How New Technology Can Help Businesses Be Lean and Green
Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
In the current economic climate it is essential for businesses to cut costs where they can in order to survive and plan for growth.
Businesses are now looking to make the most out of the available technology to do this and may not be aware that they can be eco-friendly at the same time.
A business can improve their green credentials, cut costs, and improve on productivity at the same time.
The talk comes about on the topic of green telecoms and it is believed that by 2014 businesses will have spent a massive £76.2 million will have been spent on green telecom services across the world.
By doing this, businesses will not only be a part of cutting emissions by a fantastic 24%, but also benefit from being able to save money and look at how their companies can grow having invested in the solution to common problems.
At this moment in time, businesses can at least benefit from improving productivity levels, and helping the environment, by spending a little on telecoms services.
The cost is likely to be less than that of a business’s current services anyway so ‘investing’ is more in the sense of taking part, as opposed to spending money.
Telecoms changes come in the form of ‘investing’ in VoIP services (Voice over internet protocol). This means that calls can be handled simultaneously over one line. Costs are usually lower than using standard services so businesses can save money.
Some service providers even offer VoIP-to-VoIP calls for free to a certain point. This means that you can communicate easily, face-to-face with clients and colleagues; ideal for a more personal approach and great if you have a few different offices.
You can expect to be able to benefit from additional services such as voice-mail, call forwarding, instant messaging, voice calls as well as video calls and you can even send files or documents whilst you are on the call. This makes for a fantastic solution for businesses and the all-important face-to-face exchanges.
Using VoIP can save you money on other expenditures as well such as traveling; you don’t need to know you can meet them personally using VoIP. Traveling less alone is helping reduce your businesses carbon footprint.
The services are convenient as well and can extend easily to smartphones. You can use the same features right from your phone so you can keep the face-to-face interaction going whilst on the move. This will be a benefit for productivity at least.
Having on-site services is a bit of a pain because this is more expensive and means you actually have to make room as well. The options are growing now and you can choose the more affordable route of cloud storage and computing.
This means that your services are securely stored online and you can expand your storage as you need to. You can also manage your services online using a portal that usually comes as standard from service providers. You can look into great internet options at http://www.highspeed-internet.com/.
VoIP technology means that all businesses can benefit from the services and save money whilst they do so. You can improve productivity in other ways as well.
To complicate the scenario; if you have a cloud based CRM system you could consider integrating the two so you can have services automated: you could set it up so the system searches for the incoming phone number and displays the matching customers information ready for your employee to assist.
The options are great and ultimately come down to company requirements. The possibilities could even mean fewer requirements for resources so you could end up saving a lot more than you expected whilst helping the environment. Going green is great in itself and it turns out that it is the cheaper option too.
You call kill more than two birds with one stone: go green, save money, save on resources and become more productive with the help of the latest technology. Your business can grow with the help of technology in ways you wouldn’t have guessed.
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