With the right technology, even a small business owner can begin to operate like a senior executive at a large corporation.
“Business owners don’t need more e-mail,” says Rich Cannon, industry development marketing manager for Microsoft. “What they do need is a better way to process it. The problem is, a business owner gets 200 e-mails a day, and there are three in there that will kill the business if they’re not processed. Then there are another 197 that if they get to, great, and if they don’t, it’s still OK.”
Smart Business spoke with Cannon about how the right technology can save you both time and money.
Why should a company have all of its technology streamlined?
E-mail is really the primary way that business owners deal with their customers and their vendors. And you can choose from among all kinds of free e-mail providers, but how are you going to process that e-mail?
You have all this information coming at you, but there are tools that every business can leverage to make it more productive and make its employees more productive. If someone asks you if you can do an appointment, the information is there, you have a task list that you can put it on, and all of that synchronizes with your mobile device.
Now if other people in your office are trying to book an appointment, they don’t have to call you. They can see your schedule and book a time that’s convenient for you, which reduces the number of e-mails and voice mails you’re going to get.
How can business owners get started coordinating their company’s technology?
Most businesses have e-mail of some sort, but one person may have one free service, while another has e-mail through his or her broadband server. So putting everyone on a common system is the place to start.
With the right provider, you’ll get help going through the conversion from whatever each individual was using before onto a system whereby everyone can see one another’s appointments. Once everyone is on a common system, the provider can also help you get your mobile device activated and connected into that system so that you can get everything that is on your desktop on your phone.
