Virtual Meetings Cut Travel Costs
By Monte Enbysk
Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center at http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness

The travel industry has taken its hits in recent years, and I hate to add to it. But in good times or bad, your business needs to scrutinize its travel budget to find ways to cut costs. This isn't about safety. The skies are much safer these days. This is about economics. With today's "virtual meeting" technologies, you can boost your business's productivity and avoid extended trips and unnecessary travel costs.

"A majority of companies simply have higher travel expenses than they need," says Alisa Jenkins, a Tampa, Fla., area business and marketing consultant. "This doesn't mean you have to cut out all travel. There are still many cases where meeting face to face is best. But there are also good ways to meet virtually that can make many of your business trips unnecessary."

Alternatives to business travel — videoconferencing, Web conferencing, teleconferencing and online collaboration tools — continue to improve with advances in Internet and related technologies. Each will be addressed in detail below.

But first: When do you absolutely need to meet? Here are some scenarios mentioned by experts:

Virtualization Overview 
by Jane Cage, COO, HTS

We live in a world that constantly forces us to “do more with less”. Employees are expected to be more efficient. Multi-function devices are becoming the standard on many desktops. We multi-task by answering email, talking on the phone and reviewing a spreadsheet – all at the same time.

We shouldn’t be surprised then that IT departments are asking the same of their fileservers. When server utilization gets measured, we find that many servers have much more capacity than they actually use for the majority of the time. With so much excess capacity – why not run more than one server on a single machine? That’s what virtualization is all about -- one physical machine running more than one server operating system.

Virtualization is a “hot” technology right now and here are some of the reasons why:

The truth of the matter is that networks of all sizes are vulnerable to attacks and security threats 24/7/365. Spyware, worms and viruses don't discriminate. If there is a way into your network, they will find it and you may, or may not, know about it. Although the short-term impact to your business is obvious, the long-term impact is what really keeps us up at night.

Security breaches and other malicious attacks not only take down the network and compromise your company's data and your customers' privacy, they can ruin your company's reputation. With competition around every corner, and new laws mandating the disclosure of data theft to affected consumers, news like this travels fast. So what should you do?

Take Back Your Bandwidth

For businesses today the Internet has evolved from a being a convenience to have to a business necessity. The Internet delivers business critical applications, e-mail, and telephone conversations, while providing your company’s image to the general public. The Internet is also often accused of being the biggest productivity killer for a lot of businesses. The question: Is content filtering a necessity? Here are three reasons why the answer is Yes!

Maximize bandwidth: For most businesses the big bandwidth hogs are the downloading of large files and the streaming of music. When either of these activities are occurring the Internet slows down for everyone. At InSwift we are constantly downloading files that are pertinent to troubleshooting issues or patching client hardware and/or software. If there were end users streaming video or music then this would make our engineers battle for bandwidth. By limiting the content users can download or be streamed on the Internet bandwidth is then maximized for the entire business thereby taking full advantage of available resources and increasing possible productivity.

November 2008

Annual IT Checkup -- Have you had yours?

If we take our health seriously, we have an annual checkup. If you take your company’s technology seriously, you should consider an annual periodic review of the following:

• Can a new technology solve your business problems?
• Can technology help you increase customer satisfaction?
• Can technology help put profit to your bottom line?
• Have you outgrown your existing technology infrastructure?

Our account managers have been trained to understand the impact that technology can have on businesses every day. They will sit down with you to understand more about your company business processes and problems and help you determine how technology can make a difference. After we’ve talked together about your business, we’ll deliver an assessment of your current technology health and some suggestions about how you might improve it. And unlike visiting the doctor, you won’t receive a bill in the mail. If you are interested in an “annual checkup”, please call us to setup an appointment for an account manager & owner to visit your location.

Good technology health has many parallels to good physical health – it’s always better to be proactive than reactive. Take charge of getting the most out of your technology today!

 

Quote of the Month

"Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them,  is the true measure of  our thanksgiving." ~WT Purkiser

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