What are some mistakes business owners make when moving to a more centralized system?
First, they assume that not everyone in the company needs to be on it because not every job is computer-oriented. The fact is, everyone has to book appointments with someone else, and everyone has to send and receive messages. Everyone has tasks that he or she is doing, and everyone has a schedule. So the first mistake is setting it up for some employees but not for others.
The second mistake is thinking that it’s going to be a huge expense. Business owners think they’re getting a better deal by sticking with their free e-mail account, but that doesn’t offer the tools to process e-mail. Also, a lot of people buy an e-mail software program, and they pay as much for that copy as they would pay for a monthly service for a year. As a result, they don’t get the latest updates on the software, which really improve your productivity.
Finally, they continue to maintain a server in the office. With the hardware and the upgrades and the software licenses, that server is costing the average company $1,000 per year per user, versus a far lower cost for an e-mail service. If you’re using an outside service, that company is taking care of the management of the service, the backup and turning mailboxes on and off. People in your office maintain control over the system, but you don’t have the expense of owning the infrastructure. It really is a better way.
How can using a centralized service save a business owner both time and money?
There are a few examples. Imagine that someone tells you his or her phone number has changed. You put it in your cell phone, but it doesn’t sync back to your e-mail or to your way of processing e-mail. The next time you switch phones, you lose the person’s phone number.
The second timesaver is all the calls you don’t have to take or make. If your assistant needs to set an appointment for you, if all your appointments are in a book somewhere or are in your head, that person wouldn’t be able to do his or her job. With a system in place, your assistant can view your schedule, put something on it, and it shows up on your phone, complete with the attachments you might need for the meeting. As a result, it reduces the number of phone calls and helps you keep everything in sync.
There are a lot of those little things that people have to think to do if a system isn’t doing it for them. And when you take all of that into account, it saves you about 20 percent of the time that you’re in front of your computer or using your mobile device in a week. If you have desk workers at your company, that could save them a day a week.
Rich Cannon is an industry development marketing manager for Microsoft. Reach him at [email protected] or (770) 843-2126. For more information, visit www.business.comcast.com. Microsoft Communication Services offered by Comcast featuring Microsoft Outlook 2007.
