Media headlines are meant to attract attention and this recent one certainly caught mine.
“All firms are vulnerable to IT theft”
Small Business Filing Advice
The business impact of the recent earthquake and aftershocks
Some interesting snippets coming out of the aftermath of the recent earthquake and aftershocks.
Forsyth Barr were caught out in Christchurch in 2011 when they couldn’t get back into their building to access paper documents that were not in electronic form. As a Forsyth Barr director said” you have to assume you will never get back in.” Forsyth Barr arranged for computers and a place for their staff to work but couldn’t replace the original documents stuck in their condemned building in Christchurch. They did however put a plan in place that worked for them this time when their Lower Hutt office was closed after the 14 November earthquake.
Some legal firms in Christchurch only had paper copies of wills and lost them in 2011. How embarrassing!
Save your research to save time later
What is the best way to finance my growing business?
What is the best software for me to use for my business?
How do I store all the information I so I can find it next time I need it?
These questions and many more are often asked by business owners.
Geriatric care and business information : commonalities
My mother is 93 and living in a rest home. I’m not terribly happy with her situation and I’ve been reading Atul Gawande’s book “Being Mortal” looking for better options for people like her. I was surprised in the first few chapters to find some similarities with business information systems.
Where is the valuable intelligence in your business
Business information, whether electronic and hard copy, holds valuable intelligence about your business activities.
Losing this valuable information, or being unable to access it quickly when needed, could result in loss of contracts and lower profits.
Your business and the ‘Cloud’
You’ve heard of the ‘Cloud’ and probably wonder what it’s all about. Although at a basic level it’s really only another term for ‘Internet,’ the ‘Cloud’ is a way of storing information resources so that they can be easily accessed and shared when you’re away from the office. Another major benefit is
A structured electronic filing environment or a random Google-type search process
A structured electronic filing environment works better than having a ‘bucket’ of items that you search right through to find the item you want
What does this mean and what is the difference?
The value of document management systems
I’ve never been a great fan of electronic document management systems. I can see how they can be useful but I’ve seen a lot that, in spite of hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to install them, are not used effectively because the people who are expected to use them find them too hard.
Now there are many reasons for this and it’s not always the fault of the system itself.
Business fundamentals
Being able to find information you need when you need it is fundamental to the way you manage your business.
It doesn’t matter what your business does – whether you’re making pies, children’s’ clothes, iron gates or if you provide
Improving business productivity
Recently I had the opportunity to contribute to a blog on improving business productivity. Each contribution had to be very concise – a good productivity goal in itself.