“Great Eight” Tech Tips For Businesses (NAPSA)—Small and medium- sized businesses will spend about $9.2 billion on IT products and services this year alone. Technology can help many of these companies become moreefficient and profitable, as there are more solutions available due to recent drops in price and complexity. The following tips from Dell can help small businesses use new technology to their advantage. 1. Develop a solid business plan first, then an IT strategy. Choose a solution that helps you better utilize emerging technologies, be more efficient and maximize the value of IT investments. Deal directly with your provider for customizedIT solutions. 2. Invest in scalable, stan- dards-based technology. Choose a technology partner that offers affordable, flexible, standardsbased technology and does not lock your company into expensive and complex proprietary systems. 3. Go mobile. The cost of notebooks has plummeted, while innovations in notebooks have greatly improved performance and reliability. In a recent study, people reported significant productivity gains from using a notebook rather than a desktop. Notebook technology can help you work smarter, be moreflexible and have more time to focus on customers. 4, Get a server. Using a ser- ver, even just for networking two computers together, helps you better manage security, sharing of data, applications and system resources—it can also help you avoid potentially costly disruptions and downtime. An entry level server can cost less than $500. 5. Protect your data. Select a robust, easy-to-use and scalable storage solution to protect and The right employee-training pro- gramscan help businesseslever- age their technology. manage your information. You should back up your data at least on a daily basis and keep a copy offsite in case offlood, fire, ete. 6. Secure your infrastructure. Choose the solution that best simplifies the task of assessing and improving your business security level. It should include hardware antitheft security, data security and networksecurity. 7. Realize the value of uptime. Know who you can call should your system go down and what their response times are. Know what you can do to get your system operational and opt for industry-leading 24/7 technical support services. 8. Educate your people. Equip your staff with the education and tools they need to leverage technology on a daily basis. Ensure your technology partner offers effective, flexible and affordable online and instructor-led training courses plus industry-standard platform certification courses to help increase efficiency, advance employee skills and boost retention. For more information, visit www.dell.com/smallbusiness.
