whether your company’s infrastructure presents the ideal environment to ensure optimal use of technology. Key considerations include physical maintenance, adequate security, access control to stored data and necessary power supplies. Establish and adhere to a regular maintenance schedule to extend longevity.
• Be Proactive: Businesses need to identify the best resources and time to monitor general IT issues before they become problematic. Business technology requires the attention and proactive action of subject matter experts who can spot and predict key technology issues before they impact the business adversely.
• Share the Burden: Don’t spend unnecessary internal resources focusing on IT needs. Embrace a technology ally that can handle complexity and offer a package of technology services to meet your needs. Added time and an extended shelf life will help you focus on becoming more competitive and moving the business forward.

In April, Cbeyond rolled out an online portal to make it easier for SMB customers customize, manage and control their cloud computing services. Cbeyond Online, which is designed to ultimately provide resource and time savings, offers on-demand, self-service functionality that allows customers to use the cloud to meet their individual business needs, as well as serve their own customers more efficiently.