Communication is the backbone of every business irrespective of the size. Many people have a misunderstanding that VoIP is only ideal for big businesses. VoIP offers several features that small businesses can take advantage of. However, not all VoIP services are the same. Let’s look at some important aspects of the best VoIP for small business.

Excellent Voice Quality

Voice quality is an important aspect of good communication. If the voice quality is poor, it can lead to frustration for both the caller and receiver and communication won’t serve the purpose.

Today VoIP technology has improved by leaps and bounds and the voice quality of VoIP calls surpasses traditional phone voice quality.

Multi-Functionality

Unlike a traditional phone system, VoIP call systems have more features than making and receiving calls. Modern VoIP systems offer several advanced features like teleconferencing, video conferencing, instant messaging and receiving voicemail and faxes via email.

Remote work is increasing and business experts predict it will continue to grow in the future. With remote employees working in different towns or cities, small businesses can benefit from video conferencing and teleconferencing facilities offered by the best VoIP for small business.

The modern VoIP solution keeps your employees connected and allows them to discuss important business matters easily no matter where they are in the word. It also allows them to work from home when needed.

VoIP systems ability to send faxes and voicemail via email ensures all important communication stays in one place and can be retrieved easily.

Secure

Communication breaches happen every day because businesses don’t employ secure communication channels and tools for everyday business activities. These breaches make businesses lose billions of dollars and customer confidence.

Regulations and compliance also require businesses to invest in secure communications to protect their business and customers information. A VoIP system allows small businesses to encrypt their communication without heavy investment.

Modern VoIP systems are more secure than traditional phone systems. These systems use standard encryption protocols to secure voice and data before it is sent on an open network. This is not possible with traditional phone systems.

Portability

The use of portable systems for computing and communicating tasks has increased with time. These portable systems for communication and computing which are deployed for office work on the move are connected to ICT network for communication and data transfer tasks.

VoIP works efficiently on these portable systems for computing and communication tasks. As long as the device has an Internet connection, the person can use VoIP to stay connected with his company and colleagues sitting in an office or elsewhere.

VoIP systems also allow you to transfer customers’ calls to your colleagues and the customer is not required to call number. With the VoIP system, you can also set the status to inform your colleagues whether you are available or not to receive calls.

Call Recording Service

Many times it is difficult for an individual to recall all minute details of the communication with the customer. In such a call recording feature can save the day by allowing the employee to replay the recorded communication and pick the details.

Leading VoIP phone service vendors offer active call recording solution for enterprises and employees can record customer calls or any important calls with a press of a button.

Increased Productivity

“Phone tag” refers to a phenomenon where two parties are trying to call each other but neither is able to get hold of communication. Phone tag situations can be frustrating for both parties especially customers.

With VoIP systems, phone tag situations can be eliminated. For example, many VoIP systems can be configured to simultaneously ring on your landlines or mobile phone devices before proceeding to voicemail. This reduces the likelihood of phone tag situations experienced by employees and customers.

According to Sage research, use of VoIP system led to increased productivity which added around 3.9 hours per employee per week.

Thus, you can see the best VoIP for small business offers many features that can prove the catalyst to business growth and help small businesses to sustain in a competitive business environment.

Did we miss any important aspect of VoIP for small businesses? Please feel free to comment.

Email is a primary communication tool for businesses of all sizes. If you think email is secure, you are probably wrong. The fact is your communication is not as private as you think it to be. Any person with good IT knowledge and advanced hacking tools can access the sensitive information stored in an email that you don’t want others to see.

If you are sending sensitive information through email, you should at least consider the pros and cons of using email encryption services.

Pros- Protects Sensitive Information

Entrepreneurs are paranoid about sharing business plans through email as there are chances sensitive information might fall into wrong hands. With advanced hacking tools, it is not hard to intercept emails and access sensitive information stored inside it.

With email encryption, the sensitive information stays protected and only an authorized person can access it. Even if your email is intercepted by hackers, they would not be able to decrypt the email and access sensitive information.

Cons: Email Encryption is Complex

Email encryption is not simple and it cannot be done without adequate preparation. Companies wanting to use email encryption services need to study and understand topics like role and rights of different users, access level permissions, archiving of email and administration of the keys which is critically important.

To use email encryption, the recipient also needs compatible software. You will need a public key if you want to send secure emails and the sender would also need a public key to send secure emails to your organization. Many times this may look like a time-consuming and impractical way of communication and you might prefer a face-to-face meeting or initiate a telephonic conversation.

Pros- No Spam in Your Name

Email encryption is not limited to securing your email communication. It also adds a digital signature to your emails. This enables the recipient to identify whether the email was actually sent by your company. So when anybody receives from email addresses (spoofed) similar to yours, the recipient knows the spam is not sent by your company.

Also, a digital signature that is part of email encryption helps build trust between two parties which is good for businesses.

Cons- Not Everything is Secure

Many people think email encryption is a full proof solution to secure email communication. Though it is true, it is quite difficult to crack AES encryption even with the fastest computers available, it is not impossible.

According to security experts, the arrival of quantum computing has changed the scenario. One of the weaknesses of the AES system is the recipient needs the key sent by the sender to decipher the message. If the key is intercepted, the whole transmission becomes an open book.

Also, many people don’t know the sender, the subject and the addressee are not encrypted. Hence, they are visible to everyone. Companies need to ensure sensitive information is not part of the subject line for optimal privacy.

Pros- Helps Meet HIPAA Compliance

For companies in the medical field, keeping health information private is one of the compliance requirements. If the company is not able to protect sensitive information, there is a risk of heavy penalties for non-compliance and your business might be shut down.

Email encryption protects sensitive information while in transit and also while it rests on email servers. This ensures your company is able to protect sensitive patient information from 3^rd parties who intend to use them for harming your business. Also, email encryption ensures your business meets HIPAA compliance at all times.

Cons- Email Encryption Services is Expensive

This disadvantage might be debated by many. The fact is the pricing of the email encryption solution depends on many factors like the type of encryption needed, guest accounts, encryption of attachments, and mobile integration.

One of the important variable element of pricing that makes email encryption expensive is larger the file size to encrypt, the higher costs your company has to pay.

It is no secret cyber-crime has reached an all-time high and businesses which are less-tech-savvy and ignorant about security are easy targets. If your business transmits sensitive information through email communication, using email encryption services is need of the hour else your company is more likely to sleepwalk into a disaster.

Email is the primary means of communication for every business. And looking at the volume of emails sent and received on a daily basis, it can outgrow the capacity of your email servers. Also, managing a vast amount of data is not easy and requires a large number of resources. The answer to this problem is using email archiving solutions. Here are some ways in which archiving solutions provide security to businesses.

Secured Storage Management

Companies are required to maintain records of communication for years. However, storing email communication can become a problem after some time as emails keep piling up. Also, employees have limited quotas for inboxes.

When employees reach their inbox quotas, they can delete unimportant emails and make space. But a time will come when they might not have the option of deleting emails as everything in the inbox is important.

Email archiving can help resolve problems with email storage. When you use archiving solutions, older email communication is removed from the live email environment and stored in the cloud. This ensures the employees do not exhaust their inbox quotas. Also, whenever the need arises, employees with right permissions can get access to archived mail and refer it for important decisions.

Also, the email archiving solution backs up all important email automatically. The archiving system compresses and encrypts email communication before storage thus eliminating the chances of employees altering the email content accidentally or intentionally.

Knowledge Management

Today, we live in the age of big data. Emails store a large amount of proprietary information like communication with partners, business contracts, financial records that needs to be stored securely. In simple words, email has become a digital heritage for businesses.

 Keeping sensitive data in live email environment has its own risks. Hence, companies need to store this data where it is only accessible to people with the right access permissions. Email archiving solutions can preserve this information away from the live email environment. Companies can rest assured their digital heritage is well-protected and accessible at all times.

Regulatory Compliance

Compliance is an important part of business today. Since most business email communication contains sensitive data, companies are required to comply with applicable data protection laws and regulations. For example, a health care business operating in the US needs to comply with HIPPA regulations that require companies to protect a patient’s personal health information from unauthorized access.

When you have email archiving solution in place, the IT department doesn’t have to worry about accidental or intentional deletion of emails. Even if the data or email is deleted from the live email environment, a copy of email exists in the archived email database which can be retrieved and restored in the live email environment.

Help in Litigation Cases

Protecting and maintaining the integrity of email communication and data is important in terms of litigation cases. For example, companies have to provide relevant information to decision-makers to defend or support their case or claim in litigation cases.

The eDiscovery process requires a business to fulfill requests of email communication and relevant data from security and law agencies in a reasonable amount of time and present the information in common format. Email archiving solutions not only securely stores your email communication and documents but also allows companies to retrieve and present documents to the law agencies when needed.

With the right email archiving solution, businesses can access, archive, and retrieve business emails and attached documents even when local email infrastructure is down.

Business Continuity

Email systems are prone to errors and hardware and software problems can take your system offline for hours. Imagine losing email communication that arrives when your email systems are down. For most companies, this could mean the loss of millions of dollars.

With email archiving system in place, the server in the cloud continues to receive emails even when your email infrastructure is down. This ensures you never miss or lose any business email from your client or customer.

Thus, you can see email archiving solutions not only help businesses to secure email communication but also provides two additional capabilities of monitoring and analytics that have become important for modern businesses.

Did we miss any important aspect of email archiving solutions? Please feel free to comment.

Thanks to the Internet, email is the main communication tool used by businesses to share confidential data and documents and other types of important business information.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires businesses needs to secure email communication as a part of corporate governance standards and ethical conduct. That is not all; email archiving has also become a necessity for business success. Here are some advantages of archiving emails.

Reduce Storage Costs

Every day thousands of new email are received and sent from business organizations. Looking at the importance of email communication, deleting an email is not an option. It means organizations would be required to purchase enterprise storage solutions which are quite expensive.

Besides upgrading IT infrastructure, organizations are also required to maintain these systems. When you employ email archiving solutions, older email is archived in the cloud which frees space on your email server.

Though emails do not reside on the company’s network server, it does not affect end-user in any way. A user with access permissions can easily find the required mail from the archive without any difficulty. Thus, using email archiving solutions does away with the need to buy enterprise storage solutions thereby reducing storage costs.

Prevents Loss of Data

Data is important for every business organization to study, research, further analysis and make informed decisions. Loss of data can prevent businesses from taking informed decision and might also invite penalties from regulatory authorities and government.

Users can delete emails unknowingly or maliciously between two backups of emails. Some users may empty their inbox before leaving the organization. In that case, the deleted mail and the data stored or attached to it is lost forever. You can prevent this by employing an email archiving solution that archives every copy of mail received and sent by your organization.

Improve Server Performance

When you use email archiving solution, older mail can be moved out of the live environment. The management can create rule-based permission to access archived email. With mail moved out, you can safely delete emails from the mail server which reduces the load on the email server thereby improving its performance.

Simplified Backup and Restore

Email archiving is a bit different than email backup. In email backups, old email backups are replaced by new email backups. In email archiving, old email is stored securely. The new email is added to the storage of old emails. You can read emails from the archive but cannot modify or delete them.

The email archiving solution captures mail content while it is downloaded to the mail server and also from the mail application. This eliminates the need to take backups of email manually. Restoring selected emails from the backup is difficult. However, you can easily search for emails in the archive and restore selected emails.

Eliminates the Need for PST Files

Email backups are generally stored as PST files that can become corrupt and make restoration process difficult or impossible. Email archiving solution allows you to import PST files and search for emails. Thus, they eliminate the need for email backup and PST files.

Helps Meet Compliance

Many industries and sectors have certain regulatory and compliance rules associated with data and communication. Businesses are required to secure email communication and data and also ensure they can be retrieved in the future when needed.

Email archiving solutions are almost tamper-proof. First, you have complete control of data access permissions. Only an authorized person can access the data but cannot alter or delete it. Even IT professionals in your organization cannot remove emails from the archive.

In email archives, the data and communication threads are stored securely far away from the prying eyes of competitors, scammers, and hackers. This ensures businesses are always compliant with rules related to securing data and communication.

Accelerate Search Capabilities

Most archiving solutions offer basic search and retrieval functions. however, some advanced archiving solutions allow you to search for mail by sender, date, recipient, attachments, words in subject or attachment thereby reducing the time required to find desired mail.

The benefits of email archiving go beyond the advantages listed here. It goes without saying an email archiving solution is critical for business success. Do you know any other advantages of email archiving? Please feel free to comment.

Being a business owner or manager, it is crucial for you to protect your emails. Since it is the primary mode of communication with your clients and partners, you should go for an email filtering to filter the junk and malicious emails from the genuine ones. Here are a few tips on how to eliminate threats using email filtering services.

Isolates your system from spam and email threats

You are probably aware that there is a “spam” or “junk” folder set up on your email account and it can seem like a pretty useless built-in feature at times. In reality, however, it is an email filtering protection. Most email providers have spam or junk folders for users, and a big reason is to ensure maximum cybersecurity, keeping you protected from those with malicious intent.

Emails that are deemed as “risky”, such as possible scams and also overly promotion materials are put into this folder automatically. This helps you bypass the junk and get down to the material that you really want to read. This built-in filtering service that is provided for free is decent enough for individuals but if you have a business or cybersecurity is an essential part of your career, then it’s worth investing in a higher quality program that might work more effectively. These can save you money, stop you from getting duped by scams and let you dedicate more time to genuine emails.

Up-to-date protection from virus

Email filtering services use multiple scanning engines from leading commercial and open resource vendors. It will ensure you a broader anti-virus scanning by stopping viruses at the backbone level even before they ever reach your servers or internal network.

Reduce your mail server’s exposure to the internet

From fake email pretending to be from your bank to customer service email purporting to be from large online internet services providers, phishing is a big business for internet fraudsters. Identity theft is also one of the fastest growing online crimes. Email phishing is one of the methods of gathering information used by these criminals. They gather your sensitive personal or company information. If you use email filtering services, then these scams can be filtered, and it will identify any fraudulent and redirected URLs.

Reduce data volume and server load

Email filtering services will reduce that extra junk email from your mail server. That means no longer you have to pay that extra money for mail-related data. If all junk emails are delivered to your server, then your mail server would also work as four times for hard processing. Then you can face performance and capacity issues. If your email were hosted in the cloud, then you would probably be wasting most of your mailbox quotas. If you are receiving email directly to your own server, then if your internet link or server is down for long enough any emails directed to you will bounce back. Mail filtering services will receive the mail on your behalf and forward it to you.

 Provide additional email storage and archive

External email filtering services can also offer the ability to store emails sent and received by you for archiving purposes, which can supplement or in some cases replace the need for internal email archiving solutions. This will typically solely apply to email with external parties, however, as internal emails between staff are ordinarily not seen by the filtering service.

Improve large scale sending performance

You need to keep in mind that if your business operates on a large scale, then email filtering service may offer significant improvement in your outbound email system. This is because the filtering services servers may be able to connect to a larger number of simultaneous recipients than your own server could, thus making the delivery process much more efficient.

In general, business deals with so many emails on a daily basis. It can be really tiring to go through a bunch of emails, especially if many turn out to be junk. Here time wasted equals profit lost. So email filtering services will filter the nuisance emails and block them, and therefore you can be more productive with your work. Have you ever explored any email filtering services before? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Just like the human body needs regular maintenance to stay healthy and fit, the computer system also needs care and attention for smooth and better functioning. Having a slow PC not only affects productivity but may also damage the data. Discussed below are some of the tips that can help in boosting the speed of PC.

It might sound cliché, but the system in-built cleanup and defragmentation tools are still the best solutions to clear the clutter of unwanted files and cache memory. The disk defragmentation configures the drive for the way it stores information whereas the disk clean-up search for the unused and large files and asks for their removal. As one uses the system, they keep stuffing the system with many programs and applications. Over the period of time, most of them are not being used, but the user forgets about them. These programs and applications keep sitting in the drive taking up large space. It is therefore to regularly uninstall the unused application and programs. Otherwise, they keep running inn background for the updates and the scans.

The system regularly creates some temporary files; sometimes as the recovery files and sometimes the autosaved files. Even when the program is closed these files sit in the pane. Thus these files must be regularly cleared off from the system. Following the sequence of steps may be flowed to delete temporary files; “My computer” > “Local Drive” > “Windows” > “Temp”. This can be explained as opening ‘My computer’ in the system and selecting the local drive which is mostly c drive and then opening the folder ‘Windows’ followed by opening the folder ‘Temp’. Using the right click of the mouse on the ‘Temp’ details can be selected under the ‘Option’ tab. The files older than the current date can be deleted using the ‘delete’ button.

In the case where the system uses regular internet for a longer duration, chances of viruses and bugs increases. It is therefore advised to run a virus scan. The scan not only detects the issue but also fixes the issue. This also frees up the space that the virus was consuming.

As the work progresses after installing the system, there arises the need for more space on the drive. It is generally recommended to keep 15% free space on the drive thus if this space is took, it is always better to get another drive with more storage. Low memory or RAM is another cause of slow performance. This is also affected with the increased number of programs and software in the system because the system has to access multiple applications with limited memory resulting in slow performance. Generally when the hard drive is extended the RAM is also improved for its storage.

The laptop is an essential part of life in the present world of technology. It is not just important, but most of the people are dependent on it for one and another reason. Pertaining to this dependency, it is thus important to take proper care of the laptop so that it may keep performing better. There are certain things that can maintain a healthy lifespan of a laptop so that it is not required to be replaced until the requirement of a higher or better version.

Regular cleaning

Needless to say, anything that needs to stay longer must be cleaned regularly and so should the laptops. Cleaning is referred to both the hardware and the software cleaning. The hardware cleaning includes cleaning the keyboard and the open ports. Laptop fan tends to attract dust with every use that makes the keyboard dirty and unhealthy. This can be cleaned using the alcohol wipes or the computer cleansing solutions.

Similarly the open ports on the body of the laptop also accumulate dust over time. This too should be cleaned as the dust interrupts the connection when a device is connected to the laptop. Just like the hardware, the software of the laptop also needs cleaning. This can be done by simply running the default cleaning program of the laptop which clears off the temporary files, cache memory, and other unused data that has been staying in the system consuming the space.

Regular updates

Their hardware and the software keep updating on a regular basis. The updated the system, better lifespan it will have, although hardware updates are not as common in laptops as in the desktops. But software updates may be done as soon as they are available.

The proper use

The lap is not just the right way to use a laptop which is in complete contradiction to its name. It should always be used on a tough surface such as a table. Using it on a lap or the soft surface such as a pillow or the blanket leads to the overheating because of the blocked vent and partial airflow. Overheating reduces the lifespan of the laptop, and therefore laptop or bed trays should be used, while using a laptop in bed, to allow the proper airflow.

Battery charging

There is a common understanding among the laptop users that it should be left unplugged while being used and should be plugged in only when the battery drains out. Unfortunately, this is not true and reduces the lifespan of the laptop. Every battery comes with a limited number of charge-discharge cycles, so it should be plugged in to AC while in use so that battery does not run out of its cycle and laptop may be functional for longer.