If your New Year’s resolution was to grow your small business in 2013, how's that resolution going? If you’re struggling to boost your small business’ revenues so far this year, it may be time for you to look to your IT department. Yep, it’s true: Your IT department provides the technical expertise to make your business more efficient. That, subsequently, can raise your employees’ productivity and improve your business’ bottom line. Here are a few tech projects that Small Business Computing.com suggests for small business owners who wish to see their businesses grow in 2013.
Bring Wi-Fi to your business
Maybe you allow your employees to use their own tablets or laptop computers in the office. This doesn’t mean very much if your office doesn’t have a Wi-Fi network. Small Business Computing.com points out that Wi-Fi networks today serve a multitude of devices, everything from tablets and smartphones to laptops, printers and cameras. If you want your employees to be as effective as possible, whether they are exploring new business alternatives or sending proposals to potential customers, you must provide them with access to a reliable Wi-Fi network. This is a task, obviously, that is perfect for your business’ IT department.
Ultrabooks
Your employees can do more if they can tote laptops to meetings with clients. Traditional laptops, though, are too clunky. And small Netbooks are often too slow and limited. Ultrabooks, though, are a different story. These laptops are both small and light enough to be portable, and powerful enough to allow employees to display multimedia presentations and reports to prospective customers. A great way to watch your business grow is to provide your employees more options for snagging new clients. Ultrabooks are one of these options.
No more Windows XP
Windows XP is a solid operating system, especially compared with the universally unloved Vista. But Windows XP’s time has come and gone. Microsoft will no longer provide technical support for the 10-year-old operating system come April of 2014. Plus the company will stop delivering security updates for the system at that time, as well. This means that it’s time to upgrade any machine that is still running this operating system. Upgrade instead to Windows 7; it’s one of Microsoft’s most popular operating systems.