Congratulations on starting your new business and beginning the journey of being an entrepreneur. While most of your time might be taken up by your lawyer or accountant, making sure your business has the right tax and legal set up, you definitely want to think about what technology needs your business will require and how to leverage it for success. There is no “one size fits all” technology solution for new businesses because each business has its own unique needs that will require specific solutions. These are some suggestions that every new business owner should keep in mind before or after starting their new undertaking
Hire a Technology Consultant
As stated before, new business owners often hire lawyers and accountants to assist them with opening and running their businesses. It’s becoming increasingly important to bring on a technology consultant to offer guidance when it comes to setting up your IT infrastructure, corporate security, website design services and offering advice as to what technology solutions you can use to deliver results. To pick the right IT consultant or consulting agency, make sure they are local or reachable, review their past work and give the relationship time to grow in order to ensure they are working in your best interest.
Internet Access
Duh of course you need the internet to run your business! However, you need to make sure you sign up with the right provider who is offering you the appropriate high speed access you need to run your IT services. Your VOIP, online backup, and other technology services will all depend on the strength of your internet connection. This is especially paramount if your business is entirely online, so make sure your internet provider is very reliable.
Website
These days, every new business needs to a website! As a new business owner, you need to select an IT company that specializes in website design services to help build your online presence. You can start small by building a digital brochure that introduces your business to world and then building from there as your business grows. With your website, you can integrate e-commerce solutions to sell products and services, add a payment gateway to accept payments from customers, have customers serve themselves and guarantee a positive experience, and much more.
A lot of new business owners don’t really consider this as very important but it speaks very highly of your company to have a professional email address with your business name. Having a Gmail or Yahoo email address is considered kind of lazy because your web-host can easily setup your company email for you as part of their hosting service. This is where your local technology consultant comes in to help set this up along with corporate email archiving.
Data Security
Data security is probably one of the most important services you will need to set up for your business especially if your company is in a highly regulated industry. You need to ensure that your data is secure and backed up regularly. A firewall and anti-virus will need to be installed, your computers and network will need to be sufficiently hardened, and a back up schedule and recovery plan has been put in place. All this can be handled by your local technology consultant. This must be taken seriously if your company is storing personal identification information and financial records, as this must be protected and stored properly to prevent hackers from gaining access and causing your new business irreparable damage.
