These days a large part of business is played out on the internet. Having the solution internet-based means your website and other internet based offerings can use the same database as you use in house, keeping the data truly up to date. An internet based system can also be made accessible from multiple locations at no extra cost. Your own staff can use the same system from multiple locations and offices.

With the growth in broadband availability over the past few years the internet is now a viable alternative to wide area networking, providing distributed access to a system at a fraction of the cost.

The system can be available to anyone you need it to be via a simple internet connection, while still being very secure where required using strong encryption, password and role based security. With the ubiquity of broadband that makes a lot of sense. In addition the IT platform for the system and its management and support are all out-sourced to professionals who do nothing else. This generally means the system is more reliable, has more redundancy and is better backed up. For more about security and reliability see our White Paper: Internet based business systems.

 

The benefits of a single business system are huge, in terms of improved organisation and information available to the business. Generally the result is not only a more profitable business but also a more valuable one - as processes are better defined and more easily repeatable.

The main benefit of a single business system is a single data repository of live information from which a variety of reports can be drawn to aid decision making in all areas of the business. Reports such as, what availability or stock do I have right now? How many sales have I made? What are my renewal rates? What’s the take up of my special offer? How many hours were spent implementing that job? What is my revenue this month? We all know we could have access to this information if so and so’s machine was on or when the accountant is in on Thursday or if we look at the right spreadsheet and correlate the data, or if we started gathering it! The aim of the business system is to provide the information you need when you need it.

Having a business system also means processes are documented and guided by the system helping you to ensure consistency in the way tasked are handled and logged making it easier to delegate tasks to other staff and train new staff. A business with franchisees or multiple offices will benefit greatly from the ability to compare like for like information and be able to see at all times the data for each office as well as an overall analysis fro the group.