Category Archives: Covid Era Business Tips

The Importance of Data and Analytics During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted on by Ivan Serrano
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It’s difficult to determine the toll caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The scope is alarming. There are millions of individuals affected in the United States alone. The government spent $3.5 million for relief, and several segments of the economy took a drastic hit.


The pandemic impacted all businesses across different sectors. Even with the vaccines in place, many countries are still reeling. New variants like Omicron are on the rise. No one knows when this battle against COVID-19 will end. But data and analytics are effective tools helping to accelerate the response against this pandemic.

Analytics can provide new and significant insights. These can help raise awareness, assess the impact of the virus, and assist in preventive efforts. In this post, we look at the significance of data and analytics during these times and how they can make a difference.

Analytics Can Help Improve Medical Resource Plans

The surge in COVID-19 cases has stressed hospitals and affected health care. Given the rise of cases, how can hospitals expand their capabilities? Since there are medical device shortages, what crucial supplies are needed? 

Health officials can reduce mortality rates through dispensing available bed space and resources with analytical methods. Here are some specific examples of analytical procedures:

  • Refining and applying epidemiological measures to oversee COVID-19 affected individuals within a specific area
  • Predicting the probable numbers of infected people that need medical intervention
  • The level of care that infected patients need. Additionally, indicating the number of required caregivers based on these results

With these insights based on analytics, healthcare systems can take the following actions:

  • Using outpatient and day surgery centers as new bed space
  • Probing the possibility of reopening closed facilities
  • Reallocating doctors, equipment, and supplies to areas that need it the most 

Data Helps Contact Tracing Investigations

Contact lists grow fast. We have all seen how quickly viruses spread in close-contact environments. The more social interactions occur, the more work is needed to identify everyone.

One disadvantage of contact tracing is that it relies on memory. Interviewees must remember where they have been and the people they were in contact with. However, not all individuals can accurately retrace their whereabouts, especially during a two to three-day period.

With analytics, contract tracing for public health becomes more manageable. With the correct data, epidemiologists can build networks of contacts. The more data within reach, the easier it will be to identify the points of vulnerability.

Health officials can identify common points of contact using data visualization methods. It will build a better picture of people’s social interactions. Data also offers a better understanding of the flow of individuals.

Leveraging Data Insights to Assist in Decisions About Returning to the Workplace

Aside from the medical and health industry, data and analytics are also useful among businesses who want to review their work-from-home setup. Are your employees comfortable going back to the office at full capacity? Are all employees vaccinated? Using data can help you make decisions about transitioning your company to the new normal.

For example, you can set up employee feedback systems that help your employees stagger hours. Having access to employee data can also help you decide if you should test employees for COVID-19.

Thus, it can help you figure out how often you should conduct testing.

With an employee feedback system in place, your employees can just key in their symptoms. This will help once your establishment returns to an office setup.

We all know that we should avoid working when we’re sick. However, there’s a significant difference between simply feeling the symptoms and recording the said symptoms. This will make the decision process of staying at home or going to work more precise.

Businesses have stepped up during the pandemic. According to Mckinsey and Company, organizational responses affect employees. Those that experience excellent corporate responses are more likely to be engaged at work.

The COVID-19 crisis reminds businesses that they cannot ignore emerging issues. They must meet them head-on. With this approach, they will increase their chances of improving employee experience during uncertainty.

Providing Demand Planning Resilience

Before the pandemic, most companies relied on internal historical data for their forecasts. However, COVID-19 changed the business landscape. Demands are fluctuating for products and services. Knowing this, many industries are looking for better ways to indicate demand.

You can adapt your strategies for a more resilient business with specific data on hand. Connect and combine your feedback from online reviews, surveys, ads, and more. Look for anomalies that positively and negatively affect your company. You can create an adaptive and proactive strategy with this information. Furthermore, tracking the data of the progress of your operations will help you benchmark recovery.

The Bottom Line

Our future with COVID-19 is uncertain. But data can help mitigate a lot of its aspects. Having insights can help the government and enterprises reduce apprehension and complexity. It can drive answers and create workable and tangible solutions.

Best Way to Add Your Business Line to Your Smartphone

Posted on by Emma Lakna
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Small company owners and entrepreneurs all over the world are discovering the advantages of adding a business line to their mobile phone or smartphone, thanks to the expanding availability of voice over internet protocol (VOIP) technology via smartphone apps and even landline phones. Not only do you get a lot of amazing calling features, but you also bring a level of professionalism to your business that your personal number can’t match. Furthermore, business calling mobile apps allow you to do business from anywhere, freeing you from the limitations of a desk phone.

Steps to Add Your Business Phone Number to Your Cell Phone

Here are some simple pointers to help you get started:

1. Download the Mobile App

Go to Apple’s iOS/iPhone app store or Google Play for Android to download the LinkedPhone app.

2. Verify Your Mobile Phone Number

Enter your cell phone number. The system will authenticate your phone.

3. Port Your Business Line

If you already have a business line, you can port it to the new service easily and quickly. Or you can  choose a convenient local or toll-free business number, or both. Numbers are available from across every area code in the U.S. and Canada

4. Choose Your Pricing Plan

LinkedPhone offers a number of price options, allowing you to select the degree of service that best suits your needs. If you are an entrepreneur, you can choose from a single line. A large corporation may need a large number of lines.

5. Choose Options for Greeting and Voicemail

Set up welcome greeting, hours and voicemail responses. LinkedPhone has a virtual receptionist that allows you to set call menu options. You can use these options to play helpful information such as hours and location, send customers to voicemail or a live receptionist, and route callers to specific people.

6. Optional: Add Team Members or Additional Business Phone Lines

Add as many team members as you want up to the plan’s limit, with each person getting their own extension. When someone calls, your team members will all have the same company number, which will ring on whatever phones you want, or all phones at the same time.

Wired devices, such as landlines or business VoIP phones, can also be added. After the setup is complete, you may immediately begin utilizing your business phone number.

How Does a Cell Phone-Based Virtual Business Line Work?

A ‘virtual phone number’ is what your new company number is called. The way we operate is changing as a result of modern technology. Virtual phone numbers resemble standard phone numbers in appearance and function, but they offer additional value and benefits. Desk phones, home phones, cell phones, laptops, tablets, and desktop computers are all compatible. It’s so simple and convenient that it nearly looks magical.

Let’s look at some of the most important benefits of employing a virtual business phone system:

Caller ID

Use the app to talk and text using your existing cell phone’s business caller ID while keeping your personal number confidential.

Call Screening

The different app interface clearly identifies which incoming calls are business calls, as well as business text messages, separating personal and professional communications.

Add Staff and Business Partners

Share a single business phone number that rings on your business partner’s phones.  Add all your team members. Calls should be routed to one or more coworkers, and each person should be reached at their own private extension. Internal communications can also be streamlined via peer-to-peer messaging.

Business and Customer Contacts

Create client profiles or import contact information from existing records, then share contacts with your entire team for increased efficiency. The business phone number app separates your professional and personal relationships.

Organize your conversations and to-do lists

Notes in the app Keep track of notes and chat logs for each of your customers. Help your company keep track of chats, to-dos, and reminders with real-time updates across all of your employees’ devices.

Options for a Virtual Receptionist and Call Menu

A basic setup includes business fundamentals such as setting business hours for taking calls and providing callers with company greetings. You may also set up professional call menu options that do things automatically when a keypad button is pressed. For example, a caller could dial 1 to get store hours, 2 to get customer service, 3 to get billing questions, 4 to get voicemail, 5 to get the corporate directory, and so on. Add a feature that allows users to directly dial specified extensions.

Routing of Calls

Incoming business calls should be directed to the appropriate person or team. Business calls are routed to mobile phones, office VOIP phones, or other landlines by virtual receptionists, often known as auto attendants. Call menu options that route calls to certain team members are simple to set up.

Transcription of Voicemail

Listen to your voicemail or read an AI-generated automatic voicemail transcription. Between you and a consumer, text messages, MMS messages with pictures or video, and voice messages display as single chronological streams for a realistic conversation flow. Separating professional and personal voicemail and messages is simple with the business phone number app.

Adapting to the Hybrid Platform

It’s simple to switch to a new platform if you already have a business line service provider. Local and toll-free numbers are accessible across all area codes in the United States and Canada, making it simple to port your current business number or choose a new one. There are a lot of wonderful apps and services for adding this functionality to your phone, and most of them will allow you to use your landline, VOIP phone, and even your laptop on the same platform with the same number!

When you connect a business line to your cell phone, you’ll get all of the fantastic features that traditional business phone service providers offer. Text messaging, auto attendants, call menu options, extensions for colleagues and team members, voicemail, and more will be included in your premium business package. Most services also include unlimited minutes and text messages as part of their pricing packages.

Small business owners and their employees can use virtual calling apps to talk and text with consumers from a business phone number, providing a professional and polished call experience. It’s never been easier to add a second business phone number to your phone.

Virtual Business Phone Numbers Can Be Used Anywhere

Modern workers can work from anywhere by adding a business line to their cell phone. Virtual local and toll-free company numbers work flawlessly across office phones, landlines, cell phones, and laptops using the same mobile app and web platform. While on the road, call and text clients, then return to your office phone or computer later. Small firms, start-ups, entrepreneurs, and remote teams can now access professional-grade capabilities that were previously only available to major corporations. These characteristics include:

  • Migrate your business phone number.
  • Use a new Local or toll-free phone number
  • Every plan includes unlimited calling and text messaging.
  • Use your personal phone first, then use your business caller ID to talk and text.
  • Business voicemail recordings with AI-generated transcripts
  • Customers and service providers will have a professional calling experience.
  • Assign extensions to coworkers and share a single company phone number.
  • When you are on the phone with someone else, you can join the call queue.
  • Keep track of conversations with shared notes and contacts.

Simple to Set Up for Your Business

LinkedPhone caters exclusively to small businesses, and setup takes only a few minutes. You can either choose a business phone number or migrate your current number. The mobile app gives your personal phone a dedicated business line. That means you can chat and text with your company phone number rather than your personal phone number, keeping your personal information private, and switching to other apps for personal conversations as needed. When you sign in on the web, you may also talk and text on the same platform from your PC or laptop.

This technology has the potential to save your company thousands of dollars on costly corporate phone plans. You won’t have to deal with your phone company or purchase any costly equipment. Your company number works with any desk phone, home phone, laptop, and even your personal cell phone, unlike typical business phone systems offered by large telecom corporations. The app provider handles all back-end hardware and software so you can concentrate on what matters most: building your business.

Keep Your Data Secure while Working at Your Home Office

Posted on by Aliza Betha
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With more and more coronavirus cases, companies have been encouraging their employees to work from home. Many of them noticed that there does not seem to be any sign of the situation getting better, so it is simply best to go with the flow rather than let the business fail. Many companies, such as the tech giant Microsoft, have openly said that they will allow their employees to work from home permanently, even after the crisis is over.

That is a significant change not only in people’s careers but also in their lives. Without a doubt, this trend is here to stay, and we should embrace it as what it is – new possibilities and a sign of advancement as humankind. The thing is, however, that such a massive change in life will bring even greater threats. It is also worth pointing out that we should not be using the future tense here as it is already happening.

Working from home is less secure

When you’re at your office, multiple IT people are continually working to ensure that everything is secure. That includes, but is not limited to, your computer, servers and, most importantly, networks connecting them. The problem is that you now work from home, so there is not anybody to help you with security. It means that you could potentially fall victim of cyberattacks much easier.

But how is it not secure

Now you might think, how is that even possible? If your employer lets you do this, then there should not be any threats possibly associated with it, right? Well, not really. In fact, there are so many cyber-related threats that the only way to avoid them would be to have someone overlooking you, as it is the case at your workplace. Otherwise, you’ll be exposed to a variety of attacks, most importantly network ones.

How does it work

When you want to connect to the Internet, you will most likely use a network to do that. It means that your connection goes through a router first, which then passes it further, ultimately connecting you to the World Wide Web. It means that the data you send and receive is transferred in the air. Therefore, that system makes it possible to intercept that data, and that is precisely how criminals exploit it.

Not only your data

Working from home, you have to connect to the Internet somehow, and that is when networks come in. It does not matter whether you got bored of working from your living room and decided to move spots to your favorite coffee shop or are comfortably sitting at your own home using your own network. You can become a victim virtually anywhere where there is Internet connection. Remember that if it is your company computer, the data that gets stolen is not yours and can be potentially worth millions of dollars.

How to protect yourself

While this threat is real and may sound intimidating, there is a simple solution to it, and you’ve probably even heard about it but still do not use it. It is a virtual private network or a VPN for short, and it is been all over the media recently, and for a reason. It is a convenient way to protect yourself from man-in-the-middle attacks and end this threat once and for all.

One extra layer

When using a VPN, you will connect to a server that can be located anywhere in the world. It will work as an extra layer between your device and the Internet, effectively making the data you send and receive invisible for those with malicious intentions. In addition to that, it will also protect you from other parties who might want to spy on you, such as your Internet provider or government agencies.

Best VPN software

With the abundance of everything nowadays, it might be hard to find the best tools available. Some are free, and some want you to pay, depending on what is available. The difference can be in the number of servers to which you can connect as well as their locations. In addition to that, some products offer extra features, such as data encryption, to further maximize your safety. That is why in the detailed review on NordVPN, you will find more information on one of the most popular software of this kind.

The bottom line

Just because there are threats does not mean you have to stay vulnerable. Even if you think you won’t need it as you do not use public networks, remember that your neighbors probably know you work from home and might want a piece of the cake. Therefore, it is good to always have VPN software on your work device as you never know when you might need it.