Techblog
How to know that its time to expand your business
How do you know when the time is right to kick your business expansion into high gear? Read on to get an idea on what signs to watch out for, and how you can further expand your business.
By the myBusiness techblog team
Although one can argue that a business is already expanding from the day it starts operations, there will come a time where your business will need to change in order to continue being profitable. Expanding your business when you reach this point might be the right thing to do. But what are some tell-tale signs that your business has reached this tipping point? Here are some of the most obvious signs:
- You can no longer fill customer needs in a timely manner. Customers are leaving empty-handed or going elsewhere because you are "too busy" and can’t cope with their demands.
- Employees can no longer keep up with production demands. They begin making more and more mistakes and are missing deadlines. Absenteeism increases and production falls. Due to the increased pressures of your job you begin making poor business decisions or using a "quick fix" for problems that need long-term repair.
- Your direct competitors are expanding and taking business from you, and because of that you should at least evaluate the possibility of expansion.
- Changes in the marketplace or industry such as government regulations or new competing products or services might force you to change the way you do business
How should you expand?
There are plenty of ways to expand a business. You can look to expand your business to new customers by introducing a new location, acquiring a competitor or moving into a related industry. Not only will these expansion opportunities help position your company for continued growth, but they will also enhance your business'sstrong>
A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is your solution to all the "what if's" for business continuity. By developing a set of procedures, you can recover and protect your IT infrastructure - small or large - in an event of an "unexpected" disaster.
To begin covering your bases, assess your level of risk and identify the actions to minimise these risks. Determine the data and computer programmes you would require for back up and the frequency. Then, choose your device for backing up.
A simple guide that you could follow is the Backup 3-2-1 Rule as pointed out by Scott Hanselman, an IT speaker and author, on his blog, which says to backup:
• 3 copies of anything you care about - If it's really important, two is not enough
• 2 different formats - Example: Cloud Storage + DVD-ROM
• 1 off-site backup - Keep it safe, somewhere else other than your house or office
2. Prevent Malicious or Mischievous Wipeouts
Protect your data by restricting access, and ensuring that your network or emails are safe from hackers who may be motivated by various agendas - whether malicious or just acts of mischief. As you would protect your office premises with security systems, install security software with a firewall with anti-virus and anti-spyware properties in your IT systems. Use strong passwords to make it difficult for unauthorised users to view or misuse any confidential information, or worse, wipe out all your data and emails that you have permanently.
3. Schedule Your Back-ups
The process of backing up your data may feel like a chore. But it is vital in keeping your operations going. If you do manual back-ups, set reminders in your phone or diary. Alternatively, automating your back-up system gives you added peace of mind. Simply set it in your system, and you won’t have to remember it all the time. Various cloud storage services and external hard disks also offer automated scheduled back-up features.
4. Choose Your Format
USB flash drives are convenient to carry around, but they can get misplaced easily - leaving your data vulnerable to security risks. Use them for short-term storage only. CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs are cheap and can be stored easily. Portable external hard drives offer large capacity storage that run into hundreds of gigabytes (GB) or multi terabytes (TB). They are more reliable, but not entirely shock-proof. If possible, store all your back-up copies away at an offsite premise as a safety precaution, in the event of unexpected disasters such as a fire or flood in the office or home.
Increasingly, many businesses are also turning to cloud-based solutions. Cloud-based service providers offer higher security, and connect to the Internet via multiple routes to ensure almost no-downtime. Additionally, you can be assured your data are backed up regularly.
5. Protect Your Most Important Electronic Asset
Nearly every business now uses email as a core form of communication with their customers and suppliers. Along with that, file attachments are a regular feature in emails and these may mean important documents such as purchase orders, invoices and customer requests may be lost in the event of a shut down. Not only that, any email outage can mean an impact on business communication, and productivity loss. In addition, losing your data may also imply a lack of reliability in your systems - which in turn may result in a loss of faith from your customers.
Apart from archiving and copying a backup, more individuals and businesses have been syncing their emails to the cloud. Such services offer users a secure, alternative access to all information in your email through any Internet-connected device if for some reason, emails cannot be accessed through the onsite system, or if you have lost or cannot remember where you stored that important email. Such services may also offer daily-automated backups with military-grade encryption of all data so that your information is well protected.
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Sources: www.hanselman.com