It’s well known that to make your business successful, you have to be willing to put in some hard work. However, you also need to work efficiently – this will help with time, money, and personnel savings, letting you put more resources straight back into growing your business.
Increasingly for the past few years, working smart rather than hard has meant keeping up with the latest technological advancements and ensuring that your business stays ahead of the curve. But that’s far easier said than done – how do you begin to keep the pace with everything going on? In this article, we’ve gathered just a select few ways that you can embrace innovation and grow your business.
What is MPLS?
MPLS (which stands for ‘Multi-Protocol Label Switching’) is an innovation in networking that allows you to prioritise different types of traffic across all of your IT systems. But how does this help improve the efficiency with which you conduct your business?
To understand what using an MPLS can do for your company, you first need to know how a network operates without using one. In short, you send all of your data down a single high capacity route when you’re working with a business IT network, making it difficult to prioritise data – this can become an issue if specific applications are more vital to the running of your company than others that are taking up too much space.
When you use an MPLS system, the data that is transmitted across your IT network has a miniscule data label applied to it that allows an LSR (Label Switch Router) to identify where the data has come from. This then helps to create more efficient routes through your IT network, as you can decide which applications get priority in sending data across the network.
The various benefits of using an MPLS system include:
- More Straightforward Maintenance: By simplifying the flow of traffic, you’re far more likely to spot and solve network issues than with a complicated network where data all travels the same route – less time spent dealing with external network engineers!
- Improved Growth: If you want to set up a new site or connect to new online resources, this usually means using VPN-like ‘tunnels’ that make sure data is being transferred safely and efficiently. This is completely unnecessary if you’re using an MPLS, as you’re always using the most efficient possible system.
- Fewer System Failures: When your network system isn’t working, it can grind your business to a halt, affecting productivity enormously. The likelihood of system failure is drastically reduced if you choose to use an MPLS system, as most failures can be attributed to human error – MPLS requires less human input, and therefore leaves less room for mistakes!
- Increased Speed: If you have any applications vital to the running of your business, you know how frustrating it can be when they aren’t running at their best. This could range from e-commerce sites and customer service tools to accounting software and other specialist applications. Regardless of what you’re using, an MPLS system can ensure that they’re always running as efficiently as they should be.
- A More Productive Team: By providing an improved end user experience, you’ll get more out of your team in terms of results, productivity, and satisfaction. This carries over to customers if your end-user team directly connects with them, which can help get your business repeat business, great reviews, and more word-of-mouth.
If any of these benefits sound like they’ll help your business thrive, we definitely recommend looking into finding the right MPLS provider for you.
What is an SD WAN?
An SD WAN (which stands for ‘Software Defined Local Area Network’) is a system that allows you to control your business IT network without having to directly interact with devices. Though this might not seem like too much of a problem, imagine that you have a problem your MSP (managed service provider) can’t deal with from a distance, and no on-site IT team is available – being able to access the network remotely could be a life saver.
Using an SD WAN means getting rid of the hands-on approach to networks. Essentially, an SD WAN is an overlay for your network that can communicate with virtually every device connected, even if they’re all from different manufacturers and require different protocols. This means that your IT team or MSP can handle any situation involving your network remotely using a management portal, as opposed to having to come to the office.
They may be more expensive than your average system monitoring software, but compare this to the losses you can experience when your network is down and it’s certainly a valuable asset to have. Through SD WAN, you can be safe in the knowledge that any network issues can be addressed and solved, regardless of location.
What is Hosted Telephony?
Telephone systems have been around for decades, and as such are a great place to start when you’re looking to increase the efficiency of your business. By looking at phones in a new light, you can use this well-established tech to revolutionise your company.
In years gone by, phones were used exclusively as communication devices – however, they’re now capable of so much more, and can be more broadly considered as an input device for customers to access a near infinite range of features (think of it almost as a modern voice assistant).
To achieve this new use of an old technology, you’ll need to use a hosted voice system which utilises the cloud. Luckily this new approach is cost effective, using your current IT network rather than any new, complex infrastructure.
Once you’ve installed a hosted voice system, you can reduce the amount of communication required between your end-users and your customers: automatic payment systems, transcription services and voice controlled FAQs are just some of the ways that you can use this technology and save your team a lot of time and hassle later down the line.
As you can imagine, a hosted voice system opens up a huge range of new options for businesses of every variety. Your phone system is no longer obsolete, and can now offer customers a direct line to your systems even without a staff member on the other side.
