Running a company can be hugely rewarding; plus you're doing your bit to help our economy. But there are also long hours of hard graft, with nobody to fall back on. You're in charge of sales, accounts, customer service, everything!
If you're going to be so busy, why bother worrying about technology? It might be pretty low on your list of priorities, but in the past twenty years, nothing has been more effective than technology in helping small businesses compete and find their markets. And here's why.
Tech gives you customers and a competitive advantage. It enables you to find new customers with a website (try Office 365 Small Business Premium for elegant modern websites which also link with a couple of clicks to Twitter, Facebook and other social media). It also helps you to advertise economically online (check out Bing Ads) and market to existing customers with newsletters.
It buys you time. From generating invoices to managing customer lists, anything you need to do regularly becomes faster with a leg-up from technology. Speeding up day-to-day management, and the processes you put in place, is something which small businesses need even more than their larger cousins.
With the right technology, you can work anywhere. When you're starting out, the office is never closed. With a smartphone and a laptop, business can happen on your sofa just as effectively as in the office. Plus, with petrol and rail prices on an ever-upward spiral, you'll also be kitted out for web-meetings and conference calling (take a look at Skype and Lync).
How Charbrew used IT to thunder past the competition
One entrepreneur who has taken all this to heart is Adam Soliman, CEO of award-winning specialist tea traders, Charbrew. From a standing start at farmers' markets, by 2010, he had a national distribution contract with Lakeland, and his products can now be found in major retailers like Sainsbury's and Ocado, right across Europe. He has moved from a back-room to packing and warehousing facilities in both the UK and Sri Lanka, serving a global client base – all with only two full-time staff.
Soliman says, "I couldn't have moved this fast without the right technology. As a small company, I do everything. I'm on the road all the time. Technology, for me, is about being able to have that presence in the office without actually having to be there.
"With Skype, I can keep proper personal relationships with people on the other side of the world. And we have Office 365 so I can store and transfer files to any device, wherever I am. Practically every day, I fire off presentations to people from my phone, or pick up accounts in a coffee shop.
"It's the difference between successful sales and missed opportunities. Yesterday I met a new buyer at a major chain. She wanted priority treatment for an immediate order. Within 8 hours, even though I was out of the office, I had reliable stock and pricing information, and the order was made. That's just invaluable.
"Similarly, another buyer in the US wanted us to re-design the product packaging - to include some rather fetching Union Jacks! We collaborated on designs, modified the packaging, fixed a price point and closed a 19,000 unit order in under a month. Technology makes our business agile, responsive, and global.
Smart advice for smart buyers
Better still, the kit you need for this sort of competitive advantage is as off-the-shelf as a box of cornflakes. Here is our best-practice advice for getting the best value in technology for your business:
Buy for the business . Whilst the days of the "big tie and dodgy aftershave" salesman are long gone, it's tempting to get sidetracked into buying things you don't need. Buy computers, extra hardware, software and services only because they will deliver a specific benefit to the business. Don't buy just because it looks good or feels prestigious: your new business is king, and it needs to be king on a shoestring.
Keeping costs down brings us to the cloud; the biggest step-change in the way you buy and use business technology for half a century. In short, instead of buying software outright, with the cloud you use services delivered online, on a pay-as-you-go basis. That means no upfront hardware or software purchase costs, no complex licensing agreements (or over-paying for stuff you don't use), and a tap you can turn up when times are good or throttle back when you need to make savings.
Furthermore, since your provider takes care of all the IT (hardware, backups, security etc.), you can get on with the more important stuff – like running the business. Says Soliman, "We used to have a server in the office, and an IT Support contract, too. Now that we have moved to Office 365, we're saving hundreds of pounds each month, and we can scale up and down at will."
Soliman isn't alone – the number of small businesses using the cloud is set to triple in the next three years, and Microsoft's SMB Business in the Cloud 2012 study reports that "cloud computing has become the secret weapon for small and medium-sized businesses". With the latest version of Office 365 Small Business Premium, you don't even have to choose between cloud and desktop software: as well as all of Microsoft's cloud services, it includes a full desktop installation for up to five PCs and a mobile user.
Finally, think about tomorrow . It's easy to make decisions based on your immediate needs, but they will change – fast! You should invest in systems today which are resilient enough to grow with you, and which will work seamlessly with any future systems you buy. Soliman says, "We use Office 365 for all our email services, file storage and management tools, too. We know it works today, but with our rate of growth, it's of great value to know that it's compatible with the tools we may buy into tomorrow." As Office 365 Small Business Premium blends desktop and Cloud deployment seamlessly, you'll always have the latest desktop software at your fingertips.
Why trust Microsoft
We already support over 20m businesses – and one billion customers – in the Cloud.
Nobody offers a wider range of interconnected and compatible devices and services (Office 365, Lync, Dynamics CRM Online) which add value straight out of the box.
Microsoft invests constantly in research. The company is a founding member of the the Anywhere Working initiative : helping companies use remote working to benefit productivity and the bottom line.
Copy on this page is provided by Microsoft, supporter of the cloud hub
