Restaurant Safety: 6 Tips to Keep Your Eatery Safe

Safety is paramount for every restaurant. A simple mistake can lead to illness, closure of your business, damaged reputation, and in extreme cases, death. 

With open flames, sharp equipment, a lot of movement back and forwards through tight spaces and the inevitable spills, it is important to maintain safety in every facet of your eatery. To ensure everyone that walks into your premises is safe, it is vital to examine every aspect of your restaurant to minimize potential dangers.

Maintaining a safe environment is simple. To help you through this process, we have outlined 6 tips to help reduce accidents and potential health and safety problems in your restaurant.

1. Cleanliness and Hygiene

Hygiene in a restaurant goes beyond washing your hands after using the toilet, handling raw produce, or sneezing. It entails paying attention to the tiniest details to make sure not even the smallest nook or cranny goes unclean each day. No matter how busy you are, cleaning should be a priority. 

Cleaning entails:

• Clearing and washing dirty dishes immediately
• Removing food particles from the counter and wiping it regularly (with clean cloths or sponges)
• Constant, regular fumigation to control pests
• Ensuring knives, plates, silverware and cooking utensils are sanitized daily
• Cleaning ovens, stoves, grills, and hoods at the end of each day
• Make sure every food item is free of residue and properly sealed
• Empty and replace bins at the end of each day
• Make sure staff with flu, food poisoning, skin issues or any type of contagious illness does not clock in for the day

2. Train Your Employees

You may know the importance of sanitation but your employees might not. Most restaurant owners overlook this aspect. They assume that if he/she cooks well, he should be right for the job. 

It is not uncommon to see many staff disregard certain rules in a restaurant. Fresh condiments are mixed in with old ones, hair is occasionally left uncovered, dishes unwashed. This type of behaviour could cost you your restaurant and lead to a lawsuit. 

To avoid all these, train your staff and reinforce the importance of hygiene and safety in the workplace. This could help you avoid unnecessary hassles.

• The risk of cross-contamination
• The proper way to clean 
• The importance of chilling food produce properly
• Safe cooking practices
• How to operate the restaurant equipment safely and correctly

3. Monitor the Temperature of Your Cooling Unit

Temperature is key in every food business. Produce needs to be stored at the right temperature. A few minutes without the accurate temperature and a once-suitable food can easily turn into a foodborne illness.

According to FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand) food should be kept, displayed or transported at a minimum temperature of 5°C. 

Instead of gambling with the safety of your clients, use a temperature monitoring system. This will help you avoid severe foodborne illness, wastage, and eliminate errors in monitoring temperature.

4. Provide Your Staff with Safety Equipment

Even the most meticulous of staff make mistakes. For this reason, your staff need to be provided with the right safety kit. The kitchen staff should also be dressed properly in order to protect them from burns and spills. 

You should provide your staff with:

• A uniform: Don’t be tempted to buy poor quality materials. It won’t offer the proper level of protection that is needed.
• Slip-resistant shoes: In a restaurant spills are unavoidable but, with the right shoes, your employees are protected from slipping and falling.
• A first aid kit: When accidents happen, you need a fully stocked first aid kit readily available.

Having the right equipment helps your staff reach their full potential and work with confidence.

5. Fire Safety

A fire outbreak is almost unavoidable in a kitchen. Studies show that nearly 7,640 restaurants report an incident of fire outbreak each year.

However, there are measures you can take to curb this potential risk or help manage it when it occurs:

• Place multiple fire extinguishers in strategic places in your restaurant.
• Install emergency lights, exit signs, and emergency doors.
• Set up appliances with fire suppression systems. 
• Keep flammable objects away from fires. 
• Teach your staff how to use a fire extinguisher properly. 
• Replace extinguishers when they are low on fuel and check them regularly.

6. Electricity Safety

Electricity can cause fires and can kill. Ensure that all electrical appliances are in good condition. Employees should be trained on how to spot an electric hazard. Also, they should not handle electrical faults themselves. Cables should not be on the walkways and should be far away from water or grease. 

Conclusion

A busy restaurant is a disaster waiting to happen. To keep risk to the barest minimum, each member of staff should pay attention to details and strictly adhere to protocols. It is also wise to get insurance cover. This way should any mishap occur, your insurance provider can help you by handling the cost of replacements or repairs. If you cannot determine your insurance needs, you can visit www.ami.co.nz/contents-insurance to get an idea of what you need.

By adhering to the food safety rules and sticking to the proper procedures you can to prevent problems before they occur. However, if accidents do happen, your employees should be prepared. Ensure that everyone in your organization understands the proper protocols and procedures.

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/restaurant-safety-keep-your-eatery-safe

The Positive and Negative Effects of Outsourcing SEO Projects

In past years, Search Engine Optimization was just seen as a project that could help a company grow and be more in tune with their online presence. However, SEO has now evolved into a necessary tool that makes up the digital marketing backbone of a lot of enterprises and big companies.

Consumers rely on online searches. With the way that we live today, we can always ask what we want or find what we need online. In Google alone, there are over 2.3 trillion searches each year, where 15% of the daily searches are relatively new. As a matter of fact, 70% of consumers will not buy something unless they consult the internet or read about a particular product or service online. If companies do not stay relevant in this highly competitive atmosphere, they will get left behind. What they need to remain informative and relevant is Search Engine Optimization.

Now that you have seen how important SEO can be, one question remains; Should I outsource or instead do it in-house? What measures should I take to make and execute an effective SEO plan? Business owners will be having a hard time deciding between these two because this decision will be crucial to their digital marketing success. We want to be able to help, so here is a comprehensive overview of the positive and negative effects of outsourcing SEO.

The Positive:

• Outsourcing SEO saves time– When you outsource your SEO to an agency, that means that you will be able to implement marketing strategies and campaigns right away. You do not have to go through the burden of hiring people, training them, developing your plans, and all the other steps that come along with it.
• Outsourcing SEO reduces multitasking– If you outsource your SEO, your team will be able to focus and achieve their core tasks much more comfortable. Large enterprises are able to set up a separate group for their SEO; however, if you do not have this luxury, that will mean more workload for your employees.
• Outsourced SEO is done by professionals– Before Google’s search algorithm ranks a website, it will have to consider more than 200 factors. This means that you will need great execution for your SEO campaign and a lot of high-quality content, so if your in-house team is inexperienced, do not expect that you will get the results that you want. Leaving your project to the professionals will most likely leave you feeling secure.
• Outsourced SEO is more cost-effective– Hiring an SEO agency is not cheap, however, it is more cost-effective than doing it in-house and you know that you are getting your money’s worth. Doing it in-house will require you to build a competitive team and grant them benefits, bonuses, and insurance on top of other things. The accumulated cost will be much greater.
• Outsourced SEO involves a larger team working on your campaigns– A professional SEO agency is made up of an experienced team of digital marketers, content creators, web designers, optimizers, and other SEO specialists that are trained to work together and deliver the results you need.
• Outsourcing SEO ensures you get the latest strategies– Search marketing is continuously improving with its constant updates and different trends. A professional agency will consider all this and will make sure to implement the latest techniques in order to stay relevant and more so competitive.

The Negative:

• Outsourcing SEO is still an expense– Let’s face it. Outsourcing can be cost-effective and will save you a lot of time, but it is still something you have to pay for. Sometimes, you may even have to pay more to make sure that you get high-quality work from the agency. Just make sure that what you paid is worth it.
• Outsourcing SEO means you’re handing off from the processes– When you hire an SEO agency, it basically means that you are giving them the freedom to execute marketing campaigns without direct intervention from you. It is vital that you hire an SEO agency that you can trust and will keep you posted about their work.
• Outsourced SEO means that you’ll receive divided attention– Hiring a professional agency often means that you are one of their clients, and their focus may shift from time to time so make sure to find an SEO agency that will designate a team for your specific needs.
• Outsourced SEO may not be comprehensive– SEO agencies will provide you with extensive outputs, but they may not be comprehensive for your business. Make sure to find an agency that will really dive deep into planning what your specific company will need and execute it.
• Outsourcing SEO makes it difficult to choose the right firm– One of the main problems with outsourcing your SEO is deciding on which agency to work with. You have to consider track records, reviews from past and current customers, and a lot of other things on top of their cost. Make it a point that the agency practices only white hat SEO strategies.

Conclusion

Deciding on whether you will outsource your SEO or build it in-house will ultimately come down to what you want for your business. Study these pros and cons and make sure that whatever you decide, will be worth it.

To read more about the pros and cons of outsourcing SEO, read this great infographic by Digital Marketing Philippines.

outsourcing concept -DepositPhotos

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/seo/outsourcing-pros-cons

Software Solutions When Starting a Manufacturing Business

Making goods on your own can be a fairly profitable business since manufacturing services have always been high in demand. Many people are scared to try it, and not so long ago, starting a manufacturing business and getting into the industry was very difficult. The reasons mostly are due to a lack of ideas, expensive capital costs, and difficulty in planning and processes. However, over time advances in technologies and software make it possible for entrepreneurs to venture into the manufacturing industry.

Through this modern software solution, it is a lot easier to start a manufacturing business. And with the growing opportunities in the industry, you might be wondering how it’s going to be easy for you to start a manufacturing business. Here are some ideas you can use to assemble a manufacturing company from scratch.

Data Storage Safety

One of the problems in the manufacturing industry is the error-prone manual process. With a software solution, you can easily eliminate that issue. Keeping traditional paper records is quite inefficient and unsafe since they get torn and lost easily. Using an external or internal hard disk is not advisable for data security since there will be a lot of users. According to MRP software, manufacturers can now access various data through a single system and top-level managers can provide access rights for lower-level staff who are responsible for managing data. These advanced technology systems now even allow those who have access rights to manage data at any time and from anywhere, as long as their devices are connected to the internet.

Controls Inventory Completely

Inventory management is an important factor in the easy flow of manufacturing processes. A manufacturing business will have difficulty keeping track of inventory. Checking and maintaining the inventory helps you get the right stock and reduces the risk of loss. Moreover, by using software solutions, manufacturers can now monitor their internal and external stock movements more thoroughly. The systems also allow companies to identify the most and less marketable products so that they can manage purchasing and acquisition more efficiently as well as bring innovations to the market.

Connects All Departments in the Company

Software solutions are able to integrate all departments of a manufacturing company, like financial division, human resource management, inventory, sales, customer service, and a lot more. In addition, this allows the company to disregard manual and separate monitoring of each department. If you don’t have proper communication management this can interrupt many of the things and will waste time in your company. With this modern technology, all the departments can communicate through one system, and managers can get complete data from each of them in real-time.

Automates Company Work Order Management

Software solutions also enable manufacturers to automate work orders which contain the date and time of execution, name of customer, sales order, contract of sales, product quantity, staff who are given responsibility, and others. Each work order has a routing code to make it plain sailing for management to monitor the route. Managers can checklist each task based on a work order that has been created and ensure that all the tasks work effectively. By all means, this makes every work easier and you can spend time more efficiently.

Efficient Supply Chain & Order Fulfillment Process

Manufacturers can now ensure that the entire process runs smoothly and customer demand can be met in a timely manner with software solutions. Supply chain management includes proper coordination, procurement control, stock management, and delivery of goods. With this feature, manufacturers can create better logistics strategies that will greatly assist them in cutting down operations and administrative costs.

Provides Accurate Data that Improves Decision-Making

Using software solutions allows manufacturers to get outright data on all aspects of their business operations such as sales performance, customers, profits and losses, stocks, finances, labor costs, and many more. With software solutions, you can see all the data correctly in a timely manner. And all the data collected is certainly helpful for the stockholders to make more precise estimates and effective forecasts, ergo enabling management to make smarter and faster business decisions.

Setting up a successful manufacturing company is not possible if you do not understand the basic processes. As a business owner, it is very important to know how various manufacturing sectors operate right from the start and the smallest details. Starting a manufacturing business is not an easy task, it may be a challenge to start, but it is not impossible. With this in mind, always remember not to be afraid to fail, rather be afraid not to try.

manufacturing employee explaining -DepositPhotos

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/software/manufacturing-smb

What is Insurtech?

Be honest: are you familiar with the phrase “insurtech?” It’s OK if you’re not because we’re here to explain it to you right now! Simply put, insurtech is a portmanteau of “insurance” and “technology,” and is a relatively new term used to describe new technologies and innovations that are transforming the insurance industry by optimizing cost savings and maximizing efficiency for insurance providers and customers alike. Here’s how insurtech is changing the face of the insurance industry, and what it means for you.

An Intro to Insurtech

Until recently, insurance was an industry that hadn’t changed much over the years. The model stayed about the same for decades, with providers charging their customers premiums for coverage based on an assessment of their risk determined by a variety of factors. However, much like the way fintech has changed the face of the finance industry, insurtech has become a disruptive force in the way insurance companies do business. As with a number of other industries, new technologies that utilize Big Data, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things are paving the way for a more competitive insurance market.

How Does Insurtech Work?

It’s the year 2020, and nearly all of us have smartphones, wearables, and other mobile devices that we keep on us wherever we go. Because of this, the amount of data that is able to be collected and analyzed about us by companies looking to optimize our experiences and provide us with exactly what we need, when we need it.

Companies collect consumer data in order to better anticipate their customers’ needs so that they can nimbly and efficiently meet and exceed our growing list of expectations for what we want out of a business. This is true across numerous industries- retail, food service, and banking, to name a few- and insurance is no exception. Gone are the days of filling out long, complicated insurance forms and purchasing a one-size-fits-all policy from an insurance agency. Consumers want convenience, accessibility, speed, and above all, customization when it comes to insurance, and insurtech makes it possible for even small startup agencies to be able to offer a broad range of tailor-made policies to give the customers the coverage they need rather than charging for costly policies loaded with unnecessary features.

By collecting and aggregating data for each individual customer using insurtech, insurance companies are able to quickly provide coverage via a mobile app, adding an additional layer of convenience to the customer experience. Additionally, since insurtech can use consumer data to offer the right insurance products at the right time, people can benefit by qualifying for discounts and deals based on their up-to-the-minute driver data, sent straight from their car itself, that can make for significant cost savings compared to traditional insurance policies not driven by technology.

The Future of Insurtech

As with other industries that have been disrupted by technology, insurtech is changing the way consumers see insurance. Once viewed as a necessary evil- a bill to be paid, no questions asked, in order to comply with the law- insurtech is empowering consumers to take control of their insurance policies by tailoring them to align with their specific needs, budget, and lifestyle. Whether a customer is in the market for an extended car warranty to help offset the costs of auto repair or a renter’s insurance policy that is custom-made for a single person in a condo, insurtech allows companies to provide instant quotes that save customers time and money, adding a great deal of value and an extra layer of convenience to the chore of shopping for insurance.

As technology continues to impact our global community, we can expect further innovation from companies in virtually all industries, including insurance. The traditional way of purchasing an insurance policy will become less and less desirable to consumers looking to quickly choose the policy that best fits their needs and can save them money each month. After all, why continue paying a hefty premium for a policy loaded down with a bunch of coverage you may not need if it only takes 90 seconds to receive a quote that lets you quickly comparison-shop?

Though insurtech faces an uphill battle in an industry that is historically averse to any sort of change, consumers have come to expect a level of sophisticated, real-time service that technology allows them to experience each day in a variety of interactions. From the coffee we order over their mobile app each morning to bank transfers we’re able to complete at the touch of a button on our smartphones, we are accustomed to having our specific needs met instantly by companies that seem to know who we are and what we want from our experience. Why should insurance be any different?

keys in car door -DepositPhotos

The post What is Insurtech? appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/technology-trends/insurtech

How to Use Beacon Sensors for a Business App

With the rise of mobile applications, the use of beacon technology is also becoming more and more widespread. Beacons are small, impressive devices with a huge potential to transform the business world and how stores interact with their visitors. If you are planning to supplement your business with a mobile application, beacons can take this endeavor a step further and help your company grow.

What is Beacon Technology?

Beacons are compact transmitters that use Bluetooth to connect to nearby devices. The typical range of beacon technology is 300 feet (about 90 meters), which makes them suitable for usage in stores. Modern beacons typically react to specific applications installed on the smartphones of people who pass by. This way, these transmitters can detect customers with the store’s application and connect to their devices, sending relevant information.

The signal broadcasted by each beacon can differ by the functions that it has to trigger. For instance, beacons can send push-notifications to buyers’ phones at specific aisles, alerting them of sales and product offers. Beacons can also be used to trigger the location finding services through the store’s application, providing companies with useful statistics and data to analyze.

How Do Beacons Work?

Beacons use a simple structure consisting of a power source, a CPU, and a transmitter. They can also have additional functionality, such as motion and heat sensors, accelerometers, light sensors, and other add-ons. Beacons are activated when a device with a particular application emerges in their range of action.

Since beacons rely on Bluetooth, they can provide a much more precise position of each phone inside a building than Wi-Fi or GPS services do. Also, since the transmission channel only goes one way, users don’t need to spend battery power to pair their devices with the transmitter.

How Can Beacons Help Your Business?

Beacons can greatly enhance businesses in multiple ways. This technology can be used for analytics and communication with customers alike, ensuring the best user experience and increased profits.

Enhanced Marketing

One of the primary usages of beacon technology is utilizing it to improve the existing marketing strategies and get insights into the best approaches for future campaigns. Beacons are incredibly powerful in proximity marketing. For instance, these transmitters can send alerts to your customers’ phones when your store is nearby. Beacons are also incredibly useful inside shops, where they can send notifications and alert visitors about discounts, promotions, and product recommendations based on each visitor’s location.

The precision in determining where a phone with the store’s application is located enables marketers to gather more valuable data on their customers’ behaviors and shopping practices. For instance, beacons can show how much time a person spends at a certain aisle or looking at a particular item. Analysts can use this data to determine how successful their company’s strategies and ads are and refine them.

When the beacon technology is combined with software for analytics, it can grant insights into customers’ offline behaviors and how they correlate with purchases. For instance, a company can use beacons to track whether a person decided to visit a store after seeing a particular advertisement. This way, beacons can also help optimize the out-of-store side of marketing. If you are not proficient in mobile development, you’d better refer to a seasoned software development company for assistance. To learn more, go to https://litslink.com/services/app-development and discover the range of mobile development services.

Improved Customer Experience

Beacons installed inside shops, airports, and hospitals can help people navigate. Combined with augmented reality, this technology can guide people to the required products and locations. In museums, beacons can enhance audio and virtual tours, showing each person personalized routes and information depending on their location.

In shops, beacons can enable purchases without the check-out procedure. Amazon stores serve a great example of how wide the applications of this technology are. To enter the store, visitors need to have a specific app installed on their phones. Then they proceed with selecting items, which are automatically added to their virtual cart. The person can walk out of the store as soon as they finish shopping, and the bill will be sent to their Amazon account.

Beacons Help with Logistics

Beacons can also affect how companies function beyond the interaction with their customers. When beacons are installed in warehouses and stores, they can be used for indoor navigation. Managers and delivery employees can use beacons to easily track where particular products are at any time. The technology also helps keep consistent logs of deliveries and extract information about shipments from previous days or weeks.

Beacons can also be used for tracking people. In healthcare, this technology can help determine where particular patients and medical staff are at any given point. In a standard office setting, beacons can send signals to employees during emergencies, alerting them of danger and directing them to safety, developing individual routes depending on each worker’s location.

Beacons technology is incredibly suitable for the discussed purposes not only because it is more accurate but because it’s also easily installed and managed. Beacons have lower maintenance costs and extended battery life, which improves their reliability.

warehouse digital tracking -DepositPhotos

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/technology-trends/beacon-sensors

Top 5 Incredible Stats About High-Tech B2B

Technology is continuously evolving. To keep up with innovation and advancements, the B2B market has to develop too in terms of strategy, marketing, and technology. The secret to staying competitive in a competitive and cluttered high-tech B2B market is by establishing a strong digital presence. Tech buyers are more critical of their investments. As a high tech B2B company, it’s important to understand the evolution of a tech buyer journey. To meet the expectations of a tech buyer, a high-tech B2B company is expected to have a global digital presence. When it comes to high-tech products and services, clients expect the same experience they have while investing in other things.

The dramatic shift in the technological landscape has made consumers familiar with e-commerce. This territory is a massive game-changer in the tech world.  To understand the level of competition in the high tech B2B market, it’s important to evaluate the significant impact of the digital transformation. Due to extreme competition in the B2B high-tech landscape, margins and prices have dropped considerably, commoditization of products and services has accelerated incredibly, and clients are becoming more open to new vendors. This enables new vendors to enter the market to create profitable opportunities.

It all comes down to one question. How are tech companies standing out from the intense competition in the B2B high-tech market? The answer is simple. Know your buyers. To understand more, it’s important to create a solid digital strategy to serve clients better. B2B clients are quite different from B2C customers. They invest because of professional reasons, and tech products and services are quite different from the rest. If buyers are investing in your products or services, it means you have to meet their expectations to create a lasting relationship.

Top Firms believes, now more than ever, there is intense pressure for tech companies to stand out. Listed below are five incredible stats about High-tech B2B:

Millennials Are the Game Changers

When it comes to decision making in the tech world, millennials have the highest intellect and authority to make smart purchasing decisions currently. The tech buyer journey is always changing. Around one-third of Millennials are taking full control of shortlisting technology solutions as they are power searchers. Their technology purchases add up to more than $10,000+ as they have the authority and budget to make it happen. Compared to the 27% of Gen X and 23% of Baby Boomers, Millennials have the most authority in boosting digital sales of the tech market. (Source: Arketi Group)

Many Millennials are finally coming on board with decision-making roles. Considering each and every individual has their preference, it’s important to focus on their different expectations as well. When it comes to online research, it’s impossible to beat them.

They filter through every piece of information to find what they want on technology. It’s how they’re becoming influential decision-makers. They target every social media platform, search engine, website, and content online to ensure a smooth buying experience.

59% Tech Buyers Avoid Salespersons

When reviewing tech purchases, people rely heavily on expert opinions and honest reviews. 59% of tech buyers avoid engaging with the salesperson when making purchasing decisions. (Source: Forrester). The enterprise technology market is evolving, and individuals use their own strategies and research to make informed decisions.

Around 38% of Millennials refer to industry experts, around 36% of them rely on face-to-face meetings with vendors, and around 33% refer to company websites for details. Comparatively, 50% of Baby Boomers rely heavily on industry analysts, while 49% of them discuss with colleagues and vendors. 40% of Gen X strongly trusts the opinions of colleagues, and 40% of them refer to company websites. 38% of Gen x refers to experts and industry analysts. (Source: Arketi Group)

These stats only prove the incredible popularity of the high-tech B2B landscape currently. While most activity in this space is expected from Millennials, it’s surprising to see Babe Boomers and Gen x actively engaging in the industry.

78% Tech Marketers Believe Content Is the King

Digital marketing is essential in expanding global outreach and meeting buyer expectations. While tech buyers won’t engage until they’ve conducted their research, they’re actively looking for something to hook onto.  Creating an engaging digital environment boosts the decision-making process, and for that to happen, having an effective digital marketing strategy is important.

It’s stated that by 2020, most B2B tech marketers are expected to have a certain skill set to be a certified marketer. 80% of tech marketers believe that writing skills are essential, while 78% believed content marketing skills should be highly prioritized. 77% believed data analysis skills and digital media skills are extremely important, and 65% think email marketing skills are necessary for digital marketing. These skills are considered invaluable in the B2B space.

B2B Tech Industry Allocates 15% of the Budget to Marketing

Going digital is key to staying relevant in the B2B technology space. It’s stated that around 15% of the total budget is allocated to marketing every year by the B2B high-tech industry. (Source: Deloitte). Following a digital marketing strategy will not produce results overnight. Creating a website, posting content, gaining traffic, and optimizing SEO take time.

Nevertheless, this process delivers long-term results. More than half of the high-tech B2B industry will produce digital sales by 2020. Limited budget or resources is no longer considered an excuse to avoid going digital anymore.

70% of Tech Marketers Focus on Engaging Content

Tech marketers strongly believe content is equal to revenue. The more valuable the content, the higher the revenue generated. Without the right content, targeting the right audience becomes impossible. Content marketing includes blogs, whitepapers, infographics, articles, videos, etc. Producing high quality and engaging content is the biggest marketing challenge a B2B tech company faces, said by 62% of B2B tech marketers. (Source: Content Marketing Institute).
To create compelling content, knowing your buyer is essential. To make them feel heard and valued, grasping their attention in the first place is necessary, and content is the only engine that drives curiosity in the B2B tech landscape. Around 70% of tech marketers focus on creating interactive content. (Source: Content Marketing Institute).

An extremely saturated B2B market makes it seem impossible for tech companies to gain recognition, but the evolution of technology has shifted the perspective towards a more positive outcome. These stats are proof of the incredible importance and impact high-tech companies have in the industry.

technology showcase -DepositPhotos

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/b2b-sales/tech-company-stats

IT Tips for Boosting Your Remote Team’s Productivity

With the coronavirus pandemic continuing on, many businesses have taken to remote working and will likely continue to work from home for the foreseeable future. To make matters even more stressful, it has never been more important to keep your business afloat, which can be tricky when all your staff are working from different locations.

If working remotely is something you’re new to, it can be a learning process to say the least. Even if it’s a circumstance you’re equipped for, this unique situation has undoubtedly forced you to find new tools to streamline processes, make systems more secure, and protect your data.

If you’re looking for better ways to optimize your remote network, we’re offering some tips. These 5 tips can help you boost your remote team’s productivity and ensure your systems are secured, as well:

1. Keep On Top of Cybersecurity 

Cybersecurity has been a priority for most businesses in recent years, but there has never been a more important time than now to invest in advanced security. With so many businesses having had to switch abruptly to remote networks, threat actors know that these businesses’ systems are likely to have several security weaknesses left unpatched in the transition. Hacking attempts have been on the rise as cybercriminals seek to take advantage of these vulnerabilities and steal remote workforces’ data.

While your cybersecurity controls might be configured properly in your office, ensuring your remote work is secured requires the help of a professional. Many small and medium-sized businesses have been turning to Managed Service Providers to offer remote cybersecurity services to your staff so that everyone is covered and secure. These services may include file encryption, 24/7 remote network monitoring, and more.

For example, one IT company in Birmingham, Integrated Solutions, stands out from other providers by offering customized cybersecurity solutions to their clients. By tailoring security services to each client’s specific needs, they improve productivity across all departments by ensuring all system vulnerabilities are accounted for and resolved. Rather than invest in generic (and usually inadequate) cybersecurity, it’s important that businesses working remotely seek out customized security services. 

2. Set Up a VPN 

Many businesses rely on in-house servers when in the office. If this is the case for your business, and you still need to access onsite data, it’s critical that you set up a VPN for your employees to safely access data.

A VPN, or virtual private network, is a secured connection to your in-house servers that does not require you to use an open or public Internet connection to access. When you’re connected through a VPN, all of your data will be encrypted regardless of the network settings, and outsiders will not be able to read it.

3. Ensure Your Employees Have Secure, Stable Internet Connections

While you can’t always control what Internet connections your employees have or who else is using them, it’s worthwhile to develop stipulations for what upload and download speeds they have to ensure maximum reliability.

Having a reliable Internet connection makes programs like Zoom and other remote collaboration tools less spotty and your connection less likely to be infiltrated while transferring data. Advise your employees to test their Internet speed to make sure their connection is fast enough for their needs. 

4. Invest in Telecommunication Solutions Such as VoIP

Telecommunication is a major aspect of effective remote working. If your team can’t communicate with each other and with clients easily and securely from different locations, your productivity levels will undoubtedly decrease. With so much sensitive information being shared over the phone now, you also can’t afford to let employees use their own devices for calls, which could be intercepted by threat actors.

VoIP can keep calls secure while also giving you access to more features that ease conference calling, voicemail, and more. With VoIP phones, you can access your service from a variety of different devices without the need for onsite wiring, making it ideal for remote working. Not to mention, VoIP services are typically far more cost-effective than traditional PBX phone systems.

5. Take Advantage of Project Management Tools

One of the biggest challenges of remote working is managing projects effectively and keeping track of each team’s tasks and deadlines. It is essential to use software to handle tasks and track progress, and in doing this, it also makes it much easier to outline clear processes for each role and project.

Using project management tools helps to ensure that deadlines are set in advance and agreed upon, and many businesses find that using a project management approach empowers your team to get more done. Tools such as Trello or Yalla can be great for teams to communicate, discuss the tasks, follow up, and share feedback.

As you work to make your remote team as productive and efficient as possible, making the most of new technological tools and services can be a great asset.

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