smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

It’s now easier than ever to start a business. Kevin Fortune, MD and co-founder of IT and technology specialist Tech Concierge, shows how you can set up a business for next to nothing.

Virtual phone numbers

It’s always a good idea to make it easier for customers to contact you. Regardless of your actual location, you can provide local rate phone numbers for your customers whether they’re located in London, New York or Japan. These work together with VoIP phones so customers pay a local rate to reach you regardless of their location using a regular phone. Again this is not expensive and usually works out at around £4 per month per virtual number.

Video conference

It’s the next best thing to meeting in person without the travel costs. Skype is great for remote and out-of-the-office working and because using video chat is free and can be done from anywhere in the world, it’s becoming increasingly popular. The quality is pretty good, the software is easy to use, and it’s better than talking on the phone because you can see people’s expressions. It also means no more misinterpreted emails or voicemails. Skype is available free.

Online backup & sharing

Small businesses that lose their data don’t last very long. The problem is that recovery is usually a manual process and remote working makes things even harder. However, online backup software works automatically, it runs on each computer you have and systematically backs up your changes over an internet connection. If you lose your laptop, you can easily restore your data to a new computer. You are also protected against fire and theft at the office as the data is backed up off-site to a secure data centre. This can cost as little as from £5 per user per month.

Hosted email

A few years ago an expensive office server was required to provide email, calendar and address book sharing, all at once. Now these services are available on a pay monthly basis without the up front investment required in hardware. Team members can arrange appointments, check availability, and share contacts while email is automatically backed up off-site. Your computer and mobile phone are automatically synchronised and backed up without wires, so if you lose your phone you won’t lose your numbers. You can also access your email, contacts and calendar from any computer via webmail. This normally costs around £10 per mailbox per month.

Updates & maintenance

Yes it sounds dull, but prevention is nearly always better than cure. Many common computer problems are avoided by installing anti-virus software, running regular system software updates and de-fragmenting your hard drive to improve general performance. Don’t wait until things go wrong as nobody can afford downtime – schedule your calendar to run your software updates for you over one lunchtime a month. It’s simple but effective.

Hosted desktop

This is the ultimate solution for a small business. Imagine if the entire contents of your PC, including your software and all your files, could be with you at all times. You’ll never have to worry about installing software, viruses or backup again – just login in to any computer and all your documents, spreadsheets and emails (including your entire desktop) are there. All your information is kept secure on a server off-site in a data centre. This is more expensive but worth the investment if you can afford it. Prices tend to start from £100 per user per month.