The technology needs of businesses continue to increase. Once it was sufficient to host a website and perhaps to provide a few organizational mailboxes. Eventually, web applications came to replace tools such as calendars, contact lists and other physical components of running a business. Today’s smart companies manage information electronically by default, producing hard copies only when necessary.

This has vastly increased the burden of maintaining the infrastructure that any business must have to compete. Businesses can respond to this in one of two ways. They can either host all necessary services themselves, hiring essential staff and purchasing additional equipment, or they can contract a managed services provider to do it for them. Managed services bring along a number of benefits and disadvantages.

Managed Services Pros

Easing Maintenance Infrastructure
First, managed services encapsulate a number of solid choices and best practices. Choosing a suite of applications to meet a given need is challenging, but any business that hires a managed hosting company can be certain that the proposed solution will be well-integrated to meet a given set of needs. Said services will also be kept updated, are managed securely, and often come with a service level agreement which commits to high availability.

Cost Benefits
Managed services generally cost less. Just as buying in bulk saves money, so too does hosting in bulk. Buying new servers and bandwidth while also hiring new staff to host a single set of services costs more than does hiring another company. By hosting multiple instances of a similar stack, efficiency is increased and costs are reduced.

Easy Deployment
Managed services are also fast to deploy. It is often possible to set up infrastructure in minutes or hours, rather than the days that would be necessary to set up and network physical servers, as well as to hire essential maintenance and support staff. Managed services can also scale to meet new demand, thus eliminating the need to acquire new hardware and personnel as demand increases.

Managed Services Cons

Reliability Concerns
There are also disadvantages to managed services. When hiring another partner to host critical business infrastructure, one hopes that their business will endure. If it fails, any businesses relying upon them might be left scrambling for a way to replace email, web hosting, calendars and other critical pieces of infrastructure without which any business cannot run.

Less Flexibility
Managed hosting offers less flexibility. While the choice of which applications to use for a given need might be a daunting one, it does allow meeting specific requirements to exacting standards. Managed services take some of this choice away, resulting in combinations that may not be as ideal for a given use case.

Finally, managed service providers generally store information outside of a business’s own infrastructure. In many industries this is a perfectly acceptable choice, but regulated sectors such as health care may require that service providers adhere to additional standards such as HIPAA and HITECH. Such compliance increases complexity and costs.

Whether to use managed services is a complex issue. For some businesses, they represent a great way to cut costs while quickly coming up to speed. For others, the risks and added complexity might override any benefits. As such, there is no right answer for everyone, and businesses and organizations must individually weigh these factors to make the right decision for their unique circumstances.

In most cases consumers do not consider the changes a business must adapt to in order to remain competitive.  Things like offering wifi service and outlets for consumers to charge electronic devices on was not in a business’ thought process five years ago, but are now things consumers seek out when looking for things like coffee shops to go to.   Consumers enjoy these luxuries, but in most cases have not considered the culture coercion it places on small business owners.

Businesses fear losing their customers so they adapt to their needs to provide them with a pleasurable experience, even if their risk to reward is questionable.  Airlines offer seating in airport terminals with USB adaptors attached to them that allow riders to charge their smartphones before boarding, McDonalds offers free wifi for anyone eating in their restaurants, and Starbucks recently launched an application that lets users pay for their order with their iPhone.

These businesses all show their intelligence by adapting to technology and the consumer demands that they come with.  None of the businesses knew what the level of success was going to be for these launched campaigns, but it is safe to say they generated more come-back customers out of them.  Not every advancement a business must adjust to is in best interest of their customers, rather some decision’s in the past were made based on the interest of the business.  Location to open is the oldest and most universal decision an entrepreneur has to make.  But once you decide that other decisions also need to be made.

The old way was not convenient to a business, especially a small one, as funds often took days to receive. This could be potentially harmful to a small business who is awaiting a reimbursement for a large transaction. This caused a tough decision to be made for any small business owner.

Since 1979, businesses of all types were faced with the same decision on credit card acceptance.  It was in that year that Visa created the first electronic data capturing credit card terminal. It was a huge advancement from the manual card imprinters as it sped up the transaction and made it more secure and easier for businesses to accept credit card payments.  The time it took for funds to get into an account was shortened, allowing smaller businesses that were on a tighter budget to explore the benefits of accepting credit cards.

There have been a variety of credit card terminals since the first imprinter. They have gone from slow dialup connections that required a cashier to manually enter the credit card number to tap and go machines. The range of machines offered from companies such as North American Bancard makes it easy for a business to adapt to accepting credit cards.  They offer machines that run through dialup, high speed and wireless connections. These advancements make it easier for any industry to accept credit cards.

It wasn’t until recently that companies like Pay Anywhere developed a device that turns a smartphone into a credit card terminal.  Pay Anywhere is backed by North American Bancard who is currently helping over 100,000 merchants with their credit card processing needs.

Thanks to developments like Pay Anywere, businesses have more choices than ever to process credit cards and need to adapt to this industry before it’s too late.  This advancement in the industry makes accepting credit cards more cost and energy efficient.  Mobile credit card processing makes it easier for a business to adapt to the change in the merchant account industry.

This post is a sponsored blog post.

ABB takes pride in their technology and innovations which allow companies to reduce their energy usage and increase product efficiency without compromising productivity. The environment and renewable energy is top priority at ABB. Therefore they sponsored a survey of energy professionals that have been asked to comment about the various issues concerning energy usage, the environment, and the government’s role in enforcing environmental rules on utility companies. The survey was conducted by Bloomberg Businessweek and concluded that most energy professionals agree that a change is needed to encourage companies to use their energy more efficiently. ABB believes that a better, cleaner future relies on smart technology that uses renewable energy.

ABB is a company specializing in creating innovative technologies that use the world’s energy in a more efficient way, while decreasing environmental damage. ABB sponsored an energy survey, conducted by Bloomberg Businessweek, to increase awareness about energy usage by various companies and renewable energy. The results can be seen in the video. Most energy professionals agree that utility companies should use more renewable energy sources, and that energy should be distributed more efficiently. Furthermore, companies should reduce their energy usage, and move towards the direction of renewable energy.

ABB is striving for a better, cleaner future by developing innovative technologies that increase energy usage efficiency. ABB have sponsored a survey, which was conducted by Bloomberg Businessweek. The survey illustrates the expressed concern that the majority of energy experts have about renewable energy. Energy officials believe that immediate changes must take place. The video shows the survey results which could lead to effective solutions for energy usage efficiency. ABB believes that by creating a smarter energy system we can protect the environment and aim for a brighter future.

Technology can be a lifesaver for a small business owner, but only if you know how to use today’s top tools to spark efficiency. Communication is one area that is fast becoming critical to the success of small businesses. These suggestions are good reminders on how communication technology can shave unnecessary expenses while streamlining employee workflow:

1. Improve employee satisfaction.

Aging phone systems and slow networks can frustrate your employees and annoy your customers. In some cases, an employee might become burned out and decide to move on. To help ensure that employees are productive and satisfied, your business needs a secure, reliable, and fast network.

2. Reduce unproductive travel time.

All too often, time spent on the road is time lost. A networked phone solution that offers video calls and Web conferencing can help reduce the time and expense of traveling to offsite meetings and training sessions. Instead of spending time traveling, you can use the time to get work done with technology.

3. Make it easy to work together.

Smooth collaboration between employees, partners, suppliers, and customers is a sure-fire way to boost efficiency while also reducing costs. An intelligent network lets your business take advantage of interactive calendaring, videoconferencing, unified communications, and other technologies for easy collaboration. In fact, through May 31, small business owners can take advantage of a free trial of the Verizon Collaboration Center, which gives easy access to all of these features. Companies can register for the free trial at: http://business.verizon.net/betterway/challenge.php

4. Streamline customer communications.

Delivering fast, knowledgeable service is the best way to keep customers satisfied. Linking your network phone system to a customer relationship management (CRM) solution is a great way to enhance customer communications. When a customer calls, a pop-up window with their records appears on an employee’s IP phone screen, computer screen, or both.

5. Develop a long-term technology plan.

The process of replacing obsolete hardware can interrupt your employees and bring the office to a standstill. You can minimize such disruptions by carefully determining short- and long-term business objectives and working with your network vendor or IT professional to deploy technology that matches them.