New Technologies To Introduce To Your Business Or Workplace January 8, 2018Featured, My Business, My CareerOff

“Tried and tested” definitely has a nice ring to it, a phrase which most people can relate to, and often it instantly brings up a sense of trustworthiness. Well, no wonder, after all, we learn from experience, and what else is more reassuring that something you’ve already experienced yourself? While it is definitely nice to stick to something we’ve come to know over the years, it is also good to occasionally branch out and broaden our horizons by expanding our arsenal of ways we do things, especially in a business type scenario. If you happen to be running a business yourself, then you probably already know this, and at one point in time, you have most probably felt the pressure of having to keep up to date with the latest tech and gadgets in order to stay relevant. If that is not the case, then you should consider yourself lucky. Not many people can just “stick to what they know best” in order to keep a business going nowadays, and unless you are already a well-established brand, then your pockets might have felt the pressure by now as well. Without further ado, let’s briefly go through some new technologies which might be an improvement to your current workplace, business, or office. If you run a business of your very own, then keep reading, maybe you will pick up something useful. If you work at a company which you think could use a few improvements here and there, maybe you will get a few ideas for future suggestions.

Importance of communication… Communication has become a rather important part of our lives as of the past two decades or so, and no, not verbal communication, that has stayed around the same high level of importance for a few centuries now. What we are going to talk about is communication which has largely replaced the need for writing letters and often even stationary phones. The internet has grown to proportions that probably no one could have expected in the early 90s, and it is consistently proving time and time again that it is one of the most useful, versatile, and profitable platforms of our age. Not only does it provide an almost overabundance of information about nearly every topic on the planet, but it also encompasses a large part of the entertainment industry. On top of that, it also has found its place at the top of the communications hierarchy among the other corporate giants such as mobile phone companies, cell phone carriers and even the likes of British Telecommunication, more commonly known as BT. From improvements to existing services to completely fresh and original communication platforms, the internet has you sorted.

Faxes… Some of you reading this now are probably rolling your eyes the moment you even caught a glimpse of the word “faxes”, and while yes, it is not the newest technology out there, it still very much does exist and is commonly used in offices across the world. There is a certain company office that will not be named, which handles its faxes and emails in a rather inefficient and roundabout manner. When that office sends off an email to its other branch, they demand that the ones receiving it promptly print out the email, sign it by hand, then scan it back then email and fax it back to them. Now while you may just about be sitting there grabbing your head and marveling at the lengths of inefficiency which people are willing to go to, this is actually really happening and a classic case of “we do things this way or another because we’ve always done it like that” syndrome. How about you don’t become the owner or worker of the office which is brought up in anecdotes, and you teach your staff to handle their faxes, much like their emails, by making them send fax online before it’s too late. Nobody wants to single-handedly contribute around 50 percent to the amount of deforestation taking place in their own country due to the amount of paper consumption happening around the office.

Team communication… As we have already previously concluded, running a business is not exactly solo work. Maybe the conceptual or even pre-conceptual stages, yes, but anything after that is absolutely a team effort if one wishes to get their business anywhere near off the ground. Now, what is the most important thing about working in a team? Communication. Team communication goes a long way, and without having a means of properly relaying ideas around several people working together, you are probably not going to get very far. While there may be newer popularized ways of communication nowadays, mostly in the form of social media or regular instant messengers such as WhatsApp or telegram, there are some platforms built especially for working in a team. One such application which allows file uploads, instant messaging text chat, voice calls, screen sharing, video calling, conference calling and even categorizing text channels into different areas which is surprisingly more useful for improving workflow than you might think, is Slack. An often overlooked program which had its main ideas “borrowed” by a certain other company who then went on to gain a massive following by appealing to a different audience, but that’s the way things work out sometimes in the rough business world.

Network Attached Storage… Often referred to as a NAS, a Network Attached Storage is basically your own personal company “cloud” service. Acting like your average file server which sometimes comes with its own specific interface, a NAS can be very easy to setup, and even to maintain as all you need to do is just connect it to some hard drives (HDD) or solid state drives (SSD) and you have yourself new storage. While some are just literal shared file servers in function, some go the extra mile and boast some extra ability due to their onboard CPU which can backup your files as well as a few other things. A NAS is not only great because you no longer need to pay for someone else to host your files since you can store everything locally in the office, but it also allows for much easier and faster file sharing between your employees and yourself. Need to dig up that report from 2 weeks ago from your accounting team? Why not just look for it yourself on the NAS with just a few clicks and a ctrl+f? Want to send something over to a different department but logging in to your email is just too much effort at the moment? Just throw it on the NAS and anyone connected will be able to access it if they so desire. Not only does it centralise your data, it also makes everyday tasks much easier.

Multi-monitor workstations… Although some people still believe that anyone with a dual or triple monitor setup at their desk is probably a computer scientist, the truth is that some people just prefer having more desktop space to work with, and rightfully so. Even if we were to stick with the now-outdated stereotype, there is a reason why techies often have several monitors on their desk as opposed to the usual single display setup. Not only does it allow you to quickly arrange your programs and workspace, but it also lets you multitask with much more ease since you no longer have to alt+tab anywhere near as much or keep minimizing everything just to dig up that one window that’s lost underneath several others. While it may not be for everyone, considering handing some of your more tech-literate employees to work on a multi-monitor setup might be rather beneficial, and the boost in efficiency would be a testament to that.

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