COMPUTER RESOURCES
What is the worst day in the life of a business owner? The computers go down.
We are in a world dominated by technology. For good reason. Technology is creating capabilities for doing work more effectively and efficiently. If you aren’t ahead of the curve, and your competition is, you could lose sales, market share, and profits.
There are a few very old rules in the automation game that some geniuses are forgetting to employ to their great loss.
There are a few very old rules in the automation game that some geniuses are forgetting to employ to their great loss.
-
You probably shouldn’t automate any task or procedure until you are doing that task or procedure very well using analog approaches. Bad methods speeded up spell disaster.
-
Back up everything. Whether you are working on your phone, your laptop, or an office system, you need to back up. If you are still using hard drives, back those up and back up in the cloud. If you have switched to the cloud, back up the cloud.
-
Assume anything you haven’t seen before is Phishing. I have recently received very official-looking emails and texts from Social Security, Apple, and Google that were definitely Phishing.
-
Use a different password for every sensitive resource. Never use birthdays, 1234, ABC, or other obvious, easy-to-remember passwords. Be especially careful about passwords that lead to financial information.
-
You must have firewalls blocking attacks on your website, office equipment, etc.
-
If you have employees, you must limit access to sensitive areas where they have no business accessing.
I’ve almost certainly left out some critical rules.
Please send your suggestions to RandyKirk77@gmail.com
There are a few very old rules in the automation game that some geniuses are forgetting to employ to their great loss.
​
-
Is it plugged in?
-
Reboot the problem program or app
-
Reboot the computer.
For most companies under 10 employees, the first step is to establish your order processing, invoicing, and all related bookkeeping processes on Quickbooks or some similar platform. Unless you or someone on your staff is an experienced expert in setting up such systems, your one-time cost to employ an outside expert will be money well spent.
​
As noted elsewhere, the creation of a CRM (Customer Resource Management) system is probably the next most important application you need to thrive in the current environment. Hubspot is outstanding and free, but there are many other systems to choose from.
Manufacturers, even smaller companies, are now getting great benefits from employing MRP (manufacturing resource planning) software. Implementing the necessary data feeds for this software will require most companies to become many times more diligent about counting things. But the output can save a company huge amounts of money through JIT (just-in-time) sourcing, labor management, inventory control, and more.
As a company hits 15 or so employees, it is often a good idea to have an (MSP) Managed Service Provider taking care of all the primary computer issues. These companies will recommend hardware, software, peripherals, and application solutions. They will provide firewalls, security, and 24/7 surveillance of your data flows. They will also set up methods to integrate office phone systems, smart phones, and home office computers with the main system.
An MSP should be looked at as a profit center, not a cost. They should be able to show you how their monthly fee is more than covered by savings through automation. These savings could include inventory, labor, entire staff positions not needed, reduction in errors at all levels, lowered costs of phone service and similar, elimination of cyber-crime, fewer hour or days of downtime.
​
​
If you liked this page, you're gonna LOVE:
​