Business continuity, a guide to keeping your services live

2010
04.18

Information Technology lies at the very heart of today’s organisations and many companies are now so dependent on their networks that they take them for granted. In today’s 24/7 digital economy, just imagine the business implications of critical data being lost, internet and email access being unavailable or your internal network going down.

The impact of the unexpected on your business, whether in the form of malicious damage such as hacking or some kind of natural disaster, can be devastating in the networked world. Take for example the 2007 flash floods across the UK. Following the wettest May to July on record, approximately 7,100 businesses were flooded and the resulting damage cost an estimated £3 billion1. However, this figure fails to take into account the cost of lost business during that period, when some companies were unable to operate a normal (if any) service, or the damage to reputation that the inability to communicate caused. No-one can predict the future, but by carefully planning in advance you can ensure that your business is in the best possible position, if and when disruption occurs.

To meet resiliency requirements for coping with both unexpected events and increasing volumes of data, today’s businesses require more than Next Generation Network capability alone. They need a combination of robust network capability and a next generation service mindset from their telecoms provider. When it comes to business resiliency, it’s not simply a case of ‘one size fits all’. ntl:Telewest Business closely collaborates with its customers and tailors its services to meet their needs. The next generation of business resiliency is here.

What level of resilience is needed?

Different industries have unique requirements for resilience. In the banking industry, for example, access to accurate, real-time buying and selling data is critical and business continuity and resiliency are considered so important that they are subject to specific regulations such as Basel II. However, for the majority of businesses, the rules and regulations are not so strict, and yet the implications of a network collapse without sufficient backup systems can be equally severe. This is particularly true when you consider that, according to the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 80 per cent of small to medium sized businesses go out of business within 18 months of experiencing a major network problem and 90 per cent of businesses that lose data in a disaster are forced to shut within two years.

The indisputable fact is that all business premises, no matter what the organisation’s size or industry, face the risk of disasters and they need to bring certainty to how they store and use their information. Firms need to be able to move their data around freely and ensure that it is 100 per cent backed up from every site, minimising the exposure to risk at any one site and making sure that the most important data is prioritised.

What types of network meet the requirement?

Network capability and flexibility provide the technology platform for next generation telecoms providers to roll out a resilient service. As well as being able to withstand unexpected events, today’s networks need to be able to cope with the everincreasing amounts of information being transported by today’s businesses. Their needs have extended from just email and web browsing to encompass multimedia applications, image-driven, user-generated content and video. In order to cope with these burgeoning volumes of data and the swift pace of operational change, networks need to be both extremely resilient and scalable. Rapidly growing workforces require constant, uninterrupted access to business resources and only a Next Generation Network can provide the flexibility and resilience required.

ntl:Telewest Business’ £13 billion Next Generation Network was built specifically with the demands of the digital age in mind and, based on fibre-optic technology, it is highly resilient. The Next Generation Network is capable of delivering the next generation IP and Ethernet services required by today’s fast-moving business and, as bandwidth can be increased quickly and painlessly in line with demand, scalability issues are overcome. In order to significantly reduce the volume of faults on their networks, today’s telcos also need to engage far earlier in proactive network management. By constantly monitoring its network, ntl:Telewest Business ensures that potential issues can be identified before they develop into problems. As a result, both the network’s performance and the user’s experience are significantly improved.

How can every eventuality be covered?

Maintaining business continuity is not as simple as deploying two separate links to your business sites, there are a number of considerations that have to be taken into account. How far a customer wants to go in assuring resilience depends on the importance of their information assets and their budget, but there are four key business continuity measures that can be taken into consideration.

As there are two UK-wide access networks, ntl:Telewest Business’ and BT’s, it stands to reason that if information is your organisation’s lifeblood you should not trust all of your services to just one network. Having an alternative access network in place ensures that critical applications continue to run even if one provider has a major outage. An alternative transmission path can also handle unexpected peaks in traffic and provide protection against denial of service attacks, which are designed to swamp networks with traffic and cause them to buckle.

The second business continuity measure is eliminating a single point of failure for the availability of voice and data services. Rather than relying on a single network provider to deliver connectivity between a site and the rest of the private network or the internet, businesses can run multiple links to their sites, guaranteeing up-time should one of the lines be inadvertently damaged and rendered unusable. In the event of network connectivity being destroyed over one connection, services can seamlessly divert to the backup connection, maintaining continuous data transfer and call availability.

One of the most basic disaster recovery tools that businesses should consider is spreading their risks across the network. By creating a mirrored system in which all information and applications are regularly and automatically backed up at different points on the network, businesses can ensure that information is protected in the event that one part of the network experiences an outage.

Multiple Ethernet connections into a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with any-to-any connectivity enable organisations to decentralise their IT across multiple sites and replicate their business-critical data. If a problem does occur, whether it is a natural disaster or simply a power failure, employees should be able to work from home and log onto their VPN remotely, safe in the knowledge that the network is secure and work can continue as usual, albeit off-site. This any-to-any connectivity overcomes the needs for backup circuits.

Finally, in the event of one of an organisation’s main circuits going down, forcing all data to run over the other and increasing the risk of a network bottleneck, the prioritisation of critical data is essential. The application of up to eight classes of service over the ntl:Telewest Business network, with predefined Quality of Service (QoS) parameters, will also ensure that business critical data is delivered in advance of lower priority traffic such as internet data. This way organisations can ensure their business critical applications continue to perform at optimum levels, even in adverse conditions.

With such an array of business continuity options available, organisations require a telco provider that’s prepared to sit down and discuss the most appropriate solution for their unique needs, risks and budget. ntl:Telewest Business collaborates closely with all sizes of business, not just its largest customers with big communication budgets. Consultative and technologically-savvy local service teams, both at the presales and project management stages, work hand-in-glove with the customer to ensure they receive the most appropriate solutions for their business.

How can businesses design and provision truly resilient networks?

True business resilience can only be attained when network capability is fused with a high level of consultative input at the stage of designing new network infrastructures. Until now, the legacy telco practice has been to keep customers at arm’s length from the services they use and act as merely a circuit provider, rather than responding to customers’ requirements. The next generation of telecoms providers need to invest in their service delivery, and not solely their network, ensuring that their customers feel connected to their telco teams as well as their network.

As a next generation telecoms provider, ntl:Telewest Business is committed to sitting down with organisations, listening to and understanding their individual requirements. This way it can help the customer implement measures appropriate to the risk associated with the type of traffic on its network, with a design that reflects the confines of the budget.

A customer-centric mindset and ‘can do’ attitude ensures that ntl:Telewest Business collaborates with its customers from the start, helping to plan, design, and implement their networks. But it doesn’t stop there, many of the same teams remain all the way through integration and while the network is running. No one can predict the future, but by working with a telecoms provider that has such a Next Generation Network and a customer-centric mindset, you’ll be better prepared for any eventuality.

SEOP Inc for Your Best Solution for Search Engine Optimization

2010
04.15

When you decide to have a website as one of your marketing media, you also need to prepare about various strategies that are needed to put your website on the first place of search engine list. It is important because when you are on the top position, your website will be visited by more customers.

Putting your website onto the top position requires a lot of hard works. But you don’t need to worry about it because SEOP Inc will always ready to help you. Please check Blogcatalog.com to get more information about this company. There are so many posts about this company available at this site. You can find out how this company can help you in creating your personal blog by visiting this website. This website enables you to read about many great advantages you can get from this company’s services. By reading those posts, you can decide whether this company is really able to give what you need to develop your business through internet marketing services.

Learn more about the best things can be done by this company for your website by visiting this website. You will get the best solution for your business development with the help of this site.

Where Do You Find Business Resources and Why They are Important

2010
04.14

Do you have an internet business? If you do then you need to know where to find business resources and why they are important.

There are many people that get online to start a business but they don’t have the resources to help them build a successful home business and they don’t know where to go to find it. Here are some of the places that you can find the resources for your business that you need.

One: One good place to start your look is with search engines. Go to any major search engine and type in business resources or internet business resources. This will bring up a lot of results that you can start looking through to find what you want.

Two: Go to any home business, internet business or business forum. There are many different forums available. You just need to start looking through them. Forums are a good place to look because when people find a good resource than they will list it in a forum to help other internet business owners.

These are the best places to go to find the business resources you want or need but they are not the only ones. One thing that many people don’t realize is that most of the resources that you need can be found for free. Some of them you will have to pay to use but not all of them. So always make sure a resource can’t be found for free before you pay for it.

Now that you know where to start looking for business resources for your internet business, you need to know why it is important. Here are some of the reasons why it is so important to your business to use these resources.

One: When you have your own internet business there are many things that you will have to learn about. Education is going to be one of the keys to the success of your home business. Business resources can easily help you learn what you need to know. There are many guides, eBooks, reports and other things that can help you learn what you need to know.

Two: When you have your own internet business you will need to have software to help you run your business more efficiently, such as accounting software. The more business resources you find that allow you run your business more efficiently the more success you will find.

These are not the only reasons why you need to use business resources but they are very important. Now that you know where to find the resources you need and why they are important for your internet business, you just need to start searching today to find what you need. So start your search now.

Your Employees Are a Business Resource

2010
04.13

You need to ensure your employees feel they are being considered as a valuable business resource more so than perhaps the fleet of company vehicles! Valued employees will function well as will constantly maintained vehicles given the time to focus on the day to day running and requirements. The big difference of course is that your employees require this as an emotional state. Don’t under estimate your employees as being of great resource to your company and treat them with this in mind and you may just find you are off to an amazing future with your business.

Having well trained employees is a great benefit to any business large or small. Almost nobody will come to a come with all the necessary training completed. Every business has different facets and nuances that must be learned by new staff so don’t dismiss training of your employees as they can be a great business resource.

No business wants to spend money on training only to find they loose their valuable employees as soon as they are fully trained. They then take all that business resource with them to a new business and this may be your competition so ensure that you have steps in place to give your employees the training they need to give you the service and standards you require but also make sure that you place value in those employees whether it be monetary or other employee benefits to ensure they are staying with the company with their improved knowledge.

On the job training can be a beneficial option. However there are many jobs where an employee must gain specific certifications. Whether this is a company standard or a legal standard these rules must be followed. Costs involved in those actual off site courses and in cover staff all must be taken into consideration, as with the entire employment process as a whole. On the job training is also using the resources of your existing staff as they must apply more time and energy to the new employee to improve their knowledge in the shortest time frame possible.

To ensure you are using your employees as a valuable business resource, in that they are happy in their work place and giving their all to the business whether it be in service or production you need to ensure there is a suitable reward program in place. This may be in the form of compensation but also there are considerations for periods when it is shown that an employee is over exceeding expectations. When an employee has a contract they can follow that to the letter and you have almost no recourse should you be dissatisfied or feel that the employee is not doing enough. You want to be in a position where your employees feel encouraged to give their all and show them that this attitude to business is rewarded.

Satisfied employees only improve your business and a good way to gauge that is with a reduced turn over in employees. A company that has a high staff turnover is generally not offering either adequate training so staff feel they are not able to do the required jobs or there are too high demands placed on the employees and they are not valued as a business resource.

The difficult task of course is to find the balance between being a business resource or a business drain. There are employees who will only take from a company until they feel there is nothing more to offer and then the problems will emerge or the employee will no longer be interested in staying with the company. One unsatisfied employee can motivate all other employees into making a business environment unpleasant for all concerned.

You can not only offer rewards where you find that employees focus solely on how they achieve those rewards and not focus on all aspects of the business. Here in lies the difficulties as mentioned above. Generally you find that there has to be a medium between employee and management, such as human resources, that can be the voice of management and the voice of the employees. Some businesses do not have this luxury of being able to employ a human resource team or person and therefore the onus to create the right mix of authority and humanity falls to the business owners.

Treat your employees as a valuable business resource both in the fields relating to relevant training but also in personal aspects where small outlays of cost or time can give an employee an improved sense of worth and therefore make them more inclined to be concerned about the business itself.

Outsourcing Human Resource Management ? Benefits To Your Business

2010
04.12

The business process involves many things. This will include all aspects of your business in order to run your business smoothly and efficiently. This will include business functions such as marketing, payrolls, support, management, human resources and more.

Human resource management outsourcing is the one aspect that can make the difference between efficient and inefficient employment of resources for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized concerns. Business resources not employed fully could lead a business towards higher operating costs and loss.

Since federal and state government regulation makes HR management mandatory, outsourcing HR responsibilities to a professional Human Resource Management Company could solve the issue of balancing resources. The services offered by such Human Resource Management Company includes management of employees, employee benefits management, payroll processing and delivery, employer risk management, motivating employees, ensuring safety in the workplace, workers ‘compensation processing claims, terminating employees, and more.

The typical human resource management services include:

Certified and Degreed HR and Benefit professionals on staff
Retention of personnel records, applications, I-9s, W-4s
Administration of vacation and sick leave policies
Updates on regulation changes
Management training for hiring, firing, and/or disciplinary action
Employment and income verifications
Access to employment forms, including new hire, termination, evaluations
Unemployment claims administration and cost management
Attend Unemployment Hearings on your behalf
Employee Handbook
Required employment posters

Outsourcing these HR services allows the business to use all its resource it its core responsibilities. These human resource management companies do all the paperwork, claims processing, and motivation programs without interference with functioning of the business. The human resource management company also takes care of employing employees and is capable to assist the business offer an attractive benefits package that would increase its influence in the job market.

In conclusion, it is always a good idea to hire a professional HR Management Company to manage all your business critical aspects.

Internet Business Resources ? Are You Looking?

2010
04.12

So you’ve decided that you might like to try your hand at this whole internet business thing. Why not? Every time you turn on the news these days, it seems that you will hear yet another story of a single mom who’s made a fortune through online blogging, or a retired school teacher that discovered that they were a genius at affiliate marketing.

If you’re tired of working for someone else and ready to see whether you can join the ranks of the wildly successful internet business owners, you should know that there is hundreds of internet business resources available for getting you started on the right foot. If you’ve never researched internet business resources before, here are some suggestions about where to start looking.
The first thing that you should know about internet business resources is that you have to evaluate them with a cautionary eye, because you don’t know if the person that wrote them actually has any expertise in the area that they are writing or speaking about. As you probably already know, it is very easy for any regular person to read a few books on marketing or web design and think that they know enough to start creating internet business resources.
When you are looking for internet business resources, you have to be sure to evaluate them all with a very critical eye.

This means that you should look for resources that talk specifically about the area of business or the industry that you need to know more about. If you are getting new content and products up on your site with no problem, but having trouble creating enough traffic to make your advertisers happy, you might want to look for internet business resources about search engine optimization and creating unique visits to your site.
Another decision that you’ll have to make is whether you business budget has enough extra room in it to allow you to purchase some of the more premium internet business resources. Of course, there are plenty of internet business resources that you can access for free, but the ones that are written by the true industry experts are usually the ones that you might have to pay for.

Evaluate your budget and the volume of information that you might gain through a monthly subscription or purchasing an e-book. Many times you will be glad that you made these small investments because you will learn a lot.

How to Start an Online Business in 7 Days

2010
04.03

If you want to start an online business but do not know how to go about it, don’t be disheartened. Setting up your own online business is not a daunting task, provided you follow some fundamental rules and work according to a plan.

Day 1: Set up your new business

Firstly, you need to take care of the finances and accounts, this will require you to choose an accounting system and open a separate bank account for your business. This allows you to differentiate your personal resources from your business resources and simplify any issues of business accountability. As for the accounting system, you can choose between single entry or double entry programs. If you wish to operate from the US, a single entry program would be preferable.

Day 2: Choose your product or service

The products and/or services that you choose to market online will have to be carefully determined by you depending on your interests, how well funded you are, and how well defined and extensive your intended market is.

At this level you have the option of choosing amongst the following: coming up with your own unique product/ service, joining an affiliate program, or promoting a range of similar and related products/ services.

Day 3: Prepare your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

The success of your business depends on how well differentiated your products/ services are from those of your competitors. For this you have to devise your USP, on the basis of what you could hook your customers with.

So, while preparing your USP, you need to identify the profile of your ideal customer, and highlight the specific manner in which the customer will profit from your product, and further, the features that make your product better than that of your competitors.

Drawing up a clear and precise USP will ensure that you have a strongly focused business plan, and it is a powerful safeguard that minimizes the dissipation and wastage of your resources.

Day 4: Build a Website

When building your website it is imperative that you do your keyword research. Try and allocate keywords that are popular but may have been overlooked or missed your competition.

Here you have two options. You can either choose to build a direct response site, or you can decide to build a content website.

Day 5: Devise your marketing plan

After you have built your website, you will have to decide how you want to market your site. This means that you shall have to select your marketing tools and policies and adopt the methods best suited to your marketing requirements.

Day 6: Advertise your new business

Next you will have to design your promotional and advertisement materials and disseminate these strategically. Here, testing and tracking the prospective market is essential to your business. This allows you to evaluate and fine-tune the efficacy of your adopted marketing practices as also to make due adjustments to counter market variations. Another key element involved here is insistence: the more regularly you market your product, the better your chances.

Day 7: Maintain your new business

When you’ve implemented these first six steps, you are in a position to apply the 60/30/10 rule of business maintenance.

This rule means that you should allocate 60% of your time to marketing, 30% to product development, and 10% to administrative work like email and accounts.

It is important to bear in mind that irrespective of whether you sell products or services, marketing forms a crucial component of your success. Keep these simple steps in mind, and you’ll have no problems when you decide to start an online business.

Resources for Small Business

2010
03.24

Starting a small business can be the most exciting time in someone’s life…but it can also be the most frightening.  With so many forms to fill out and preparations to make, starting a small business can be a huge undertaking.  But once you get the ball rolling and you start to see the first signs of success, it can be a very rewarding achievement.

Business forms sometimes rely on someone s skills and potentials to create customers network and other people who wanted to build their own business. Other business models follow the so called business networking marketing. While other individuals before have tried this type of endeavor and some become successful. The most important thing as business resources is the ability and willingness of the individual to dedicate his/her self to do jobs for the market. Network Marketing is an exclusive business that has built in capability to do something that all other big individuals neither franchise can not do. That is the power of Network Marketing to copy individual efforts by creating more organizations of common entrepreneurs. Each Small Business owner acts likely as CEO of his/her own business and if someone create it is own network everyone can get benefits. As a new business owner you will also need business resources online that will guide you towards your success. It is not only by staring a business it is just a start. The big challenge here is on how you market your business and on how to maintain it.

There are many resources available for those wishing to start a small business.  There are thousands of professional companies that assist with this type of thing and there are also countless online tutorials that can help you on your way.

There are several things that need to be considered before starting your business and if you know where to look and are patient, you can alleviate some of the stress right away.  For instance, to start your small business the right way, you will need to know how to market and finance your business.  These are two of the scariest parts of the scenario for those just starting out but can be handled effectively without spending tons of money on professional help.

Other things to think about are whether or not you will franchise your business.  Will you have affiliates?  Will you need to hire additional employees? What are some of the local laws regarding small businesses and taxes?

See…there are a ton of things to think about.

But don’t overwhelm yourself right away.  You’ll find several resources from the Business experts that can help you make absolutely certain that you are building your small business so that it not only succeeds, but that it does so quickly.

Revealed – Facts You Must Know Before Starting A Business Of Your Choice

2010
03.02

Before starting a business, you must consider your own financial position – for instance, the use of business resources like self financing, mortgage, loans, use of credit cards, pensions, mutual funds or retirement benefits. Other important factors to consider are if there is need for motor vehicles, property, office accommodation, land, office equipment. The location of business enterprise is very important to the success of your industry.

As you start a business, you must register with the National Insurance and Inland Revenue for Tax returns. Register your paid staff for PAYE to avoid penalty from the authority. You can pay your tax at the end of business year but for sole trader or partnership, National Insurance is paid weekly or monthly with an off payment at the end of the year if you achieve a minimum level of profit.

Hire the service of a qualified accountant or Tax consultant to advice you on tax related matter. Keep proper records of all the business transactions and separate them from your personal record. Open separate bank account for the firm, this will make the management of your business very easy and simple. You can also open a different bank account for PAYE, VAT and tax so that the amount due for taxes, VAT and PAYE can be transfer to the account for further remittance to agency concern.

You can decide on whether to do your business at home, in an office, in the rural, city, urban or inside the market. In case you don’t have money to rent an office, you can start trading from home. Working at home is the cheapest option and is very common in today business. You can prepare your business contact address, web address, email, telephone and fax at home.

In conclusion, make sure you prepare a business plan that can give you the true picture of the enterprise you want to establish. It will show you an overview of starting a business of your choice. You can browse internet to get some free advice and information about starting up a business, financing and registration of new entity. Make sure you do market research to know the level of demand for your products and competitors strength.

A few great small business resources you need to discover

2010
02.19

There are many small business resources that are out there just waiting to be discovered, but in order to find them you need to know where to look. On the other hand, there are many small businesses that fail because they do not expertise in all business operations and do not have budget to hire or outsource marketing, advertising and other tasks. The cost of hiring seasoned companies can build up fast if you are trying to pay for everything in the real world at full price.

However, the truth of the matter is that you can receive many of the same small business resources online at a much better rate than you would otherwise find. This is because there are many independent professionals who work as freelance contractors and are able to charge you lower rate for their services. The advantage is that for the most part they will only charge you the standard costs for their time instead of making you pay for the overhead that you would have to pay for with a corporation so that everyone gets a slice of your money.

The amount of small business resources that you can utilize in this manner is astounding as you can contact with many informational professionals, finance professionals, consultants, market research analysts, and even more. With so many people accessible to you at a much lower rate it becomes easy for a small business to outsource and delegate tasks without finding themselves in a massive amount of debt.

There are many small business resources online that can you help find professionals to hire and even offer their own recommendations. This is due to the fact that it is easy to head to a website that is designed by professionals for other professionals that lists full qualifications and resumes of people who are available to help you.

By using this type of small business resource you have the security of seeing feedback and ratings of the professionals that you choose to use and the comfort of knowing your business is taken care of within your budget constraints.