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6 Points and Resources to Virtualize Your Office

by Max Brackett on 12/11/2011

Our goal is to virtualize the most cost effective way while being able to provide superior customer service that can scale. If you ever plan to have more than three clients, you really need to be able to scale. I have encountered quite a few small and medium businesses that have much higher overhead than they would have needed if they had plan to scale in the beginning. The most common barrier to scaling has been the use of Excel and choosing systems they cannot automate data flow. Excel is a great way to prototype a tool and for needs analysis. Excel best practices use is for reports and calculations.

  • Systems

    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online – only $44 per user per month
      Dynamics CRM 2011  is the most robust and beautiful CRM system that I’ve ever seen. In the past, I have always been a big build it in-house to get it right believer because of so many products failing on some major functionality point. CRM 2011 gives businesses an easy way to customize for their needs. The key take away here is the one point of data entry that can feed other third party tools and in-house databases. If you have more than 20 people, you should seriously consider hosting this on-premise.
    • Google Apps $5 per user per month
    • Office 365 starting at $6.75 & up per user per month
    • Hostgator website and email hosting starting at about $4/month, and they have all the way up to VPS hosting and dedicated servers
    • WebCRMFree.com – a free CRM system that operates like a spreadsheet that I built for a few different clients I have, I plan on doing a lot more with it as I get feedback from the current users.
    • WindowsAzure.com Microsoft’s cloud hosting for .NET programs and SQL Server

  • Hardware

  • Communications

    • Skype Microsoft recently purchased Skype. I am looking for some very cool integration with other Microsoft products
    • Vonage I use to use Vonage for my home line, it was great. The only reason why I got rid of it was because we never used it.
    • CaaS: Communications as a Service
    • Using any of the above, your employees will have to have at least a high speed cable modem, fiber connections are preferable because the speed is solid unlike the fluctuations of cable modems
    • Google Talk, Windows Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger for instant messaging

  • File Sharing

    • If you’re using Google Apps or Office 365, they provide online file storage
    • DropBox.com 2 GB of free online backup, syncing files between multiple PC’s, and sharing. 50 GB for only $10/month
    • Egnyte.com Starting at $25/month for 5 power users, 100 standard users, up to 150 GB of online storage, and is the easiest way to transfer files securely over the web without the need for the IT Department to get involved, basically it’s Online FTP

  • Training

    • You cannot neglect training if you want to succeed
    • Lynda.com Unlimited monthly training for as low as $25/month, hundreds of software video tutorials from beginner to expert. Check out their titles! Adobe, Apple iPhone, Autocad, Microsoft, and much more.
    • TrainingSpot.com A lifetime membership for $99 is hard to beat. This is a great resource for developers.
    • LearnVisualStudio.net Another developer resource specifically for Visual Studio, the tool created by Microsoft to program for the .NET framework – Lifetime membership only $140.
    • Audible.com As low as $14.95/month with a huge selection of the best business audiobooks available
    • ASP.net a free resource focused on ASP.NET, with links to downloads from Microsoft’s free Express tools

  • Conference Rooms

    • StarBucks, local coffee shops, and any restaurant with WiFi
    • Regis Office Centers or similar office suite providers – These are great because you can have an official office that is shared between your team, typically a receptionist to answer phones, and conference rooms available. If you’re in the Bradenton area, be sure to check out the Pinnacle Business Suites at 345 6th Ave W. near downtown.
If you virtualize be sure to have a company meeting about every three to four weeks, and set aside a budget for your teams to get together somewhere weekly because to build a cohesive and effective team, you’ll need to have face to face interaction.

Tagged as: hosting, office, resources, systems, training, virtual

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