CEO Article: How Can Technology Help Your Business—Right Now?

CEO Article: How Can Technology Help Your Business—Right Now?

Two words that describe how businesses have changed--and will continue to change--are “technology” and “innovation”.  Over the next few months we will discuss the impact they have on your business. With some input from Microsoft, let’s start with technology. How can it help you right now?

1. Share Files in the Cloud

No more do your most important files, whether documents photos or video, need to be stored on your hard drive, on a server on site, or (horror) in paper filing cabinets. Today it’s so much easier. It’s just a matter of pulling files from the cloud whether you’re at the office, a conference or at home.

And you never have to worry about a hardware failure causing a disaster if you’ve stored all files and data in the cloud.  Been there, done that — and spending hours trying to recover lost files is never pretty.

There are a number of tools to help today. For example, we use both Microsoft OneDrive and Efolder by Anchor to have visibility to files whether we are in the office or not.  These tools allow you to sync and store files, so they can be accessed from any browser or mobile device.  Even better, you can set up computers to save everything to these sync tools by default so you and your staff never have to manually transfer anything to the cloud.

2. Increase Teamwork through Collaboration

Technology has also made it possible for workers to collaborate from anywhere. A truly virtual office has emerged, one whose employees need no longer be in the same city or even on the same continent.

There are many technical tools that can allow you, your partners and employees to co-author in Word, PowerPoint and OneNote, or any other productivity tools.  When the Oroville Dam evacuation took place, we were able to use a product call Slack to keep up to date with each other and our partners. This allowed us to communicate seamlessly and help our partners deal with their technology issues without our team having to be in our office.

Products like Skype for Business allows you to get input and hold meetings through instant messaging, screen share, talk or video chat.  Skype and other similar products can allow you to keep in touch and meet, even when not in close proximity.

How is Technology Changing Your Business?

As you think how your business has changed with technology, take some time and think about what you will need as you grow into the future.  What will new technology do to jumpstart your business and make you more productive and scalable.  If you want some help reviewing your technology strategies and developing a roadmap to meet your growth needs, let us know. We want to help you navigate the technology landmines that can stop your forward progress. Next month we’ll talk about security, automation and about working remotely.

Have a great month.