Tag Archive for Business Technology

Hot Business News Today

Why choosing the right broadband is essential for small businesses

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By Ben Lobel on Small Business UK – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Improvements in fibre

In recent years, general accessibility to fibre optic connections has improved, thanks to the national Openreach rollout. Compared to ten years ago, many more homes and businesses are able to access superfast fibre than ever, with gigabit broadband (1000Mbps or more) the next target.

Openreach has said that it aims to build Full Fibre to 25 million homes and businesses nationwide by December 2026, meaning that services are expected to get even faster for businesses that want to upgrade.

In the meantime, Openreach offers a postcode search service, which allows you to find the specific broadband connections that are available at your address or place of business.

The importance of speed to business broadband

There are still some small business operators who struggle with all facets of digital connectivity – a big problem when internet access is so vital to businesses of all types in our modern world.

It is crucial in such a landscape to get the right broadband deal for your business, and for it to be installed when you need it. A poor internet connection will have a serious detrimental effect on productivity, restrict

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Hot Business News Today

How to outsource software development and get outstanding results

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Originally written by arateg on Small Business
Well, you want to create an app or website to address business-specific challenges. Aiming to access the field-specific expertise of engineers and reduce costs, you are going to outsource software development. However, every C-level executive and business owner have common worries when delegating projects to third-party contractors located abroad.
How will I control the process of building a software project if the vendor’s team works abroad? How do I establish close collaboration with an IT service provider? In this article, we will play down seven fears that companies often have when outsourcing IT-related tasks.
Playing down 7 fears when outsourcing software development
1. I don’t have a clear understanding of how I will control the software development process
Before outsourcing software development activities, you should find out how an IT service vendor allows customers to manage their project. Assure the company provides daily and weekly reports that contain information about completed and planned tasks, deadlines, technical challenges resolved by the team.
Ask an IT firm to give you access to a time tracking system to estimate the number of spent hours and ensure correspondence with deadlines.
Hold video and in-person meetings with an IT partner. With daily project discussions, you

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

How to outsource software development and get outstanding results

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by arateg on Small Business
Well, you want to create an app or website to address business-specific challenges. Aiming to access the field-specific expertise of engineers and reduce costs, you are going to outsource software development. However, every C-level executive and business owner have common worries when delegating projects to third-party contractors located abroad.
How will I control the process of building a software project if the vendor’s team works abroad? How do I establish close collaboration with an IT service provider? In this article, we will play down seven fears that companies often have when outsourcing IT-related tasks.
Playing down 7 fears when outsourcing software development
1. I don’t have a clear understanding of how I will control the software development process
Before outsourcing software development activities, you should find out how an IT service vendor allows customers to manage their project. Assure the company provides daily and weekly reports that contain information about completed and planned tasks, deadlines, technical challenges resolved by the team.
Ask an IT firm to give you access to a time tracking system to estimate the number of spent hours and ensure correspondence with deadlines.
Hold video and in-person meetings with an IT partner. With daily project discussions, you

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

Top 5 CRM software providers for UK small businesses in 2021

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Originally written by Nick Ismail on Small Business
Check out this list of the top 5 CRM software providers for UK small businesses in 2021.
var appWikiRequestUrl = “https://appwiki.nl”;
 

How is this top 5 composed?
These CRM software providers are selected based on the business type for which they were developed, (expert) reviews and the possibilities and functions.
Important functions include identifying sales opportunities, recording service issues and managing marketing campaigns. The start-up time, ease of use and support were examined in the expert reviews.
Choice for CRM software: what should I take into account?
The range of CRM systems is wide. How do you make a wise choice? There are a number of things that you have to take into account when choosing.
1. CRM type or purpose
In general, you could define five types of CRM systems: Sales, Client Management, Marketing, Customer Support or multi-function (integrating different customer processes). The first question you should ask yourself is; what is the main goal or purpose of a new CRM system?
2. Customer processes
Next you have to define which customer processes you want to facilitate with the CRM software. You may think of sales, customer support, marketing but also project management, invoicing and time tracking.

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Hot Business News Today

Top 5 business software providers for UK small businesses in 2021

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Originally written by Nick Ismail on Small Business
Check out this list of the top 5 business software providers for UK small businesses in 2021.
var appWikiRequestUrl = “https://appwiki.nl”;
 

How is this top 5 composed?
These business software providers are selected based on the business type for which they were developed, (expert) reviews and the possibilities and functions.
Important functions include identifying sales opportunities, recording service issues and managing marketing campaigns. The start-up time, ease of use and support were examined in the expert reviews.
Choice for business software providers: what should I take into account?
The range of business software systems is wide. How do you make a wise choice? There are a number of things that you have to take into account when choosing.
1. Your business processes
Start by defining which business processes should be facilitated by the software. Is it for example finance, sales, human resources or customer service? The list of processes will give you a good understanding of what type of business software you need.
2. Number of invoices and offers
Take a good look at the number of invoices and quotations that can be created and sent within the program. With a number of providers this is limited and

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Hot Business News Today

Facebook Disabled Me – how to avoid being locked out of your business account

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites in the world, is full of pages and accounts run by small business owners.
In 2019, there were over 90m small businesses on Facebook worldwide. These businesses can post updates, list contact details and services, allow customer reviews, place job adverts and create an online shop.
However, the hashtag #facebookdisabledme has grown on Twitter with frustrated Facebook users unable to access their accounts, their business pages and their ad accounts. Multiple petitions have been created asking Facebook to change how they review accounts and to lift bans on locked-out users.
Facebook’s account reviews are run on artificial intelligence (AI) which favours broad identifiers and lacks nuance. The customer service side is also reliant on AI so when businesses try to get in touch with a human at Facebook to resolve the issue, they can’t.
Users of the platform have bemoaned a lack of transparency and no clarification as to why an account or page has been disabled. It can take months to get these accounts reinstated and even then, they may be disabled again days later.
Having your personal account disabled is aggravating, but for small business owners the

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Hot Business News Today

Facebook Disabled Me – how to avoid being locked out of your business account

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites in the world, is full of pages and accounts run by small business owners.
In 2019, there were over 90m small businesses on Facebook worldwide. These businesses can post updates, list contact details and services, allow customer reviews, place job adverts and create an online shop.
However, the hashtag #facebookdisabledme has grown on Twitter with frustrated Facebook users unable to access their accounts, their business pages and their ad accounts. Multiple petitions have been created asking Facebook to change how they review accounts and to lift bans on locked-out users.
Facebook’s account reviews are run on artificial intelligence (AI) which favours broad identifiers and lacks nuance. The customer service side is also reliant on AI so when businesses try to get in touch with a human at Facebook to resolve the issue, they can’t.
Users of the platform have bemoaned a lack of transparency and no clarification as to why an account or page has been disabled. It can take months to get these accounts reinstated and even then, they may be disabled again days later.
Having your personal account disabled is aggravating, but for small business owners the

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

Call for digital adoption fund to boost small business productivity

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Tech start-ups have called for a digital adoption fund to help small businesses upgrade to digital technology.
Adopting digital technology has long been seen as key for the UK to boost its woeful productivity levels.
One in three small businesses – those with fewer than 250 employees – cite cost as the biggest barrier to them adopting digital tech, whether it’s video conferencing such as Teams or Zoom, customer relationship management software such as Salesforce or enterprise resource planning like Oracle Netsuite.
See also: Best UK small business accounting software 2020 – review guide
The digital adoption fund would be based on Singapore’s “SMEs Go Digital” initiative, which offers grants covering over two thirds of what small businesses spend on digital tech. The proposed UK version of the scheme would cover 70 per cent of what it costs to upgrade capped at £22,500 per company.
The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) report says such a digital adoption fund would close the gap between Britain’s most productive larger companies and the long tail of its unproductive SMEs.
If SMEs were to match the productivity levels of their larger cohorts, it would boost GDP by £92bn.
And if the UK’s 1.1m

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Hot Business News Today

Call for digital adoption fund to boost small business productivity

by  •  • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Tech start-ups have called for a digital adoption fund to help small businesses upgrade to digital technology.
Adopting digital technology has long been seen as key for the UK to boost its woeful productivity levels.
One in three small businesses – those with fewer than 250 employees – cite cost as the biggest barrier to them adopting digital tech, whether it’s video conferencing such as Teams or Zoom, customer relationship management software such as Salesforce or enterprise resource planning like Oracle Netsuite.
See also: Best UK small business accounting software 2020 – review guide
The digital adoption fund would be based on Singapore’s “SMEs Go Digital” initiative, which offers grants covering over two thirds of what small businesses spend on digital tech. The proposed UK version of the scheme would cover 70 per cent of what it costs to upgrade capped at £22,500 per company.
The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) report says such a digital adoption fund would close the gap between Britain’s most productive larger companies and the long tail of its unproductive SMEs.
If SMEs were to match the productivity levels of their larger cohorts, it would boost GDP by £92bn.
And if the UK’s 1.1m

Read more...

Hot Business News Today

The best free online survey platforms for small businesses

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Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
An online survey can be a useful way to connect with your customers while learning more about their likes and interests.
They go way beyond SurveyMonkey, with plenty of platforms offering creative, fun and interesting poll building services. Use them to assist in product development, measure customer satisfaction, establish market trends or test a campaign.
Key survey features which can help your business
If you’re new to survey tools, you may not know which features to look out for – but some of these might swing your decision.
Common features include:

Question types
Options to skip
Data export
Customisation
Reporting and analytics
Automatic data collection
Embedding
Surveys in different languages
App integration – Salesforce, Google Sheets, Google Docs, HubSpot, MailChimp
Email marketing
Branching/skip logic – the ability to move respondents to a different question or page based on their response to a certain question
Customisable company branding

What to be aware of
The only real limitations to be aware of are the features that you can’t get in the free version. On some platforms there’s little difference between the free and premium versions whereas others are stingy in their free offering.
We’ve included some of the features in the paid-for versions to give you an idea of how generous the free versions

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