Small Businesses | Business Computing World

Sep 7th, 2010

Don’t Let The Strikes Take Your Business Down The Tubes

With thousands of London underground staff on strike until Wednesday, many small businesses across the capital will be frustrated at the potential loss of productivity and revenue from staff unable to make it into the office. Despite similar strikes over the last few years, which often stretched the capacity of London’s buses and taxis to breaking [...]

Aug 31st, 2010

“I’ll See You In Court!” Keeping Your IT Business Legal

Every year it is important to Spring Clean Your Business and make sure every area of your business is running smoothly and is up to date. Today I want to look in a bit more detail at one of those items – your Legal position. For most small businesses the Law can be a scary and confusing [...]

Aug 26th, 2010

Embracing The Move Towards Digital Britain

The Digital Age has impacted hugely on the way business is carried out. I don’t think we have really started yet. The difference between using the Internet and being part of the Digital Age is enormous and I believe the majority of people are not thinking digitally yet, they are purely following a crowd and [...]

Aug 25th, 2010

Increase In Fibre Tax Casts Dark Cloud Over Small ISPs

The government appears to have undermined its own promise to make the UK a leading broadband nation by 2015. The Revised Valuation Guidance for Telecommunications Networks actually makes it more expensive to deploy fibre – instead of scraping it altogether as most small Internet service providers (ISPs) hoped for. The charge of £200 a fibre [...]

Aug 20th, 2010

Take Note! Customer Support Is Not The Same As Supporting Customers

I’m sure at one time or another you’ve been given the Company tour. Either as a new employee, or as a new supplier or partner. A slightly cringy tour of the building being shown what each desk of people does. ”This is the marketing team.” They look up from their computers, [...]

Aug 16th, 2010

REVIEW: Microsoft Office Web Apps

Cloud-based services to enable users to create, edit and share documents online using just a browser could be the next big thing, led by likes of Google and Zoho both established providers of hosted office tools. Microsoft, however has been slow to react, only recently getting its online act together in the form of Office [...]

Aug 12th, 2010

Survey Reveals Growing Reliance On IT Freelancers

The Majority of UK’s four million small businesses plan to increase spend on IT freelancers; PHP and SEO top list of most in-demand tech skills. Based on an in-depth survey taken by 360 users, it gives a comprehensive overview of the behaviour, opinions and habits of the UK’s four million small businesses – a sector that [...]

Aug 12th, 2010

Security Lessons In Zeus Botnet Raid On UK Bank Accounts

The well-read UK security news site The Register is carrying a story detailing how the operators of the Zeus botnet planted their sophisticated malware on thousands of UK bank customers’ computers, stole log-in information then raided the accounts for more than $1 million with the help of money mules. Bradley Anstis, vice president of technical strategy [...]

Aug 6th, 2010

New Red Tape Rules Must Be Backed By Real Culture Change

I’m welcoming the Government’s announcement that a ‘one-in, one-out’ regulatory system will be introduced on 1 September 2010 in order to stem the growing burden of red tape on small firms. The new system is part of a package of measures the Government hopes will create a culture of ‘regulation as a last resort’. It will [...]

Aug 5th, 2010

Minimise Costs Whilst Driving Productivity: Now Is The Time For Cloud Computing

There is currently no better time for businesses to be investing in cloud computing. In the wake of the recession there remains an acute need to minimize costs whilst driving productivity and growth as investment and competition returns to the market. Although there is still limited awareness and much caution towards cloud computing, the realisation [...]

Aug 2nd, 2010

Banking Figures Confirm Decline Of Small Business Lending

The banking trade association’s figures indicate that new loans to small firms increased by £75 million between May and June 2010, but year-on-year term lending has decreased by £269 million, compared to June 2009 – when the economy was still in recession. Average monthly loans have declined by almost half since 2008, when banks lent [...]

Jul 30th, 2010

Marketing Going ‘Back To Basics’

As we move into the new economy, it’s evident that SMBs are top of mind for a lot of large companies as the good target. Businesses of all sizes are looking to get back to basics in order to be primed for growth as the recession slows and the economic recovery begins. Beyond cash flow [...]

Jul 29th, 2010

Retirement Age Plans Could Prove Highly Damaging To Small Firms

The new Government this week said it intended to press ahead with the previous administration’s plans to remove an employer’s option to retire staff at the age of 65. If the proposal goes ahead, businesses could be forced to start keeping on staff indefinitely in little over a year’s time. This could prove highly damaging to [...]

Jul 13th, 2010

Small Businesses Are Rewriting The Rulebook

We’re all aware of an unwritten code of business conduct that, if broken, can have some very unpopular reactions: showing up late to a meeting or checking a BlackBerry when someone is presenting, for instance, will always be a bad idea. However, some of these conventions really don’t have a firm grounding in common sense: should [...]

Jul 12th, 2010

Stop Living In The Past: Remote Desktop Assistance Is The Go

Remote desktop assistance is the use of remote technology to provide technical IT support to computer users who are located in another office, city or even country. Just those last few words is enough for us all to imagine the benefits that a technician can achieve in their technical support tasks. Because they don’t have [...]

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