This article is part two of a three part series where we outline steps to take to help you achieve cohesion with your business technology. By following the steps outlined, you should see a dramatic increase in the stability and flexibility of your computers and equipment, freeing you up to focus on more important matters. Click here to read part one and part three of the series.
Part one of this series examined the critical areas of your business which should be in place to help you achieve peace and relaxation with your business. If you have not read part one, please do so now before continuing.
Aside from stabilizing your systems, and having backups and redundancies in place, there are a few more areas of your technology that can help you achieve a more cohesive relationship with your business.
3. Automate and Streamline Where Possible
Another way to achieve peace and relaxation with your business is to let your computers and equipment handle most of the work when possible. Often, this means automating and streamlining processes. There are many ways to do this, and depend on your individual company’s needs and setups.
Let’s imagine that one of your processes involves needed to approve a paid invoice. With the current process, the invoice is scanned and added to the client’s file, the invoice is paid, printed, and stamped approved by the financial person. Then, the item must be authorized by upper management, and rescanned back into the client’s file, with all the proper signatures on it. The old original scan is deleted, and the process is complete.
With this process, extra time is wasted with scanning, printing, rescanning, and chasing down people for authorization signatures. Instead, the process could be streamlined by scanning it into the system, and setting up signature stamps, so that it can be signed electronically. Then, instead of scanning, printing, and rescanning, the document is scanned once. It is paid, and stamped by the financial person as complete. Then it can be forwarded via email, or a notification sent through your system, to tell upper management to approve the expense.
By streamlining processes, you eliminate the back and forth, the waiting, and the time wasted recombining files, or cleaning up copies that no longer need to live in the clients files. Additionally, this saves time, allowing staff to process a larger volume of work in the same amount of time.
Again, this is only one example of how processes can be streamlined. It is even better if they can be automated, and completely handled by the computer. However, the extent to which this can happen largely depends on your equipment and current setup.
4. Remote Access
One of the biggest ways to achieve peace and relaxation with your business is by allowing remote access into the office. Remote access involves using either a terminal server, or Remote Windows Workplace, or some other remote software, to access the computers in the office securely, from a remote location.
By allowing remote access to the office, it is easier to access files and important information when you need them. Instead of getting to meetings only to discover you’re missing an important file, you can simply log in and access what you need, without having to reschedule.
While there are many benefits of remote access, some benefits include reducing overhead by having remote employees, giving employees flexibility by allowing them to work from home, being able to take your business anywhere, and more. In this day and age, if your office doesn’t allow remote access, you are missing out on a valuable piece of technology.
While these aren’t the only ways to achieve peace and relaxation with your business, these suggestions go a long way to helping you enjoy your technology more, through automation and remote access. Start assessing your current setup in these areas. Then, stay tuned for the final part of our series, to see what else you can do with your technology to achieve peace and relaxation with your business.