Sometimes it’s not so bad to have your head in the clouds – especially if it means making your office run more efficiently.
Cloud technology has become a valuable tool for driving productivity and efficiency for many business operations. The Cloud is a great resource to save data in a secure off-site location that can be easily accessed from different locations on multiple devices. Below are just a few Cloud-based suggestions we believe can help make a small office more productive.
Back it up and forget it. We recommend using an online backup solution like Carbonite to back up your computer systems. For instance, Carbonite Pro offers a great solution for backup and recovery at a very reasonable price per year. Once the software is setup, it will constantly monitor your system for changed files, which will automatically be backed up to the Cloud. This way you don’t have to take time to save to an external hard drive or take other duplicative measures.
Furthermore, once your system is backed up you can restore one or all your files in the case of an emergency. Carbonite also provides file versioning that allows you to restore a previous version of a file. For instance, if you need a copy of the spreadsheet before it became corrupted you could find the version of the file that existed a week ago and restore it. This prevents you from spending time recreating the entire spreadsheet.
Bring it all together. Your business undoubtedly runs using several applications – email, word processing, spreadsheets and others. For ease and efficiency, you want to be able to access them easily whether you are in your office or on a mobile device. By far the most common desktop productivity software is Microsoft Office. Consider using an online service such as Office 365 to gain access to all the Office applications and personalized email services. This service also comes with a top-level spam and virus protection built in.
Office 365 has many plans available, some of which include full versions of Office and centralized Cloud-based file storage. Cloud file storage will allow you to save your files and access them anywhere using the OneDrive solution. Files saved in your OneDrive account also can be securely shared with your employees who are on the road, minimizing downtime.
Bar the door. There are several products on the market that automate the process of keeping all your desktops and laptops safe from viruses and malware that could cost you thousands of dollars in downtime. There are a lot of hackers and virus networks that are just waiting to infect unsuspecting users’ computers with malware or encryption viruses. Along with being a vigilant user, it takes several steps to ensure that your computer is a safe as possible.
We suggest utilizing an online service like Microsoft Intune or Sophos Endpoint protection that will monitor your computer for current patches and ensure that antivirus updates are always installed.
When you utilize a Cloud service to manage your systems, you are ensuring that no matter where the computer is, if it has an Internet connection, it will report back and receive critical updates, keeping your systems running at optimal levels.