As the owner or manager of a small business, you will know that being small can be a benefit to a business.   Small means not suffering from bureaucracy, decisions can be made quickly, you can be more customer responsive, and can have better team work and communications.  It can however also be a hindrance especially when wanting the most powerful and up to date IT Technology, which can be cost prohibitive.

Again there is quite often a natural assumption that the larger a company the more inefficient it becomes, therefore small companies can often take their own efficiency for granted and become complacent. The truth is that whether a company is big or small efficiency requires process, otherwise inefficiency can occur.

Take the example of a project team, as a small business it is unlikely that you have individuals who are ‘project managers’. Project Managment tasks may fall under the scope of the Marketing, Finance or the Sales Manager who take on the responsibility, but also have other responsibilities to manage. By incorporating SharePoint and Exchange 2007 hosted solutions from Incontech you can help your managers drastically improve their individual efficiency, team efficiency and project delivery schedules.

The points below are just some of the aspects of Exchange 2007 that can help your business become more efficient, for an in depth explanation of Exchange 2007 and SharePoint please see our products section.

• Exchange Server 2007 Sharing Policies - This enables your team members to share calendars, contact lists and task folders significantly reducing duplication and ensuring that everyone knows what needs to be done, by when and by who.
• Automatic Scheduling - Exchange 2007 allows you to easily schedule meetings and will even suggest the best time a meeting should take place based on the attendees calendar information
• Resource Scheduling - Let Exchange 2007 easily book resources for you such as conference rooms or IT equipment
• Instant Search – You can rapidly locate specific information in your emails, calendar, contacts or tasks saving valuable time and proving invaluable if a key member of your team is off sick or unobtainable.
• Communicate - Never miss a message or important communication. Exchange Server 2007 delivers emails, voice messages and faxes to your email inbox. Having all your communications in one inbox saves time checking three different systems
• Mobility – Exchange 2007 mobility allows you to stay on top of everything and everyone all of the time, wherever you are. By accessing your email via your mobile device you can synchronise your email, contacts, calendar and tasks.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides an environment for team collaboration. Because SharePoint consolidates and organises information in one place, users can find information quickly and efficiently.

• Using the internet and regardless of their location, all team members have password-protected access to SharePoint sites and can work together on tasks, projects, documents, and announcements.
• Create a virtual office environment perfect for the small business where it is not possible for all the key people on a project to be in the office at the same time. With today’s traffic problems and expensive travel and hotel costs your company could save thousands of pounds a year.
• Enable your employees or customers to work together on tasks, projects and documents and to run business applications using SharePoint as the platform.

Just imagine how all these functions could improve your company’s business efficiency and professionalism on a daily basis. For a more in depth explanation regarding these technologies please see our product pages and other areas of our website.