Business phone systems are essential to the tranquil operation of your business, especially if you’re running a itsy-bitsy venture. A phone system is one of the most indispensable communication tools in a company, so the quality of the setup and equipment is very distinguished.
When you purchase a telephone system for your business, it’s important to take budget into consideration as well as your specific needs. The equipment you purchase should handle the requirements of your business now and into the future.
The type of business phone system you implement will depend on the size of your company and your plans for future expansion. Most basic phone systems advance with options such as voicemail, a receptionist station, call transfer capabilities, and room for expansion. A KSU telephone system is the most common type in this category – it’s a small box mounted on a wall that requires software to run. Many name brands sell this type of phone system, so it’s not difficult to find a vendor.
PBX telephone systems are another option. KSU systems are perfectly acceptable for about 10-40 users, but if you have a larger organization PBX is the next step up. PBX stands for private branch exchange system, which is essentially a small private switchboard just for your company. This type of phone system is needed for larger businesses because it’s the only telephone system that can handle a lot of activity.
Whether you go with a hosted PBX or a virtual PBX, this is the only setup that can handle a large amount of incoming calls, route connections, and process everything quickly and precisely. A hosted PBX or virtual PBX comes with a lot of different features as well, such as automated directories of employee extensions, call parking, conference calling capabilities, and customizable voicemail services.
A whole host of designate name vendors sell PBX systems, so it’s easy to salvage something that will suit your business perfectly.
Luckily, setting up a business phone system doesn’t have to be expensive. These days the Internet makes it possible to purchase low-cost systems from vendors over the web. Certain services even allow you to set up a virtual phone system through the Internet that provides all the features you would normally get with hardware.
A business system also needs high-quality phones to work properly, whether you’re setting up a classic phone system or are venturing to try VOIP services that promise to cut costs significantly. Ayala phones offer excellent features for a small or large office environment. Ayala phones provide everything you could ever need in a business telephone without a large price tag.
In the end, the specific phone system you decide to establish for your business will depend on more than one factor. What suits your needs may not be right for another company. Do some research ahead of time to figure out what kind of system will fulfill the requirements of your business and work best with the number of employees you currently have at the office.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Oct 8th, 2010. 
- The threats of Cyber Attack and Cyber Disaster on the Internet are actual and escalating.
- Do not rely on governments, corporations, and the private sector to protect you.
- Develop and implement an individual, personal Internet Disaster Recovery Plan, now.
The Threat of Cyber Attack and Cyber Disaster
During the cold war, we knew who the bad guys were, and they had nuclear weapons. There was a finite group, and there was a deterrent, because they knew that if they attacked us, we would know that they attacked us and we would attack them benefit. That’s a significant deterrent. But now, anybody who goes down to Best Buy or Radio Shack can buy a computer for two or three hundred dollars, and they have Internet connectivity. And these individuals can . . . have a weapon of mass destruction sitting on their desk in their bedroom.
Overview of the National Security Threat
James Christy
U.S. Department of Defense
The threats of cyber attack and cyber anxiety are real and escalating. Network infrastructure and information, data, and communication systems are all at heightened cyber risk of cyber attack and cyber disaster. Intrusion, spyware, malware, viruses, worms, et al. are some of the weapons in this overt and covert cyber warfare. Cyber risk assessment, cyber risk mitigation, and cyber security protocols and practices must be a national priority.
Internet security, .equally, for you the individual, is essential. Cyber security must be an individual, personal priority.
Are you personally prepared to survive a Cyber Armageddon? Do you have an individual, personal Internet Disaster Recovery Plan?
Internet Concern Scenario
It’s Sunday, 11pm EST. You’ve just finished the final draft on three articles for Associated Content. One – with great keywords and keyword phrases you’ve extracted from four day’s deep research pouring over forecasting models and trend analyses – is not time sensitive and you’re submitting non-exclusive for upfront payment. The second, a C4C, has to be in by tomorrow. The third, to jack up your PV’s immediately, you’re submitting for display only.
You crank into your wireless network and go to the Associated Content space to log in. Seconds drag…and drag. You know what’s coming.
You regain a 404, “requested resource could not be found,” error message. Shit! Before you can move, you get a 410, “Gone,” error message. What? You’ve never seen that one before. While you’re level-headed trying to digest that one, a 500, “Internal Server Error,” error message slaps you into a smile. System’s fail, you remember, and you come to reboot. Before you can, the screen goes black.
Whatever… You turn your desktop off manually and then go to the laptop. You power up, hit the network – and nothing. Black screen. You do a system repair and watch as the usual “disabling…,” “enabling adapter” messages come, and wait for the “connecting to wireless network” and “renewing IP address” messages. They don’t come. Instead, you win “unable to connect to network.”
O.k., o.k., you’ll check the router and the modem. The router and modem seem to be a.o.k., but you power them off anyway and then encourage on. You go back to your desktop, bring it up, hit the network, and – black camouflage.
Damn ISP! Some genius network admin doing unannounced maintenance. You’re going to call and ream someone a new asshole.
You pick up your digital phone to dial – but it’s dead. What?
O.k., it’s becoming clearer now. You turn on the TV to check the cable just to make sure. Yup. Just as you suspected. The entire ISP bundled service package, Internet, phone, and cable, is down.
You stop by the kitchen, refill your glass of Pinot Noir, and flip your cell open to give the ISP a wake-up call. Your cell announces the numbers as you punch them in, you push ‘dial,’ and come by primed to nail someone. No ring on your cell. In fact, no sound. You slay out and redial. Nothing.
Your cell service provider is different from your ISP. Why can’t you call your SP? Battery charge and signal bars are full.
Maybe you’re too tired to think straight. You go to bed. The gremlins will be exorcized by tomorrow morning.
Monday morning, early. You’re up, showered, and in the kitchen grinding your Starbucks coffee in 20 minutes. While the coffee brews, you stroll into the perceive to power up the desktop. You go through the start-up routine, bring up your three files, and hit the network. Nothing. UFB!
You check the landline and the cell. Nothing. TV? Zip.
You go out to get the newspaper, expecting a headline or at least a front page piece on some local technical snafu. The newspaper isn’t in the driveway. You look in the bushes along the driveway, in the front yard, and up and down the street. No newspaper.
Somebody’s playing a joke on you. You don’t know how or why, but when you find out who, they’d better have a paid up insurance policy.
You go back inside, turn off the coffee maker, copy your files to a diskette, accumulate into your car, and drive to your FWB’s house. She’ll still be home this early and will let you upload your stuff through her machine.
You utilize the key she’s given you and slip into her bedroom, maybe prepared for a exiguous diversion. She’s sitting up in bed, still in her red silk PJ’s, her PC on her lap.
“Leisurely night, Darlin’ or early morning? “
“Wow! Jack, am I happy to see you! I can’t get my computer to work. Can you wait on me? “
You stare at her in disbelief and whisper “No.”
“I’ll be back.”
You go succor to the car and drive to the corner gas station where there is a POTS payphone. You call the ISP. You peer a strange buzzing, with intermittent clicks, on the line before you get the message “Due to unexpected call volume, we cannot answer your call. Please call back.” Click. Tedious.
This is beginning to seem like a seedy plot from “The Twilight Zone” or “The X-Files.”
Your ISP has a local office about five miles away. You drive there.
This early, the parking lot should be nearly empty. But this morning, it’s jammed, with a dozen or so cars having Emergency Management insignia and Highway Patrol tags.
The front doors to the ISP are wide start. Irregular. It’s already in the mid 80’s – haven’t these clowns heard about conservation? You glide in and are met by two men in dark suits.
“I.D., please.”
You don’t respond immediately. They step succor and to your sides, flanking you, and instinctively meander their right hands inside their jackets.
“I.D., please.” A little louder and less conversational.
HFS!
“Uh, I wanted to talk to somebody about my computer.”
“On the floor, now! Hands behind your head!” You obey.
After they search you for weapons, find your I.D. and over walkie-talkies confirm you identity, they help you to your feet.
“Sorry for the pain, sir. Please go home.”
They’ve got your attention now and you immediately move to comply, heading out the front doors to your car.
As you drift toward your car, Billie, a friend of yours with the ISP, comes out a side door for a smoke.
“What is going on, Billie?!”
“We don’t know, Jack. Everything with any hook to the Internet is locked up and down. Been that way since before midnight.”
*****
“Twilight Zone”? “X-Files”? Trailer for next season’s “24″ premiere? Nope. 2008 Specter of Internet Threat Reality. And it may not be “if,” but “when”: Internet down.
Don’t Rely on Government, Corporate, and Private Sector “Black Hats” for Internet Protection
There’s government-this and global-that trying to blunt cyber attacks, trying to withhold cyber disaster from happening. There are US government departments and agencies, corporate IT’s, and private sector Internet security and Internet vulnerability firms. They all are trying to stay one step ahead of the whiz bang individual hacker, the technologically enabled terrorist cell, and the rogue nation-state committed to bringing it all down – to tumble the 21st Century backward to the 14th Century.
But, what can YOU do to CYA? What is YOUR Internet Concern Recovery Plan to safeguard you, your personal interests and property, your small business, when the Internet goes down?
Recommendations for Your Internet Pains Recovery Plan
1. Maintain and use firewall software on your primary workstation.
2. Bustle the latest scan and super software on your primary workstation, daily.
3. Back-up your mission-critical output/production files to CD and diskette. Make two copies. (External hard drives or memory sticks are other options.)
4. Bustle the latest scan and clean software against your back-ups.
5. Do your back-ups weekly or more frequently, if working on a large-scale project or completing a project.
6. Sustain one set of copies in a physical fail safe location like a safety deposit box or a personal, fireproof safe.
7. Don’t keep any mission-critical information, data, or output only on the Internet. Going serve through your scanned and cleaned primary workstation, include these in your back-up routine. (See Step 3, above.)
8. Maintain a standalone system which IS NOT connected to the Internet. NEVER connect it to the Internet. Place a copy of your weekly back-ups on this system. In case you need hardcopy output, be sure to include sufficient, minimal peripherals with the system. For example, printer, plotter, et al. Never connect the peripherals to the Internet.
9. Never install or load anything except your personal back-ups directly to your standalone system. No freeware, no upgrades, no games or graphics – nothing…not even from friends.
10. Remember how to use a pencil and paper.
These Internet Disaster Recovery recommendations come from nearly ten years’ federal, state, and corporate IT experience and practice with Emergency Management, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity Planning. Also, they come from being a writer with valuable intellectual property and knowing how destructive things would/will become if/when the Internet goes down. Finally, they come from a small business owner who has a vested interest in not only his survival, but the survival of America.
The threats of cyber attack and cyber disaster are real and growing. Protect your interests and property from cyber destruction. Make your individual, personal Internet Disaster Recovery Plan a priority.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Sep 30th, 2010.
Business phone systems are essential to the smooth operation of your business, especially if you’re running a small venture. A phone system is one of the most essential communication tools in a company, so the quality of the setup and equipment is very primary.
When you rob a telephone system for your business, it’s important to take budget into consideration as well as your specific needs. The equipment you purchase should handle the requirements of your business now and into the future.
The type of business phone system you implement will depend on the size of your company and your plans for future expansion. Most basic phone systems come with options such as voicemail, a receptionist station, call transfer capabilities, and room for expansion. A KSU telephone system is the most common type in this category – it’s a small box mounted on a wall that requires software to run. Many name brands sell this type of phone system, so it’s not difficult to find a vendor.
PBX telephone systems are another option. KSU systems are perfectly acceptable for about 10-40 users, but if you have a larger organization PBX is the next step up. PBX stands for private branch exchange system, which is essentially a small private switchboard just for your company. This type of phone system is needed for larger businesses because it’s the only telephone system that can handle a lot of activity.
Whether you go with a hosted PBX or a virtual PBX, this is the only setup that can handle a large amount of incoming calls, route connections, and process everything quickly and precisely. A hosted PBX or virtual PBX comes with a lot of different features as well, such as automated directories of employee extensions, call parking, conference calling capabilities, and customizable voicemail services.
A whole host of brand name vendors sell PBX systems, so it’s easy to find something that will suit your business perfectly.
Luckily, setting up a business phone system doesn’t have to be expensive. These days the Internet makes it possible to purchase low-cost systems from vendors over the web. Distinct services even allow you to station up a virtual phone system through the Internet that provides all the features you would normally get with hardware.
A business system also needs high-quality phones to work properly, whether you’re setting up a classic phone system or are venturing to try VOIP services that promise to prick costs significantly. Ayala phones offer excellent features for a small or large office environment. Ayala phones provide everything you could ever need in a business telephone without a grand price tag.
In the end, the specific phone system you decide to establish for your business will depend on more than one factor. What suits your needs may not be right for another company. Do some research ahead of time to figure out what kind of system will fulfill the requirements of your business and work best with the number of employees you currently have at the office.
Related Posts
Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Sep 21st, 2010.
- 91 million Americans are considered “obese”. Obese is defined as being 20% above an individual’s ideal body weight.
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t be advised to “consult a physician” prior to starting a recent diet if all diets fit each individual. But this is not how it works! Diet plans are designed by individuals who (a) generally are educated in nutrition/metabolic/fat-cell formats; (b) have experienced a level of weight-off success with their system; and (c) attempt sale-of-said to the public for profit. The Zone, Atkins diet, Sugar Busters and Jenny Craig are a few, familiar promotions and more get added by the day. So what’s the best of the bunch especially following food-laden holidays? The American Medical Association sticks by its proven “healthy diet and life style” recommendation and encourages people to eat their way healthy this unusual year using common sense choice-making.
1. To keep from overeating at a party or company lunch, munch a cramped to medium apple prior to leaving the house or in the car. Apples are high in pectin, a soluble fiber that slows the digestive process making one feel full on less food. Pectin is a natural “diet pill” that gives the instant gratification dieters perpetually seek and it carries well, i.e. to tailgate parties, etc. Read up on foods containing pectin that keep a stash in-home in case of emergency!
2. Weight-managing gurus are still reeling over a research finding from the University of Texas wherein a person’s risk of obesity increased 41% for each can of diet soda consumed daily. The black-hat in this discovery is artificial sweetener (example: aspartame or sucralose) which seemingly dulls the body’s ability to “feel full” which thus leads to overeating. Foods containing artificial sweeteners tend to do the same so again read nutritional labels to outsmart dietary food slides.
3. The apt news? Consumer Report’s survey of 37,000 people trying to lose weight found that the majority of people who lost/keptoff weight did not follow commercial diets or use prescription/over the counter pills. Their one favorite dynamic was bypassing “convenience” food for nutrition-dense goods (again) via label scrutiny to insure low rotund issue + zero trans fats; no artificial syrups/sugars.
4. It’s okay to wallow in Godiva, Ben and Jerry’s or Cheesecake Factory slice-of-the-day. Focusing on the smell, flavor and texture actually add to a feeling of satiety vs. eating in a “trance” or “in a bustle” or with “guilt”. Our stomach misses the treat’s feel when we eat it while in multi-tasked mode. So eat all goodies slow and mindfully. “Full” is a natural product of non-emotional, unstressed eating and bonus is gained because cravings for more of the same travel.
5. Increase you water intake. A good formula for this is to multiply your body weight by .66 to get the required number of ounces per day. The average body loses two liters of water per day from functions like breathing and perspiring alone! Tepid, from-the-tap liquid meets fluid intake but varying the water’s temperature can help maintain or speed up weight loss. A cup of hot water speeds up metabolism and burn more calories because the body exerts more energy (aka calories!) cooling it down to body temp. The same is true for iced or refrigerated water; the more energy the body uses to warm the water, the more calories burned.
6. Brush, floss, use mouthwash directly following a meal or snack. Oral hygiene supports a “finished” sense to food intake; makes one less commence to nibbling any leftovers during kitchen duty.
7. Snack wisely. Sure, it’s easy to grab a bag of chips when starved but pausing just one-second before the grab allows a look-see at food options. A package of pretzels or popcorn can be swapped for chips. Cut-up-fruits ‘n dip; veggies with ranch dressing (markets sell these individually packaged in eco-friendly toss-aways) are high-in-fiber eats that keep one fuller longer, leave your mouth/breath fresher. “Mini” snack portions (one serving only) is great slim-down strategy. Never eat snacks out of the bag as these often turn bottomless and sabotage tummies.
8. Move it! Exhaust is your megasize friend for long-term maintenance. Much like thoughtful food choices, challenging more can be just that as long as it is consistent and long-term. Take the cellar steps one extra time each day. Scurry across a parking lot to a store instead of parking as discontinuance as the law allows. A minute or two of stretches during tv commercials is 4-star commendable. Standing up (in good posture) while chatting your land line strengthens leg muscles/ligaments. Ten minutes here and there over a daily 24 supersizes endurance and motivation; helps pump-up a slim-downed you! If you’re a novice to exercise begin the “formal stuff” slow but almost everyone does some task requiring lifting (think laundry basket), pulling (stuck drawers open), or over head activity (dressing!) that has them ready already!
Weight can be lost and/or mainatined at any point in life by satiating tummie rumblings nutrionally and sprinkling in a little exercise!
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Sep 12th, 2010.
Miniature businesses face enormous challenges in today’s economy. Saying that is a tremendous understatement and I apologize to the millions of small business owners who wear so many hats for not being able to effect it into stronger words. A one or two person company is unexcited responsible for all of the same business processes as a 10, 20, 50 or 100 person company. Some of these processes include finances, sales, marketing, legal, and human resources. They are also responsible for how they expend (or not use) technology to help their business. The use of technology within the small business world is growing quickly, perhaps faster than some would like to admit, and is infiltrating every business function. The result is that it is affecting almost every business decision and either helping to solve problems at one end of the spectrum or causing headaches at the other.
Obviously, business processes have evolved over time. Many years ago, the processes were much simpler. The common merchant simply had to understand the supply and demands of their products, how to deal with the revenue, and how to be able to be sure to get the most for their invested dollar (choose low, sell high). (Yes, this is an oversimplification.) Then, a customer slipped and fell while shopping, sued the pants off of the merchant and the need for attorneys to help prevent this from happening to others was birthed. As more and more litigation reared its ugly head into the affairs of diminutive business, the need to retain legal representation as a permanent member of the staff became paramount.
Then we have the tax laws which have slowly become proverbial thorns in the sides of shrimp businesses. Changes in the tax laws, ambiguity, and the fear of missing something primary have led many small business owners to retain the external professional befriend of an accountant. Many small businesses commonly have accountants as members of their executive advisory board right along side their attorneys.
And so it goes, needs arise, small business owners try to do it themselves (at least initially), and then they bring on experts to handle the needs. Usually, though, the businesses retain the experts only after some other poor sap has demonstrated what happens when the experts are not alive to in the process. The threats of legal action or severe penalties due to tax issues have proven to be a motivating factor for many companies.
Technology is in the beginning stages of this integration process. Most microscopic business owners believe that they can handle their technology challenges with little outside abet. A large number of tiny business owners work extremely hard at writing or hiring friends to develop their websites, setting up their emails and getting their company lap tops or desktop computer workstations. Having succeeded at getting those things in place, many of these business owners believe that they have done all it takes to have a top-notch technology program. Yet, at the end of the day, most are shocked when they derive that their technology budgets have been blown or company profits are not where they should be although they have performed due diligence in every other area.
Technology has and continues to change and evolve at an enormous rate. Innovations thought unheard of yesterday are commonplace today. For example, just a few short years ago, the most common method of tracking appointments was via the use of day planners. Changes to a person’s calendar were often tedious and required some coordination. Now, many people use their cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDA) to not only track their calendars, but also to check email, voice mail and a variety of other things designed to keep them in touch with their business and personal matters.
Unfortunately, the nature of the technology changes and implied implications within business present tremendous challenges for small business owners. Now, instead of just being able to focus on delivering excellent service to its customers, the miniature businesses must be able to understand how technology is affecting the very nature of their business. How, for example, has the ability to be able to use a “push-to-talk” communications system impacted the construction business? How has the advent of the Internet affecting bookstores and the music industry?
The problem is that these changes are happening fleet, very quick. These changes include everything from hardware improvements, better software, and improved processes for using both hardware and software together. Having not only knowledge of the changes but also the wisdom that it takes to understand how newer technologies can affect your bottom line may determine your level of overall future success.
If you are a itsy-bitsy business owner still doing everything yourself, consider the following simple questions. You may have a website, but do you understand the intricacies of search engine optimization (SEO)? Or, what is PBX, and which is better for your business, virtual PBX or on premise PBX? How great should you be spending on software updates? What about network protection; how much is enough? And how much time are you actually spending worrying about these types of issues at the risk of neglecting other pressing matters.
And, how has the utilize of technology affected the ability of companies to stay in business when the unthinkable happens? Despite of the use of technology, many companies don’t have very good disaster recovery or equipment replacement plans. (If you don’t know what a disaster recovery plan is, then we have a real problem; seek succor immediately.) If your company doesn’t have a plan for replacing equipment such as computers before they die, then the idea is to have serious issues once they do, and they will. And, when they do, it is too late to prevent or mitigate the repair cost and it is definitely too late to avoid the loss in business productivity. There are literally thousands of questions like these that can keep a small business owner up at night; or, at the very least, take up enough of your attention to make you less effective during the day.
So, what is it going to take for you as a small business owner to realize that the time is now for you to retain a technology expert as a key member of your team much like an accountant or an attorney? A technology expert worth his or her salt will be very proactive in helping to identify issues well ahead of time. The retained expert acting as a key member of the staff will develop technology plans that support the company’s business plans and goals. This expert will ultimately save the company thousands of dollars per year while allowing the business owners to do what they do best without worrying about technology-related issues. They will pay for themselves in so many ways that you’ll wonder just how you got by without them in the past.
If you have a small business, and you are doing it all, then it is likely only a matter of time before disaster strikes. It may strike in an positive manner such as a network or computer break that ultimately costs money or results in lost productivity. Hope for that, because the alternative is much less pleasant. The alternative? Well, it is when you notice that your competitor is able to deliver their product or service cheaper, faster, and with a higher quality than you and your staff. You notice that your bottom line seems to be getting trimmer, slowly at first, and then faster as time goes.
Sorry to say, but it is at that point that you are likely on your way out of business.
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Filed under Small Business Pbx by on Aug 20th, 2010.