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How third-party services can save your business money

Starting a small business is hard enough, but keeping one going in the current climate can be extremely difficult. Obviously experiences vary from industry to industry, but the difficulty in obtaining credit, securing larger clients and maintaining cash flow are fairly common themes.

However, outsourcing some operations to third party suppliers can result in savings - both financially and in terms of man hours. Here, we look at how managed VoIP and data storage solutions can save business owners some cash.

VoIP

Installing your own internal phone system involves setting up a private branch exchange in the office, then connecting all your hardware to it. This means up-front set-up costs, and regular time and money being spent on maintenance of the system. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), on the other hand, uses a virtual web system, and all you have to do is sign up with a provider and then connect your phones to your web service. All the setup is done by the hosting company, and maintenance is virtually non-existent. Then when it comes time to upgrade, that is covered under your service contract too, while those working off-site will receive the same level of service if you’re using a web-based phone system. One simple monthly payment and it’s all taken care of; compare that to setup maintenance and upgrade costs for hosting your own system and you should find that VoIP services represent a big saving.

Data centres

Data loss can be catastrophic for small businesses - the downtime and loss of client confidence which can result from them can be too much for a company working on a small budget. That’s why backing up data is so important, but again, there is plenty of money and man-hours involved in doing this yourself. You need suitable storage devices, must regularly update the backup drives and devote space to storing them safely. Then should they fail, you need to retrieve the data, replace the drives and start again. With an online backup service, all your data is kept in one secure location. If you use a specialist provider such as InTechnology, then you can be confident in the safety and security of your data - companies like this can only exist if they have a reputation for safeguarding the information they are given.

Using an online data storage centre will involve a regular payment, but there are none of the setup and maintenance costs you get by having to store the information on-site. And for many small companies, having a regular, fixed payment on the monthly outgoings is far preferable to unanticipated larger costs cropping up at inopportune moments.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jordan Peck .