Business Top Guides » Hassan

Bringing your business up to speed: a guide to wide area networks

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:18:16 +0000

In order to keep up with your customers’ demands you need a real-time 360 degree view of your business. Your systems need to operate 24 hours a day and your stock levels must be up to date at all times.

When your company is small and based in a single location, things are simple. But they may start to get complicated when you expand or start to outsource into other territories, either at home or abroad. For example, if you’re a retail business with multiple shops around the country, as well as a national distribution hub and a factory located abroad, then ideally you want everyone in the business to send you data in real-time. This way you can know at any time how many coats have sold in your Newcastle shop and how much stock remains at the distribution point.

You want every part of your business to be connected. This way a sales till in your shop in Newcastle can both ring up sales and keep track of how much money has been taken. It can also connect to the internet and access your company website, as well as interrogate the distribution hub to see if there’s any stock left or to put in an order if more stock is needed. You also want it to be easy for the shop assistant on the till to be able to contact anyone in the organisation, no matter where they are, in order to get an idea of stock levels in different shops or to find information about forthcoming products.

Without fast connectivity, you have to disconnect each part of the business from the headquarters and collect data on a daily or weekly basis. But this means accounts are always a few days or a week out of synch, so nobody can say with any certainty whether or not an item is in stock. Such businesses are also unable to respond effectively to changes in the market both locally and nationally.

Seeking connectivity solutions via broadband

Some companies look to the internet and broadband for a solution, but here there are also drawbacks, namely a lack of security. Unfortunately, the internet is an inherently insecure network. For example, whenever you send an email, that email is split into small bits by the sender and then bounces from server to server until it’s reassembled at its destination. At any point along that route it’s possible for someone to intercept those deconstructed bits. And if you’re streaming video or audio the data can get out of sequence, as different parts of the file are sent over different paths and may not be received in the order in which they were sent. Broadband connections, while fast enough for consumer needs, are less likely to be adequate for medium to large business use. When you share one broadband line between multiple users in, say, a branch office and you need to send, upload and download large files you start to hit problems. Most available broadband connections are asynchronous, meaning they download at one rate and upload at another. Therefore, an 8Mbps connection will allow you to download a file at 8Mbps, but only upload at around 512k to 1Mbps. Speed is also dependent on your distance from the exchange and the number of other people sharing your connection.

Wide Area Network Options

The simplest solution to the problem is to create a set of dedicated connections between your sites. With these, the upload speed is as fast as the download speed, and it has pre-agreed levels of service, which are set via a service level agreement (SLA). Also, the line is used by your business and no one else, so the download speed will not reduce at peak times when the business next-door starts to send large CAD/CAM files.

Leased lines are one of the simplest connections, offering connectivity up to 155Mb, but there are other options that offer faster performance, often at a lower price. For example, if your offices are dispersed across a business park, a town, a city or a region, Ethernet Extensions are one way to link your people. Ethernet Extensions offer unlimited usage through a dedicated, fixed-price digital transmission channel. This secure, fibre-based service offers dedicated connections at Ethernet speeds of 10, 100, 1000 Mb and up to 10Gb. You can have point-to-point connections or point to multipoint, as well as supporting business critical applications and high speed file transfer to improve efficiency. All this between locations up to 25km apart allowing you to exchange large amounts of data effectively and efficiently.

In cases where your offices are spread across the country, National Ethernet may be a good solution. National Ethernet offers unlimited usage across the UK at speeds of 2Mb right up to 1Gb across our national network. If bandwidth upgrades are needed, they can typically be done remotely without the need for a site visit. Whether you need multiple circuits or a single connection, the service can be tailored to you. Annual charges are fixed regardless of usage or distance.

As the number of your sites increases, it becomes more complicated to rely on individual connections between them. In these cases, a virtual private network is often a good alternative, allowing you to share resources efficiently rather than on a site-by-site basis. An IPVPN is a cost effective, secure, flexible, scalable and fully managed service. IPVPN provides the security of a VPN with superior performance for business-critical applications, plus the cost benefits of converging voice, data and video traffic on the same network. The service is managed for you, including the set up and ongoing management of routers and IP routing. If you want to control your own routing hardware Ethernet VPNs can be a great solution, allowing you connect sites nationally, at speeds of 1MB to 1GB through our Next Generation Network.

Combining a Next Generation Network with VoIP

Because you have a connection that’s both fast and secure, you can start to use the connection to perform other tasks, such as video conferencing, or using the connection for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems.

One of the main criticisms of VoIP is that there’s no guarantee on call quality since the system uses the internet to route calls. Calls can sometimes break off or the voice quality can be so poor as to be impossible to use. However, using VoIP over a dedicated Next Generation Network will give you a clear line, as well as connections that are always reliable. This not only saves your business money, but also should encourage your employees to communicate more often.

Lastly, because you now have a constant fast and reliable connection between all your different sites, it’s now much easier and faster for your IT department to support users, no matter where they are, and to build in additional safeguards for your business, such as disaster recovery solutions. With a WAN your IT staff can use tools like Microsoft’s built-in Remote Desktop Connection to remotely control and share a PC, so there’s no need for site visits to fix simple IT problems. Additionally, the servers on your system can continuously back up their data to secondary sites. This way if a branch office is hit by fire or flood there’s a copy of all the lost data saved and available for use straight away. You can then restart the branch anywhere from within a few hours to a few days. Solutions like High Capacity Services can often be a great way of supporting the performance and bandwidth needed when servers are mirroring data of this kind over large distances.

Watch the video related

Written And Directed By Nick Love. Starring Danny Dyer And Tamer Hassan:- Set in the Thatcher era with the cool sounds of the 80’s, THE BUSINESS is an action packed gangster flick set in Spain’s sun drenched Costa Del crime

Help answer the question

How do I start a successful retail business?
I need assistance to get my questions answered regarding starting a retail business:

1. Which retail business would be best to start and why: a) Specialty retail business or b) Mail order business?

2. Which type of business is more predictable and does not change often: Specialty retail or mail order?

3. Many people say that PASSION is important when it comes to starting a business because the owner will have to work long hour to make his or her business a success. I agree with that but can you explain to me why there are many people out there who started their successful businesses outside their PASSION?

4. How can I choose products and services to sell that fit my personality and are part of my values?

5. I took a Myers-Briggs personality test and the result of the test shows that my personality type is an ISFJ (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging). Would someone like me who possess this personality type can become successful in operating his or her retail business?

business

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When Bad Credit Spoils Your Chances At A Small Business Loan

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:11:41 +0000

Bad credit is one of the main reasons for bank loan denial. A credit score lower than 580 will most likely ruin your chances for a business loan. Multiple credit checks also lessens your chances for approval. And of course, a recent file for bankruptcy will ensure denial on your request.

Fortunately, there is no reason for despair if you belong to this group of people. There are now available alternatives for getting a small business loan, regardless of your bad credit. It is important, however, that you understand your circumstances before jumping into these alternative means for a business loan.

You can opt for an unsecured personal loan in such cases. But before you do, consider these factors first. One, how much do you need as a business loan? Factor in the numbers and come to a close estimate of how much you really need. Two, how much can pay each month. You have to note that personal business loans often have higher interest rates per month and if you’re not careful, you might become more in debt than you actually were, before the business loan. And three, will you be making minimum payments? Avoid making minimum payments because it actually costs more in the long run.

A business cash advance is also one way of securing the money you need. A small business loan through cash advance is relatively an easy process to go through as compared to borrowing money from a bank. Most small business, even if they do have good credit, have often little asset and property. This is what makes business cash advances a good alternative for small entrepreneurs in need of immediate money. The only important thing your business should have is access to credit card services (i.e. you accept credit cards for transactions). You just need to have your business’ credit scores established. The best way to do this is to separate your personal credit from your business credit. It is recommended that you control most, if not all, of your business credit needs from only one of two credit card service providers so you have better chances at getting approved quickly. Lastly, your business will need to have gained $2,500 to $4,000 as minimum credit card sales per month.

Most cash advance providers base the amount of business loans by average monthly credit card sales, and of course, your actual need for capital. A business cash advance as a business loan is recommendable because the processing time for approval of your business loan can be as short as 3 days. Since newly opened small businesses encounter a lot of time constraints with suppliers and clients, easy and immediate access to additional funding is always a plus. Furthermore, cash advance as a small business loan now comes easy with the help of the internet. You can apply for a business cash advance online and have it approved the next day. The business loan will be directly deposited into your account once it is approved.

Use your small business loan to purchase new equipment, marketing, pay debt or taxes, or pay the payroll. Banks and big lending companies are now not the only way of getting a small business loan for your immediate business needs. Fast, online cash advance is now the new means of making your business grow and compete in whatever market you are thriving on.