Ingenious Ways You Can Improve Your Office’s Workflow Without Compromising On Productivity

As an employer, you need to make sure that your business has a smooth workflow. Not only that, but you are also responsible for your office’s productivity levels and how much your employees contribute to the company’s functions and overall workflow. Work can be frustrating for many of us, but there’s always room for office improvements that can help make the daily routine less stressful. This is why the top brands and companies integrate the latest communication methods and offer advanced training for their employees; There are many productive ways office environments can maintain a steady flow of work, including frequent training, establishing an organized workflow, and prioritizing difficult tasks, along with many other innovative techniques and ideas that can help improve your office’s workflow. 

In this article, we highlight the top ways you can increase workflow without overlooking your workspace’s productivity.

Become More Organized 

Whether you’re an employee or an employer, you’ll benefit from being organized in your work and in your life in general. Being organized helps make the business environment less stressful and decreases the amount of time wasted between daily tasks and work processes. If you run your own business, try to communicate the importance of organization with your staff and help them fix their daily schedules according to their specific roles in the company. Keep in mind that workflow automation may be able to handle routine tasks.

Make sure they understand that having a daily plan gives them more time to focus at the beginning of their working day rather than wasting time taking care of the mess from the day before. As a worker or businessman, you should spend at least 10 minutes at the end of your working day sorting through the papers and documents that need to be filed. Before making your to-do list for the next day, try to delete all opened emails and get rid of any papers you no longer need. While office organization does not just refer to how clean your office is, it’s important to eliminate any chances of wasting time looking for things in your office or computer.

Communicate Clearly 

Communication is the most important dynamic for the survival and success of any business. Communication in business means making sure that everyone in the office understands the processes and rules of the workplace. This is why most businesses and companies encourage their employees to maintain open lines of communication with each other to confirm the tasks they are working on and report their progress to management. It’s easier to get work done when everyone knows their role and their assigned tasks. On the other hand, lack of proper communication can lead workers to ignore important tasks — especially if they believe someone else is already working on them  Open communication also minimizes time wastage and helps to prevent employee errors. When you and your employees are connected, you’ll be able to track progress, ensure a smooth workflow, and monitor all tasks to make sure they are completed accurately and on time.

Enhance Your Email Structure

One important aspect of almost any business email services. Due to the frequent and essential use of email in the processes of all businesses, you need to learn how you can streamline this process and increase its efficiency. Emails – especially those going to customers and clients – represent your business, no matter how simple or repetitive the message is. While it may seem more efficient to send out mass emails of a repetitive nature, taking your time to learn how to connect with those reading your emails can have a significant, positive impact on your success as a business. Emails have special structures and key components that need to be included in order to build your business email message. Think of addressing customers by their name and always respond to emails, even if your reply will be short. Your clients should never feel like they’re wasting your time when reading an email or a reply from you, so it’s important to reply to their emails promptly. Make it a standard for your company emails to inform your customers that their feedback is appreciated and valuable to your business.

Make Use of Collaboration Tools

While email makes up the majority of work and business communications, it can interfere with your workers’ productivity. Emails help in the collaboration process between you and your clients and/or you and your employees, so they are a great source of communication;  they can also interrupt you every now and then and slow down your flow, affecting both productivity and income levels Sometimes, feeling the pressure of responding quickly to an email can prompt poor business decisions. Software specialists at DevOps suggest using cloud-based tools that can help you separate your emails and streamline the entire process. These tools will help you access all the important things in one place while moving the less important things to another place so that you can organize on the basis of your priorities. Using similar cloud-based tools can also help you schedule when to read your email messages rather than having to waste a lot of time going through thousands of accumulated email messages and notifications.

Encourage Breaks

It’s not easy for anyone to stay focused on a particular task for a long time.  Text messages, social interactions, and browsing the internet, along with many other distractions, can slow down the workday. Once attention and focus are lost, it can be very difficult to attain them again. Breaks help reduce distractions by giving employees designated times to think of something else other than work, giving them the chance to clear their minds for a while. As a business or company owner, make sure you encourage your employees to take their breaks. Your workers will be more able to concentrate on work tasks when they have time to rest. They’ll also work at a faster pace when on the clock. More breaks lead to increased productivity and concentration.

Keep Your Network Clean of Viruses and Avoid Breaches

Computer malware and viruses can sabotage your workflow significantly and lead to costly damages. Social engineering has the power to convince many of your workers to click on phishing links or reply to emails from scam cyber entities with malicious intentions.  It’s important to educate your working team on the risks of cybercrime. Give them proper instructions on how to deal with emails that contain phishing links and teach them how they can check the source of their downloads, links, and files before clicking on any suspicious messages or URLs. You can also seek the help of professional IT services and teams who can handle the technological affairs of your company on your behalf. Understand that viruses, phishing attempts, and data breaches of business social networks are very common. If any of your account data is leaked in a security breach that targeted one of the services your business uses, all of your other accounts and data are exposed to risk as well. It’s important for your business to work with an experienced IT staff to prevent such network breaches. Losing any of your company’s data or having one of your systems attacked by cybercrime can lead to disastrous consequences when it comes to your office’s productivity and workflow.

Tackle Difficult Tasks First

To run your business effectively, you have to come to terms with what you’re capable of doing and what you ultimately cannot do. Understand that you can’t attempt to tackle all of your work-related tasks simultaneously. You need to prioritize the important or difficult ones first so that you would have more time and freedom to focus on the other less important ones as the day progresses. When you start with the most important tasks, you’ll not only be able to give them the energy and focus they require, but you’ll also have a sense of accomplishment and the motivation to address less important, less stressful tasks as the day progresses. Aim to start your day with a to-do list ranked by order of importance and urgency. Checking off those initial tasks one-by-one will provide you with peace of mind as you work through the rest of your list. 

Regulate Frequent Training 

Employees’ productivity tends to decrease proportionately with increases in workload; the more overwhelmed they feel with ongoing projects and responsibilities, the poorer their work performance. When you provide your staff with adequate training and educate them about your company’s processes, they feel less intimidated by their pending workload and feel more comfortable and capable as they engage in daily work projects and assignments. Even if your employees are already trained in certain processes, going over the same processes again can answer many of their questions, prevent them from feeling overwhelmed, and encourage them to get involved in tougher work projects. Training provides essential knowledge to your employees regarding your system, company processes, and rules. 

Managing your workflow is very important for the success of your business. However, the toughest part is improving your company’s workflow without interfering with your office’s productivity. To promote productivity and increase workflow efficiency, you need to communicate with your workers and engage them in your business processes so that they feel less intimidated by their ongoing tasks and projects. Make sure you also find ways to streamline basic business processes such as emails and employee communication platforms.

How to Create a Successful Workflow Automation For Your Online Business

If you run an online business, you’ll most likely understand that automating your processes and procedures will help to scale your business faster. This is because there are a lot of moving parts in an online business, and if you don’t have a system in place to automate some of your tasks, then you’ll be struggling to complete them.

In this post, I want to share with you how you can put your online business on autopilot using workflow automation.

What Exactly is Workflow Automation?

Workflow automation, as the name implies, is the process of creating a system that automates all the repetitive tasks, procedures, and processes in your business. 

When you have workflow automation in place for your online business, you’ll achieve your goals faster. That way, you can improve your efficiency and focus on growing your business.

Why You Should Create a Workflow Automation for an Online Business

In case you’re wondering if creating workflow automation is the right thing to do, here are some benefits you stand to gain by implementing an automated system for your online business.

1. It enhances communication within your team

For an online business owner, chances are that your team works remotely. What this means is that you need an effective communication system to get things done.

With workflow automation, you can filter the information that you send to your employees so that they can get only relevant information, and also respond in real time.

2. It increases your team’s productivity

Chances are that there are repetitive tasks in your business. By automating these tasks, you’ll become more productive and achieve more in less time. Take, for instance, if you run an agency, you can automate the process of finding and doing outreach to qualified leads you want to work with.

So instead of spending about four hours a day on this task, you can reduce it to say one hour a day. The remaining three hours can be spent on other productive tasks that move the needle for your business.

3. It makes your team more efficient

If you want your team members to be more efficient, then having workflow automation in place will help you greatly. 

The reason is simple. While humans are prone to errors and risks, machines and software have minimal and negligible risks. That way, you can be sure of getting things done the right way, while your employees focus on things that require human engagement.

How to Create a Successful Workflow Automation for Your Online Business

Now that you know why having workflow automation in place is a good idea, here are the steps you can take to create one for your online business.

1. Outline your goals for creating a workflow

What exactly do you want to achieve for your business when you create workflow automation? This is the first step toward achieving success with this process.

When you have specific goals in mind, it becomes much easier to create an automation that matches and helps you achieve those faster. Take, for instance, if your goal is to enhance communication in your team, then you should outline exactly how you want to achieve that with automation. 

By outlining your goals, you’ll have a long-term strategy in place for your online business.

2. Identify repetitive tasks

Repetitive tasks are usually the culprits when automating your workflow. So you need to identify what these repetitive tasks are, how much of your time it takes to complete them, and the number of work hours you’ll save by automating them.

Take for instance, if you own an affiliate marketing website. One of the things that matters to you is getting more eyeballs to your blog. And to make this happen, you have to engage in some repetitive tasks such as: posting your content on social media, repurposing your content into other formats such as video, republishing your content on syndication platforms such as Medium, and reaching out to other relevant website owners to link to you.

By identifying these repetitive tasks, you can know exactly what to automate and what you shouldn’t.

3. Use technology to execute these tasks

Workflow automation will be impossible without technology. So the next step in the process is to find the tools and software you can use to automate repetitive tasks with little or no human input.

Take the case of a blogger, for example—one of the repetitive tasks you do is to reach out to relevant website owners to link to you. While it’s possible to get the list of websites that might be interested in linking to your content manually, it’s usually time-consuming and always prone to errors.

Instead, you can use SEO tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush to automate this process. That way, you can find more websites in less time, and focus instead on creating personalized outreach emails.

Show your employees how it works

There’s a limit to the number of tasks you can complete in a day, even with automation. This is why you need to show your employees how everything works, as soon as you’ve figured it out on your own.

One of the ways to show employees how things work is to record your process using screen recording software such as Loom. Once done, you can upload the links to a team collaboration software such as Google spreadsheet, SweetProcess, Clickup, and so on.

Alternatively, if it’s something you can explain with written content, you can easily do so via Google Docs, and share access to your team members. That way, they can execute these tasks, even in your absence.

Conclusion

An effective way to grow your online business and make your team more productive is to automate some of the repetitive tasks. In this post, you’ve learned the steps you can take to make that happen using workflow automation.

Optima Tax Relief provides Important Reminders to Taxpayers before Filing their 2020 Tax Returns

With so many tax changes that happened last year due to the ongoing pandemic, it can be difficult to keep up with all the updates in tax filing laws. Optima Tax Relief looks into tax updates taxpayers should know about and how to prepare to file their 2020 federal tax returns.

Choose Direct Deposit

It is recommended that taxpayers choose direct deposit when filing their taxes because it is the safest, most accurate and fastest way to receive their refund. Choosing to go with direct deposit means that individuals will have any tax refund electronically deposited for free into their financial account.

Eight out of ten taxpayers receive their refund through direct deposit because it is simple and secure. This is also the same electronic transfer system that is used to deposit almost 98% of all Social Security and Veterans Affairs benefits into millions of accounts. You can set up direct deposit through your credit union. We suggest Gordon Simmons Service Credit Union for all your banking needs.

Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) allows qualifying workers with lower to moderate income additional financial assistance. EITC reduces the amount of tax someone owes and could possibly give them a tax refund instead even if they don’t owe any taxes or aren’t required to file a tax return.

Individuals will need to first file a federal return as well as meet certain requirements in order to receive this credit. Taxpayers can utilize the EITC assistant on the IRS website to determine if the qualify.

Taxable Unemployment Compensation

Due to COVID, millions of Americans received unemployment compensation in 2020 for the first time. Taxpayers need to be aware that this compensation is taxable and needs to be included in their gross income on their tax return.

Individuals have the option to elect to have their federal taxes withheld from their unemployment benefits or make estimated tax payments. For those who don’t pay taxes on their unemployment throughout the year, they can expect to pay up after filing their 2020 tax return.

Interest is Considered Taxable Income

Taxpayers who received a refund on their 2019 tax returns may have also received interest from the IRS. The interest payments were a result of the postponed filing deadline of July 15 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2019 refund interest payments are taxable and taxpayers must report this interest when they file their 2020 federal income tax return. The IRS should send a Form 1099-INT to anyone who received interest totaling at least $10.

How Managed Print Services Can Be Beneficial to Your Startup Business

Managed Print Services (MPS) are programs provided by print providers to help you manage printing gadgets such as faxes, copiers, and scammers. The main objective of MPS is to improve productivity, efficiency, and information security.

As a startup business, one of your concerns should be how to minimize expenses and maximize profits. You will also want the business to operate smoothly without running into issues that affect the normal operations of the business. One way of achieving that is through managed print services (MPS).

Here are some of the ways through which Managed Print Services can be of great help to a startup business:

1. It Improves Efficiency and Saves Time

Have you ever thought of the amount of time used by your employees on printer-related tasks? The whole process of scanning, printing, faxing or copying documents using old hardware is tedious and time-consuming. This is without mentioning the time spend replacing ink cartridges as well as fixing malfunctioning devices.

But with a managed print service, most of those challenges are eliminated. Your employees can instead spend more time on other important tasks. All you have to do is to identify a reliable print company such as Konica Minolta photocopiers.

2. It Improves Productivity for your Business

As you get started with your business, you will realize that various departments will have their own distinct printing needs. After conducting an assessment of your business’ current and future needs, the printing company (through its MPS program) should be able to suggest a bespoke program for each department. This may include printing from off-site or mobile devices or printing of special documents.

Additionally, some departments such as IT will have more time to work on critical issues affecting your business rather than spending a lot of time monitoring and replacing printing machines.

3. It Reduces the Cost of Operation

Having an automated or cloud-based system is much cheaper compared to operating separate devices at a time. The good thing about Managed Prints Services is that they connect several devices to a single monitoring system. This ensures that there is speedy delivery and replacement of toners.

A proper print audit and assessment can help create ways of consolidating your hardware. After all, you will need a lot of space to keep devices all over the place. In a nutshell, MPS can help your business save a lot of money by preventing wastage.

4. Up-to-Date Security

Although technology has greatly transformed the printing industry, it has also brought a number of challenges. One of those challenges is cybercrime. Most traditional printing devices are vulnerable to security threats. Never assume that printing equipment are immune to online hackers.

That’s why it is important to conduct a print assessment to help detect any IP risks for your business. Most MPS providers have tailored print security plans designed to keep away online hackers. It is up to you to identify the needs of your business and choose an appropriate plan.

5. Environmentally Friendly

Every business has a duty to conserve the environment and reduce pollution to manageable levels. By going paperless and minimizing the amount of electricity being used, your business plays a big role in protecting the environment. An MPS package makes it easy for you to identify and determine print levels.

Bottom Line

There’s no doubt that Managed Print Services play a big role in the daily operation of most businesses.

As a startup business, some of the things you would want to attain include reduced operational costs, efficiency, and improved productivity among others. With an MPS program, your business is guaranteed of achieving some all the above goals.

How To Make Money From Your Website

Making money from a website is one of the oldest ways you can make money online. Even though this method has existed for many years, it is still one of the most profitable business strategies for making money online.

There are many different methods you can make money from your website depending on your niche.

You can either start a business website providing some kind of product or service to your customers like opening a subscription box website, or start a blog business that you publish content and run ads.

Since the blog business is most popular among entrepreneurs, in this article we will focus on all the different ways you can make money with your website.

Affiliate Marketing

Most people are surprised to hear that the biggest source of income when it comes to running a blog is earning a commission through promoting third-party products or services (affiliate marketing). The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you can earn by promoting any type of product that goes along with your niche.

You should start by finding a company that offers products or services that your target audience would love. After that, you should check if they offer affiliate marketing and sign up. Some industries like SEO Reseller use a different term but the process is the same.

All you need to do is add an affiliate link in your content mentioning their products or services and earn money whenever someone purchases something on their website through your link.

Ads

This is an old-fashioned way of earning money using your blog that still works pretty well. There are many companies that offer monetizing services like Media.net, but the most popular one that people go for is Google AdSense.

All of the networks that provide monetizing services will pay you every time someone visits your website or click on their ad. Usually, they will pay you commission per click or per 1,000 impressions. The amount of money you earn depends heavily on the competition and popularity of your niche, as well as the type of audience that visits your website.

On average, such networks will pay you anywhere from $0.2 to $15 per click depending on the preferences we mentioned before.

In Content Advertising (Text links)

There are many websites that make a lot of money by promoting other people’s content using backlinks. This is a strategy that you add a specific anchor text to your post and link that will lead to a third-party website. It’s important to understand How To Get High Authority Backlinks in 2024 because the algorithms keep changing. Further, the content must be informative and not promotional.

You can charge a fixed amount per link or month for example $40. The only issue with this method of making money is that you must find clients on your own.

So, if you want to build up your SEO you should find companies that sell backlinks, or if you want to make money you should find blogs or companies that want to buy backlinks. After your blog becomes popular, you’d get a lot of offers for promoting other people’s content using text links.

Subscription Model

The subscription model is getting more and more popular. This is a strategy where you limit the number of content people can browse on your blog. For example, you can add a premium subscription that will give your visitors access to all the content you publish.

In order to convince people to subscribe to your content, you should provide useful information that people need. In other words, providing high-quality unique content is crucial for making money through subscriptions.

Publish Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts can generate a lot of revenue. Such posts are a way of promoting third-party products or services in exchange for a fixed amount (usually $40 – $250 per post) depending on the popularity of your website.

Final Words

Starting a website business isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, it’ll take you years until you reach good search engine positioning, a lot of organic traffic, and a steady income out of affiliate links or traffic revenue. The most important thing when it comes to running a successful blog business is quality.

All of the content you publish must be high-quality and unique. Every business takes time, so make sure you do this right just so you don’t regret your actions later. If you take your time and do it properly, soon your website will grow faster than a winning horse in TwinSpires results list.

How to Create Business Strategy for Small to Medium Businesses

Many SME leaders don’t hаve a business strategy. In the early stages of business development, evеrything depеnds on prоduct and sales. We try things many times, succeed, fail, learn, test, and adapt. Rеpeat. It usually works, but sometimes it doesn’t.

As business extеnds and becomes more complex, the ability to rely on absolute determination diminishes As business extеnds and becomes more complex, the ability to rely on absolute determination diminishes prоportiоnately, mаking effеctive strategy and essеntial part of a businеss DNA. Make sure you also partner up with an insolvency practitioner, just so you stay away from debt. Howеver, the problem is that this strategy can be a rather abstract concept thаt is difficult tо put into practice, and many business leaders do not understand its value. For many, the design is the exclusive business area of the company.

Create your Design Principles

These are almost the core values of your business. Scalability, ability to enter new markets, speed to market new products, lean operations, agility, cheap base, investment in technology, investment in people, low working capital, high-quality products.

Understand your own Culture

There are simple culture mapping frameworks that can be broken down in about ten minutes. This is an impоrtant and often overlooked step in strategy development. A company usually develops a strategy that articulates what it should be and not what it is, either out of ignorance or hoping that the plan will change its culture. This can only lead to failure.

Develop your Strategic Goals

When you understand your culture, you can develop a goal setting process that will bring your culture to life.

The individual organizational culture will ultimately determine the plans to create individual OKRs, so there is no simple formula for setting them. However, one important goal is a financial goal that should be both quantitative and temporal – it does not have to be expressed as profit or EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) – for a newly formed company, it may be time to make its first profit or just revenue. The key is that it provides something tangible against which to set goals and measure success.

Understand your Customer

This is not just a requirement to get a good marketing strategy. It is crucial to creating the right business strategy. Everything you usually do in your business should be aimed at getting the customer exactly what they want, in the right place, at the right time. Robust customer journey mapping is an essential tool for achieving this goal. This should take into account not only the customer’s journeys to the place of purchase but all elements of your business, as well as how customers perceive your products or services, what they experience after fulfilling their order, etc. It’s important you know your target audience and what they will expect from your business. Demand forecasting will help you better understand your clientele and plan accordingly. This will drive your internal business processes.

Mapping your Processes

Without effective processes, it isn’t easy to provide a consistent customer experience or to work effectively. A useful tool for mapping processes is a strategy map. In simple terms, it’s a diagram that shows your organization’s strategy on a single page used for communicating big-picture objectives to everyone who has a role in the company.

In the end, while it may seem a bit reductive, if your business can achieve these two things, it should ultimately surpass them.

Design Management

Again, this may seem like one of those tedious things that is easy to get bogged down in, but without effective management in place, your strategy can easily get lost in the wilderness without you even realizing it. Effective leadership’s key elements are providing the right level of oversight and accountability that regularly reviews your strategy’s progress and manages risks and problems.

Design Delivery Model

The delivery model is how your business will provide excellent customer service, and therefore should not be confused with the distribution model.

Your delivery model is the interaction between your business elements necessary to provide that excellent customer service.

Marketing, finance, information technology, purchasing, operations, and supply chain elements must be considered and how they will interact and integrate. This will trigger the need to develop subordinate strategies for each. This is an important step that can be a little tricky depending on your business’s nature, so do some research before creating a service delivery model.

Design Organization

You understand what the organization you need to implement your strategy looks like is another critical step, not only for obvious reasons. First of all, it helps you define your talent acquisition strategy (growth vs. acquisition, etc.) based on your current organization’s skills and the skills needed to execute the plan. Second, it helps to prioritize your growth program. Few companies have the financial luxury of embarking on a wholesale workforce expansion, so identify those positions that will have the most impact, most comfortable acquiring, or representing a critical path.

Design Technology Stack

In today’s era, it’s essential to have a concrete plan around your technology stack. Consider bаsics such as productivity software (word processing and email), more аdvаnced aspects of cloud computing, CRM and marketing tools, and more complicated requirements such as ERP, end-user computing, centralized computing, networking, telecommunications, and managed print, development, and integration. You have a plаn in place before you stаrt can pay a lot of time and cost dividends down the track.

Design Information Requirements

First and foremost, technology, data, and information are all completely separate. Data doesn’t say anything until it’s turned into knowledge. However, identify the strategic KPIs that will help you measure your strategy’s achievement and the type of data you need as inputs to inform your business’s internal processes. Second, determine where the data will come from and where it will be stored. Third, determine how the data will be connected and processed to provide the information you need to make management dеcisions. In other wоrds, link your data to your stratеgic KPIs.

Dеvelop an Implementation Roadmap and Implementation

This is where the rubbеr hits the road. Develop and categorize all the initiatives needed to implement your strategy and identify the critical path (any sequence that can’t be rearranged without compromising the plan’s value). Prioritize your initiatives based on how much effort it will take to implement them and their strategic impact on your business. Identify quick wins based on things that require relatively little effort, and then prioritize implementation based on the most comfortable and most effective initiatives. Determine resource needs for performance and start executing the plan. Remember to provide stable governance to keep the implementation process on track.

So there you have it. Here’s how to develop and implement a business strategy.

Why Cybersecurity Is Essential for Your Small Business

Cybersecurity attacks can cause irreversible, long-term damage to your business, and no business is entirely safe from them. Even big companies such as Nintendo and Twitter have fallen victim to cyber-attacks. However, small businesses are uniquely at risk and will very rarely make it to the media outlets. Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that a whopping 43% of breaches happened to small businesses. Cybersecurity is essential for any business, however, it is especially important for small businesses, and here’s why. 

1. Small Business Cyber Attacks Are Common

It is easy to fall into the mindset of thinking, ‘Oh, it will never happen to me’ or ‘What are the chances it would actually happen to my business?’. Thinking like this is very dangerous because the chances of a cyberattack on your small business are actually very high. In 2019 the Keeper Security and the Ponemon Institute conducted a study that found that the number of small and medium businesses enduring data breaches had increased to 63%. This is a significant increase, as the percentage was 58% in 2018. 

By the look of these statistics, cyberattacks are on the rise, and their interest is becoming more and more focused on the smaller to medium-sized businesses. 

2. Small Businesses Are Vulnerable 

Small businesses are very vulnerable to cyberattacks, and the risk of an attack is increasing significantly. Ultimately, small businesses are more vulnerable to cyberattacks for several reasons. Partly because there’s less training on cybersecurity and partly because they have less money to invest in IT support and services that can help to protect them; having good IT support and services available to your small business are so important in preventing a cybersecurity attack. They can provide consultation, information and implement software to make your business more secure. 

3. Damage Is Harder To Undo

A cyberattack has the potential to cause fatal damages to small businesses. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency found that 60% of companies that experienced a cyberattack had to close down within six months following the attack. These statistics are extremely alarming for small business owners. Cyberattacks will not only cost your money, but they can cost you your reputation and the trust of your customers. 

A high percentage of cyberattacks take the form of a phishing scam, which makes the hacker send legitimate-looking emails and texts directly to their victims, a link that allows the hacker to steal vital information such as company passwords. Once the hacker is in, it is very difficult to secure your system without having to spend extortionate amounts. 

4. Cyberattacks Can Be Very Costly

Cyberattacks can be extremely costly for a small business, and a Hiscox survey has confirmed this in a survey that found cyberattacks on small businesses cost up to $188,000. A lot of small businesses simply do not have this kind of money, and so it is quite common for small businesses to go bankrupt after an attack. Even if you do not go bankrupt and manage to survive your attack, you will have a long road ahead of you trying to revive your business. If you look to investors for funding to help you, you are going to have a hard time convincing the investors that your company is secure and not a data-breaching risk. 

What You Can Do

Cyberattacks are very daunting to any business owner, but there are several things you can do to try and protect yourself from malicious hackers. Firstly, you should provide cybersecurity training for all your employees. This way, they know what to look for, and if an employee detects any kind of suspicious behavior, your business will be able to act fast and be able to stamp it out before the hacker gets in. Secondly, make sure you implement strong firewalls as a firewall can stop hackers from accessing important data on a network. 

Thirdly, make sure you use strong passwords! This is such an easy preventative method, yet people fall victim to using easy passwords time and time again. A shocking 83% of people use the same password for multiple platforms, and this is a hacker’s dream. 

If small businesses wish to succeed and stand out among their competition, then they should allocate some investment to cybersecurity. This doesn’t mean forking out tonnes of money, but more taking the time to implement easy measures that can have a big impact. As previously mentioned, a simple task such as using strong passwords can go a long way! Making sure your business is using cybersecurity best practices will make you far less vulnerable to what could be a fatal attack.

5 Business Expansion Strategies for Small Businesses

Start-ups and small businesses find survival challenging in the competitive market. For that instance, the company’s consistent and concrete growth is essential for survival in the competitive market. Bankruptcy is something no entrepreneur wants to experience for their venture. As 2021 unfolds, devising the perfect business proliferation strategy has never been more crucial. Last year distorted the financial projections and changed the ways businesses used to operate in the recent decade. The COVID-19 pandemic brought new challenges for both small and large companies and increased the importance of business expansion. Be it the digital transition or better customer relationships, the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down for small businesses.

With the government authorities easing up the restrictions, there are still various business expansion options for small businesses. Business expansion might seem like a difficult task, but it is not impossible for small businesses. Only lucrative business practices and strategies can push the company to expand and generate sales and profits. However, this expansion depends on the business’s financial stability and the competition in the market. With that said, let’s discuss business expansion strategies for small businesses.

Market Penetration

Market penetration is the first and most basic approach to expand your small business for good in the market. This strategy functions with your small business right where it operates. This strategy works best for scenarios when there are no other markets to enter. It means your business will focus on the single market with current products. The strategy will involve advertisement, price competition, product improvement, and promotions to pitch to the competitors’ customers.

Since this strategy will take head-on with your competitors, implementing multiple strategies can deliver better results. You will need to focus on increasing your share price. One approach to do this is by reducing the selling price of the products. This process is tricky, but it will help you penetrate the competitive market and widen your reach. Moreover, advertisements can also boost your small business with a sound sales pitch. The latest pandemic has forced both small and large companies to shift their operations online and maintain an online presence. Small companies must benefit from the online tools to reach their audience and engage them with your business.

Undoubtedly, they must utilize social media and various content tools to deliver value to the audience. Small business owners can publish webinars for the products and services of the business to attract potential customers. They can also employ tools like the eBook maker or YouTube transcription tool to convert these webinars into engaging content.

Market Development

Apart from market penetration, small businesses can also create their market by promoting their existing products to new customers. The strategy entails promoting the products and services among a new audience or a geographical area. It is because most of the time, small businesses struggle to expand in the saturated market. Generating good sales and profits in a saturated market is extremely difficult, thus providing limited business growth. The key is to create content for the inbound marketing flywheel and leverage it to expand in the market.

However, pushing your business for market development can bring desirable results. One of the prominent examples is Nike, which expanded to the international market in the recent decades with its unique marketing strategies. Small businesses must find newer markets to promote their products and services to develop their market.

Product Development

Another lucrative strategy for small business proliferation is product development. As the name implies, a small business can create new products or lineup to attract potential customers and gain a fair market share. This scenario works if your company has no new market, but you can launch a new product. Moreover, this strategy works best for small businesses with industries that compete with other manufacturing companies introducing new products. They can also add new features to the existing products to grab the attention of the potential market.

However, small businesses must respond to changing customer behavior and market fluctuations. Failing to acknowledge these changes can risk your business falling out of the competition. All you need to do is to perform the audience research and understand their needs and expectations from your company. You can also conduct surveys to gather the data. Only this way can you devise the perfect strategy and avoid failures.

Market Segmentation

Market segmentation is also a prime strategy to benefit your small business for expansion into a large market. This strategy involves running your business into smaller groups or segments. The market must base on the customer interests, location characteristics, and demands from your small businesses. Dividing the market will allow you to run the targeted campaigns, generating leads, increasing sales, and improving profits. As per the professional’s recommendations, this segmentation will occur on the market’s geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors.

This strategy is the best for those markets which are surrounded by big businesses. Moreover, the process of segmentation makes it easier to design marketing campaigns that meet customer demands. To get the most from the strategy, you will need to do your research for customer data to develop better customer relationships with your business.

Using Alternative Channels

Expanding the business products or market are some default strategies for surviving in the competitive market. However, going for multiple marketing channels as in this well-researched article can give your small business a competitive edge for sales and profits. You do not necessarily have to limit your business to brick-and-mortar style. Maintaining an online presence with the use of digital tools is essential to stay ahead in the competition. Professionals advise the use of social media to attract potential leads and convert them into prospective customers.

Social media is not only a platform to hang out with friends and family. It has become a platform for small and large businesses to promote their products and sell them to interested customers. Not just that, but your small business must also put email marketing to great use to retain the customers.

Final Words

Running a business is undoubtedly a rewarding yet challenging experience that involves special considerations, such as running construction leads services. The whole process of business expansion might sound overwhelming at the start. However, the creative strategies to penetrate the aggressive market are the only way to stake your profits claim. Since small businesses do not have enough resources, it is imperative to research the audience to achieve planned growth.

Top 5 Logistics Management Apps in 2021

The supply chain is a critical component of any economy. Only organized companies and logistics businesses can make it through seasons of high demand. You can achieve convenience and efficiency by using logistics management apps that help in your job. The apps ensure that information flows freely, is where it is needed, and there are no delays or complications with logistics.

Useful logistics management apps possess features that are hard to find in other kinds of apps. For starters, they have to process data on time and have notifications to keep everyone informed. It should also feature backups to avoid loss of data, and cloud storage makes this a possibility.

When shopping for logistics management apps, several features set them apart. It would help if you were keen on the features provided by each app to ensure that you only go for what will enhance your logistics work. Another essential feature to look out for is logistics customer services which should be able to handle high volumes of transactions with ease.

Best Logistics Management Apps

1. Logistics

The app ensures that all your warehousing and logistics needs are taken care of, and it is free. You can easily keep track of shipments, drivers, and clients in this app. Whenever you need assistance with your operations, this is the tool to connect all your supply chain connections.

Stay updated and plan better with this application, which also collects actionable insights and analytic information. Logistics companies can use the information to make improvements and upgrades to your strategy and deliver at scale. Geo-location features in the application ensure that essential tasks are completed on time with less effort. The app ensures that you are on track with everything delivery.

2. Scandit

Scanning barcodes is one of the everyday operations in logistics management. Older scanners tend not to perform as well as you might expect. The Scandit application turns your phone into a barcode scanner and even works in low light. Anyone can access the scanned data as it works across platforms. You can link the app to your information systems for increased efficiency.

While at the warehouse, keeping track of supplies and deliveries is made simpler by using the Scandit application to scan multiple barcodes at once. Its text recognition feature makes it useful for reading text items on ID cards, passports, VIN codes, and other labels.

3. Evernote

Although this app wasn’t designed with logistics in mind, its features suited the function. It is free and straightforward, with features that other apps can’t even come close to. It is a virtual notebook to create lists and take notes on the move.

The Evernote app also lets you save your notes and refer to them later on. This makes logistics management more organized. You will not forget a single thing in your operations. This is an application that companies need to keep everything on track and attend to all their customer’s requirements.

The app is available as a free app though users can pay for the app’s professional version, which comes at a subscription cost. The professional version features better utilities and can even keep backups of your notes in the cloud. Organized logistics management can take advantage of and benefit from this app in its operations.

4. CoPilot Truck

A navigation system for your track drivers is something to be proud of. It will positively improve your logistics operations’ effectiveness. It provides drivers with turn-by-turn navigation and makes use of information to create effective routes. This is the best app to get your supplies from one point to another in the most efficient way in a connected world.

Your drivers get safe and accurate navigation information while planning routes better to maximize your returns. Post-trip analysis of the routes taken also ensure that you improve gradually and achieve better results with your drivers. The CoPilot Truck app makes it possible for you to improve customer service on-time deliveries and precise ETAs depending on road and weather conditions.

The navigation is still operational even while offline and useful for long cargo hauls. Its design doesn’t distract you while driving. It uses real-time traffic data to avoid delays and reroute when the road conditions are not conducive. The app is affordable and can be used for an entire fleet.

5. GasBuddy

When transporting goods for thousands of miles, you will likely burn a lot of fuel. Saving a few cents on the way is essential in reducing your expenditure. The free application makes the experience of refueling easier and more cost-effective. Using it, you can find a gas station with the lowest prices nearby. This application generates data from an extensive user base to analyze prices within the defined area.

The benefit of this app is saving on fuel, and it helps to plan your routes better so that you get the most significant savings in the process. With the app, you never have to pay full price again. You also earn cash backs and other special offers provided with the app. The application gets you the best fuel spots along the way and has very reliable data.

6. Scalefusion

This tool is much more than a logistics management app, it is an MDM solution for logistics that helps the logistics industry amongst many others streamline the management of their diverse devices and endpoints. With Scalefusion you can push corporate policies on your drivers’ devices and ensure strict compliance.
You can track your shipments, minimize distractions in drivers and ensure corporate data security on the go. You can also leverage Scalefusion’s speed-based locking feature to ensure driver safety. Scalefusion is an easy-to-use platform that allows you to provision your devices over the air, helps you to be ELD-ready and minimize your device downtime with remote troubleshooting.

Conclusion

Logistics management keeps the economy on its toes with deliveries determining customer satisfaction and a company’s reputation. With logistics management apps, your company uses the information to plan better, deliver better and keep customers satisfied with your services. The apps ensure that everything goes according to plan. Nothing is ever forgotten when it is the client involved.

The applications are designed to assist with logistics management, such as navigation for trucks and route planning. Others are assigned the task of scanning barcodes and keeping the warehouse organized. Others save you fuel costs by choosing the best stations to refill. Some of the apps keep you organized with notes and voice dictation. These are useful apps that everyone needs for better, more successful logistics management.

What Are The Benefits of Online Learning?

The pandemic sure has caused a lot of negative things from health to even our country’s economy. But on the brighter side, it made us see more alternatives to our usual activities, such as forcing us to work and study from home.

However, many people are still skeptical about the benefits of it, particularly studying online. If you’re one who’s also dubious, here are some advantages of online classes that will help you decide.

Cost

One of the first things that most of us often check before enrolling in a school or university is their rates. Fortunately, online schools are more affordable. This is because academic institutions don’t usually need to produce physical learning materials that cost them more.

Since classes take place online, this means they don’t have to pay for their rent. Plus, they’re able to save more on bills and other miscellaneous fees. Compared to the traditional schools or universities, a student will likely spend only between $100 and $400 per credit hour on average for online courses.

Traditional schools, on the other hand, need to produce more physical learning materials. They also need a budget for rents, bills, and maintenance of their buildings. Hence, their rates cost more.

Efficacy

Many are also skeptical about online classes because they’re doubtful of their efficacy. But apparently, a study shows that it’s just as effective as traditional classes.

However, there’s a chance that it could be more effective. This is because online classes are more engaging. Plus, a student has more ways to ask his queries that will help his studies if he’s too shy to ask during class.

Safety

If you’re concerned about your safety against the pandemic, online classes sure are a great option as it offers no limits when it comes to location. The lesser interaction and contact with other people, the lesser the chance you’ll be exposed to the SARS-CoV2 virus.

Another good news is that you or your child is also safe from abuse in schools. Abuse can also happen in school. Online classes, however, helps in preventing it from happening as you’re safe from anyone you may do you wrong in school.

Schedule

Traditional schools have a set schedule. A typical day in a traditional school usually starts around 7 AM and ends around 3 PM.

But online classes are different. Sure, some schools also have a set schedule for online classes but you’re more free to do other things during class, depending on your instructor’s classroom rules. You can even attend your online class while you’re away for a vacation thanks to school class scheduling software.

Some schools online even allow their students to choose their schedules based on their availability. This works well, especially if you’re a working student. Check online coding classes for kids in Toronto

This kind of schedule also allows you to enjoy a study-life balance. You have more time to spend with your family or yourself, which helps make you grow.

Online classes sure can be daunting as we’re not all used to this setup. Many of us are still adjusting to it so it’s normal to feel skeptical about it but it’s something worth considering.

Top 10 Advantages of Microsoft Exchange Online

Some basic challenges with your current email service, consist of:

  • Ineffective communication abilities hampering productivity.
  • Issues about downtime and drains on IT time and funds.
  • Problems with compliance and data security. 

A trustful and robust official business email is a requirement for companies of all sizes. When our clients turn to us for help and support, we suggest Microsoft Exchange Online. 

Microsoft Exchange Online assists you to secure your data and keeps your employees connected with protected, reliable access to email, contacts, and calendars from any virtual device. 

Here are the top 10 advantages of Microsoft Exchange Online: 

1. Secure Your Sensitive Data and Notify the Users of Internal Compliance Policies with DLP (Data Loss Prevention) Abilities: 

Keep your organization secure from users sending sensitive information to unauthorized people by mistake. The new DLP feature in Exchange identifies, monitors, and protects sensitive data by carrying out in-depth content analysis. Exchange Online offers built-in DLP policies based on standards such as PCI and PII which are regulatory. It is also extendable to support other policies essential for your business. Apart from that, the new policy tips in Outlook notify users about policy violations before sensitive data is sent. 

2. Provide compliance officers to run In-Place eDiscovery over Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint – from a single interface: 

The ability to immutably maintain and explore data across your business is crucial to assuring internal and regulatory compliance. Allow your compliance officers to make use of the new eDiscovery Center to identify, analyze and hold your business data from Exchange, Lync, SharePoint. And, the data always stays in place, so you never have to maintain a different store of data. With the eDiscovery Center, you can decrease the expense of managing complex compliance requirements, while assuring you are prepared for the unexpected. 

3. Keep all of your essential data in one place with Exchange archiving, retention policies, large mailboxes: 

This allows your users with an in-place archive and large mailbox to provide them the flexibility to maintain email in their primary mailbox, or to archive items. With flexible and strong retention policies, you can handle your storage and compliance requirements – while preserving your user’s productivity. 

4. Allow your users to collaborate on projects, increase speed and communication quickly on teams they join, and share information easily: 

This makes it simpler for your users to maintain team and project communications. Enable users to see old chats and emails on a project as soon as they join, have access to the recent versions of their team documents, and access that data right from within Outlook. Your users will have compelling new tools such as Microsoft Teams to be efficient on their teams and you will be able to handle information in the locations that this information was supposed to be stored. Co-authoring, document storage, and versioning are given by SharePoint while messaging is managed by Exchange with a whole user experience within Outlook. 

If all necessary team members have access to the same information, communication, and collaboration can be taken to the next level. For many companies have learned that the command to enable editing the file did the trick when it came to improving their efficiency and communication. With features such as Microsoft Teams, users can quickly communicate with the whole team or a single member using real-time chat sessions, online meetings, and more – all from within Outlook. These absolutely essential communication tools mean that no matter where your team is located, you’ll be able to stay connected and get things done faster.

5. Block email threats before they arrive in your network: 

Exchange actively guards your communications with built-in defenses against email threats. Multi-layered anti-spam filtering is provided with regular updates to facilitate protection against increasingly complex spam and breaching threats, while multiple anti-malware engines operate to secure your email data from any kind of viruses. 

6. Give your users an instinctive, touch-enabled inbox experience on any device:

This allows your users to get more work done from anywhere with an inbox that provides a straightforward and uncluttered experience, where the important and relevant information is optimized for various form-factors. The same friendly design in the Outlook desktop interface has been given to the browser as well as mobile interfaces. 

7. Move to the cloud on your conditions with easy options including Exchange hybrid deployment:

Exchange gives you tools to move to the cloud on your conditions – either that is onboarding to the cloud overnight or managing a hybrid deployment with mailboxes on-premises and online to satisfy your business requirements. Allow your end-users a great user-friendly experience including scheduling meetings and sharing calendars between on-premises and online users and restrict user disruption when user mailboxes are easily moved across environments. Stay in charge of the cloud by testing out upcoming improvements with support for upgraded previews. 

8. Reduce the time spent on managing your messaging systems while keeping control: 

Manage powerful capabilities including Apps for Outlook, DLP, and site mailboxes in the Exchange Administration Center – an easy-to-use, web-based administration interface. Role-based access authority enables your helpdesk and specialist users to execute specific tasks that are surfaced properly in the Exchange Administration Center – without needing full administrative permissions. This instinctive and amazing experience benefits you to manage Exchange efficiently, delegate tasks, and focus on improving your business ahead. 

9. Customize Exchange by integrating appropriate, web-based Apps for your business in Outlook and Outlook Web App: 

Encourage your users to waste less time switching between apps and make their communications experience stronger with an extension model that allows you to allow easy plugin access across both the big client and web-based Outlook experiences. You can decrease complexity with single sign-on to multiple applications and protectively give access designed to assure only authorized users can use each approved application. 

10. Bring All Your Contacts Together:

People’s professional networks span many different areas. You will have the capability to allow users to bring their contacts in from different networks so that they have all their information in one single place. The exchange will even find the same person throughout all the networks and extend their information into one contact card, avoiding multiple contact cards with different information and duplication.

You can get the best affordable Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Pricing and migration services for exchange mailbox migration to office 365 and Microsoft SharePoint Cloud Migration at Apps4Rent.

5 Things You Need to Know About Effective Scheduling

You reach office early work till late hours; yet you find a lot of work pending at the end of the day. Does this happen to you often? May be you are not planning your day effectively.

Frequent interruptions, endless meetings, and all those last-minute urgent tasks keep you busy all day long, doing little to help you progress on the projects on your hand. This is why you need to schedule your time efficiently. Here are a few things you need to do to make sure you get the time you need, for completing your tasks:

Identify the Time Available at Your Hand

Finding out how much time you have available for your work is very important before creating your schedule. Yes, you may be dedicated enough to work beyond regular hours. Nevertheless, it is always better to be realistic. Consider the time that you need for your out-of-work activities before you start making your schedule. This way you will be able to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Prioritize Your Tasks

This is the most important part of scheduling. However, before you start prioritizing your tasks you will have to make a list of tasks that you need to complete for the day. You can use a notebook, your email inbox, or any scheduling app to create this list. Run a search on calendly vs chili piper before you select your To-Do app.

Schedule Time for Contingencies

No matter how well you plan your day there will be things that won’t go as per expectations. So unless you schedule some time for emergencies and contingencies you cannot expect your scheduling to be efficient. How much time you need to allot depends totally on the kind of unpredictability you are dealing with.

Make Space for Discretionary Time

Even if your schedule is jam-packed with tasks, you will have to allow some discretionary time to achieve your goals and deliver your priorities. Consider the kind of time you would need to achieve your goals and complete your tasks and then schedule these spaces.

Analyze your Activities

Once you are done scheduling all your tasks, analyze them and see if you can delegate or outsource any of these. This way you can have some time off your schedule to plan up other things. Also see if you can cut off any of the tasks from your schedule.

More than an activity scheduling is a process that will help you plan how you are going to use your time. It is the only way you can stay on top of things and control stuff that is happening around you. If you do it well, you can maximize your efficiency and keep your stress levels low. If not you will only end up wasting your time.

Thankfully technology has provided a number of ways to create and maintain our daily schedules at work. Explore your options and find out what best you can do to maximize your efficiency and utilize your time efficiently.

Steps You Can Take to Reduce The Effects of Digital Eye Strain

It’s no longer a secret that people spend copious amounts of time in front of their gadgets now. Ironically, you are reading this article from one of those devices. As with all things, too much exposure to your gadget’s screen isn’t good. More specifically, it can affect your eyes negatively.

Computer vision syndrome also referred to as digital eye strain, is a condition that affects your eyes after prolonged exposure to computers, tablets, smartphones, and other gadgets. This is the feeling of discomfort and fatigue that you get when using your gadgets for too long. How can you avoid digital eye strain?

Be Picky In What You Use

One of the best ways to avoid digital eye strain is by using gadgets and devices that are safe for the eyes. For instance, the monitors that you can view here are best for people that spend hours in front of the computer. These specialized monitors have a blue light filter which greatly reduces the stress put on your eyes.

Alternatively, you can also wear special blue light glasses or contact lenses from Contact Lenses Plus when using gadgets. Like the specialized monitors, these glasses have lenses equipped with blue light filters. This is the perfect investment if your work tasks you with sitting in front of a computer for a long time.

20-20-20

If you’re working extensive hours in front of a device, don’t ever forget to do the 20-20-20 rule. It’s very simple and easy to do. For every 20 minutes you spend in front of a device, you should rest and look at the distance – at least 20 feet. Keep your eyes focused on the area for at least 20 seconds.

This gives your eyes enough time to rest. Keep track of the time by setting a timer. It’s a 20-second exercise that does wonders for your eyes.

Maintain The Right Distance

One of the last things you’d want to do is get your eyes too close to the screen. Ideally, you’d want to maintain a distance of 20-28 inches between your device and your eyes. Whether you’re using a smartphone, a gaming device, a computer, or an e-reader, it’s a must to back away from the screen as much as you can.

While you are at it, you should also lessen the brightness on your monitor and devices. Pick the brightness level which is most comfortable for you. It’s not advised to pick the highest brightness possible.

Maintain A Good Posture

It’s also best to maintain a good posture while using these devices. As much as possible, make sure that your device is at eye-level. Looking down for extensive periods will also cause your eyes to feel fatigued. For computers, try to lower your chair so that you maintain your monitor at the right level.

It may not seem like a big deal at first but digital eye strain should be taken seriously. Not only does it affect your performance at work and studies, but it also affects your health negatively. Too much of one thing is always ill-advised so it’s best to control your time in front of a gadget’s screen as much as possible.

Digital Businesses turn to Third Parties for Proper Remote Support

Digital business is an inherently fast-moving industry, but the past few months may have been faster-moving than ever. As a result, business experts writing for the Forbes council suggest it might be time for many businesses to look to outsource their IT solutions, to help manage workflow and lend expertise. This input can help businesses to remain competitive while covering areas of their business in a safe and secure manner. Increasingly, businesses are turning to whole-system management.

Managing Secure IT

As a digital business expands, the infrastructure and tools it relies on are not always up to the task. This can lead to security and bandwidth issues, as critical business goes unanswered due to a simple lack of capacity. More seriously, this can cause security errors; the Russian SolarWinds hack was, according to NPR, able to sneak in on outdated and understaffed security systems. This is especially the case in rapidly digitizing communities; Nebraska is an example of where a historically rural community is starting to modernize as people adapt to urban living in Omaha. As businesses move to remote work, the communications and IT services Omaha require will have had a strong focus on security following the Nebraska Medicine incident.

The Security Question

The new levels of remote working pose a security question that is most easily answered through third parties. Governments globally are focusing on the overarching risks of cybercrime. In the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre saw fit to produce documents highlighting the risks of remote working to business owners. Outsourced systems, including larger-scale VPNs and institutions offering security services, provide good protection for these new risks.

Workforce management

A secure shield is one step of the way to maintaining a proper remote workforce, but having management tools in place to drive up productivity is essential. While statistics show that remote workers are more productive, using their flexibility to provide up to 1.4 more days of work per month, this isn’t always the case – and work can fall by the wayside in unmonitored cases. Once again, having expert third party advice allows employers to maintain proportional workforce control in a way that is safe and legally sound.

Between the use of proper IT systems, cybersecurity solutions, and workforce management, third party control allows businesses to focus on their product and growth. As remote working becomes more and more commonplace, these solutions will be ever-more important. For businesses, it’s a great way to ensure they stay profitable while doing the best by their day-to-day matters.

How To Keep Business Data Accessible for Employees

Data is a driving force of most business decisions in a company. The information that you store should be treated as crown jewels. You should put an effort to make it accessible for all the employees if you want to establish an efficient communication channel among all team members in your company and increase productivity,

Data management strategy is the key to success. Firstly, you must undertake a few steps to make your employees know how to access the data they need for work. Secondly, you must pay attention to cybersecurity and prevention measures to avoid data breaches and teach your employees about your company’s cybersecurity culture.

Make It Accessible for Everyone

There is a vast part of the society that suffers from various sorts of disabilities. It can be both your employees and customers who visit your website. In order to make the company’s data available for them, you need to be sure that your website is compliant with The Americans with Disabilities Act.

ADA Website Compliance regulates the rules of making the content you share or store available for those who have issues with screen reading. What’s more, it’s an official regulation. That’s why,  if you want to avoid legal complaints, you need to make sure that regardless of their disabilities, each of your employees can easily reach the information necessary for their work.

Choose the Right Tools

You need to find the right tools to make the company data as accessible as possible. It’s vital so that each company member can easily open and analyze them before making a decision.

Search for the tools like plug-ins for Google Analytics that can easily give you reports from the websites you host. The right tools can make the data available for each department. Your employees responsible for marketing might use them to the same extent as analytics in your company. Standardize the tools you use so that each employee has the same technique and your business is not fragmented.

Additionally, you need to choose the right software. One of the great options to make the data shareable is deciding on cloud computing technology. Plenty of companies store the data in cloud-based systems so that each employee has access to the information through various devices, such as computers, tablets, or mobile phones. It’s an extremely convenient solution, especially in the era of remote work.

Train Your Employees on Cybersecurity

Data management strategy also concerns cybersecurity. While deciding on giving your employees access to the sensitive data you store, you must be sure that they’re aware of the possibility of a data breach.

As already established, data is crucial to your company’s development and progress, so to avoid sensitive information being lost or stolen, make sure that your workforce knows how to protect it. Train your employees so that they wouldn’t click on suspicious links in phishing emails. Ensure that they use strong passwords and don’t share sensitive information. Warn them against using unprotected devices to work operations to prevent cyberattacks to the greatest extent.

Your employees need to be aware that handling sensitive data is a responsible task. You need to ensure they know what steps they should undertake in case of a cyberattack. Remember that even though some security prevention measures are evident for you, your employees might not be aware of them.

Organize the Data Management Process

Last but not least, if you plan your business data management strategy, you need to analyze your company’s needs. Determine which kind of data needs to be stored and organize them depending on their purpose. Remember that you don’t need to gather every single piece of information about your customers and competitors. To avoid a mess in the databases, establish the data-gathering plan that meets your objectives.

By creating transparent yet secure databases, you are assured that your employees would find useful information in a shorter time that contributes to your company’s efficiency.

Collect valuable data and prepare them so that they’re ready for further analysis. Categorize them and determine which one is structured and unstructured. Don’t forget to regularly inform your employees about the changes in your data management strategy.

Conclusion

83% of organizations see data as an integral part of their business strategy. Data is a knowledge base. You need to be sure that each employee knows how to value it and handle it correctly. Regardless of your business’s size, data management strategy is crucial for small businesses, medium-sized companies, and big corporations.

Remember that when you make your data accessible for your company members, you need to make it secure. Invest in data protection software, and create a data protection system that would be a standard in your working environment. Your data is too precious to get to hackers’ hands unprotected – any cyber attack might seriously disrupt your business continuity plan.

Effective Apps That Will Help Workers Monitor How Healthy They Are

It’s not enough to keep your employees happy with a good salary and amazing benefits. It’s also a must that you ensure that they are working under the best conditions possible and that they are always in good shape. A lot of companies tend to forget to manage their employee’s health but luckily, some apps are able to help those companies out.

If companies are going to make key changes in their work environment, then one of those should be with regards to employee health. Aside from offering good insurance and healthcare plans, companies can also try using a selection of health and wellness apps to keep in touch with their employee’s well-being.

Specialized Tracking Apps

Some industries should have better safety precautions than others such as the healthcare industry. Employee health in the sector is an even bigger priority now with the pandemic still active. Specialized tracking apps cater to the health monitoring needs of certain industries which is a must nowadays.

For hospitals and medical institutions, such apps are crucial to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19. At the same time, these apps help healthcare workers continue on with their job of treating the infected. These apps come with symptom monitoring features that make it easier for management to detect if something’s amidst.

Fitness Trackers

The best cure will always be prevention. In this light, companies should invest in organizational fitness trackers. These function similarly to any other fitness trackers. They take note of calorie intake, calorie loss, heart rate, and a few other crucial metrics on a deeper scale. Some apps even allow workers to manage their dieting habits.

Fitness trackers are a great way to boost one’s overall health and heart health. Employees don’t always have the time to work out and keep track of their health. You can encourage your employees to try out fitness trackers by giving them subscriptions to the top options on the market.

Trackers do a great job of measuring your movement. But care should be taken to fully understand how accurate is Fitbit calorie burn.

Fitness trackers usually go well with smartwatches. It might be a great idea to invest in these gadgets as well. Fitness trackers like Apple Watch are water resistant and are meant to be worn at all times to track your overall health and activity, which may leave you wondering, can you shower with your apple watch?

Mental Health Focused Apps

Health isn’t just about the physical aspects of the body. It’s also about mental health. Employees go through stress and fatigue on a daily basis. Poor mental health makes it harder for them to focus on work and become more productive. This is especially the case now considering that people also have the pandemic to worry about.

Mental health apps can help your employees effectively manage the other spectrum of one’s well-being. Aside from giving your employees access to mind relaxing puzzles, audio,  and self-help guides, these mental health apps can also check in on your employees regularly if they are undergoing something serious like anxiety or depression.

Being the top company is no longer about giving your employees the best benefits and healthcare plans. It’s also about making sure that they are fit and healthy all year-round. These apps are going to be great additions to your company’s healthcare plans and these also help you manage their health on a deeper level.