Technology Category Archive

The benefits of remote working for SMEs over winter

2 Replies Andrew Doyle

In order to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to operate in severe weather conditions over winter, industry experts now advise small firms to consider implementing flexible remote working systems, allowing employees to work from home.

Business man's hand writing virtual private network concept

Remote working has grown to become an important element of business productivity for SMEs.

With the current technology available, firms now needn’t suspend their business in severe weather, with a combination of remote technologies and common sense allowing SMEs to continue trading.

Remote working can maintain productivity and reduce office costs over the winter months. Studies have found in the past that employees working away from the distractions of their desk and the surrounding office environment increased their productivity by a considerable margin.

What exactly is remote working?

Put simply, remote working is when people do their work at home or outside the workplace. With the current financial climate tighter than ever, businesses are always looking to bring down their running costs and remote working is one way of achieving this goal.

In many industries Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are created to enable employees to login to a company network and access all the information they need to carry out their work, whether it is word documents, emails or project briefs. Remote working also enables businesses to employ and outsource work to people all over the world.

There are many other advantages of remote working for both small business owners and employees alike:

Advantages of remote working for SME owners

  • Fewer office costs – with staff able to use remote and cloud computing to access emails, files and any other necessary information, SMEs can cut costs such as printing, electricity and any other staff management charges.
  • Increased productivity and results – Instead of having to down tools and stop work on client projects, owners can allow staff to carry on their work from home. This is also an excellent employee incentive as staff can save money on travel to and from the office or studio.
  • Greener working – remote working can dramatically reduce a businesses’ impact on the environment by reducing the number of employees that commute to the office or studio.

Advantages of remote working for employees

  • Enhanced work-life balance – employees that are allowed to work remotely in severe weather naturally have an improved work-life balance, with the ability to spend more time with children and spouses.
  • Reduced stress levels – taking your employees away from the cut and thrust of the office environment can reduce stress levels. Remote working in more comfortable, homely surroundings can foster greater productivity.
  • Increased trust and responsibility – While SME owners must choose the right people to work remotely, those fortunate enough to be able to work from home will have their morale boosted by the extra trust and responsibility placed upon them by their employer.

The key challenge for SMEs is to ensure employees are disciplined enough to handle the freedom of remote working. Today an increasing number of small business owners appreciate the benefits working from home can bring to their company.

Does Security Have to be Technical?

14 Replies Alan

I had been a software engineer for at least 3 years specializing in digital security. A month ago, I attended a small workshop which talked about IT Security for corporate and the speaker said this somewhere in the middle of the workshop:

“Security is a process. It does not have to be really technical and the most important part is the process.”

I stunned for a while and suddenly my mind wondered away from the workshop deeply thinking, what is the speaker trying to deliver? I started this serious thinking simply because it is not said by some non-technical or sales person. Instead, the person speaking in front of me is a Certified Ethical Hacker.

A padlock key on a keyboardAt the end of the workshop, I begin to understand what he is trying to deliver. After 3 years of writing programs for the benefit of security, I turned out saying that security is a process. Why would I say that? Look around us. All the tech that you need to protect yourself from cyber crime is there. Anti-virus, firewall, anti keylogger, parental control, password manager and many more are all available in the software market. There is no reason for us to say in terms of technology, we are not good enough in security.

What makes so many of us a victim of computer or internet threat is the lack of proper process in computer and internet security. Security is not a short process where you only apply if you need it. For instance, you don’t only apply security when you had just downloaded a file from an unknown site which required a security scan.

Security is an end to end process. This means that the moment your computer boots up, security should be applied until the time your computer shuts down. People usually failed to stay secure simply because they don’t apply security from the very start. Agree?

So what’s your view? Do you still think that security has to be something technical?

Top Christmas tech 2011

10 Replies Christopher Roberts

What is your favourite bit of tech from 2011 that will be making its way onto your Christmas list? That is if you don’t already have it!

This year has been a really busy one for the tech industry, it would seem that every year, the technology industry gains more pace and steams on ahead. For a great example of this look at cloud computing, this is an industry that has been around and major for less than 5 years, yet it is also an industry that has exploded.

Out of this industry, new firms like SugarSync and Rackspace have emerged, proving to be very profitable. In addition to this, existing firms like Google and Amazon have widened their inventory with the likes of the Chromebook and Amazon’s Web Services.

So, back to the topic in hand…

This year has seen the launch of the iPhone 4 and later the iPhone 4S, LG’s and Panasonic’s new HD and 3D TV sets, the iPad 2, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Chromebooks, Nintendo’s 3DS, the 6th generation of the iPod Nano, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the HTC Sensation 4G, and many many more bits of cool tech.

Google Chromebook, Amazon Kindle Fire, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPhone 4, Nintendo 3DSThe thing is which is the best? Which tops your Christmas list?

Given the chance I would love to at least try all of the above, but that’s not going to happen for one simple reason: money. The value of all the new bits of tech released this year mentioned above, is probably around the £5,000 mark, meaning that the average Joe is not going to be able to afford them all. This leads me onto another question, which is best value for money?

I have heard a lot of praise for the Kindle, as being very good value for money, whilst a lot of bad PR surrounding the 3D TV’s mentioned.

So, the questions. What’s your favourite, and why? Which do you think best value for money and do you want any for Christmas?

Hopefully next year with a bit of growth, we will be able to have a competition to win some/all of the above! Stick with it 😉