Every multinational enterprise starts of as a small business. With business expansion, will inevitably come increased usage of IT. Here are some of the few essentials that you must have in your network
A Reliable Data Back-Up System
In the Indianmarket, presently, Hard Disk Drives (HDD) or optical drives are mainly used for back-up. Companies usually have a central repository of data. These back-up systems are generally easy to use and a long shelf life.
Tape drives are also a good source of back up, however, they might not prove to be a cost-effective solution for emerging enterprises that are usually tight on IT budgets. But if an organization wants to adopt a state-of-art solution, tape drives of 1.5 terabytes or 2 terabytes upto 10 terabytes can be an effective solution.
Tarun Goel, manager (IT) of Inlogistics.in, opines that a dedicated back up server can suffice depending upon the organization's requirements. However, most organizations still utilize duplicate hard drives.
Goel adds that the back up server shouldn't be connected to the main server -or- else it will have a greater possibility of being attacked.
Mushtaq Ali, head (IT) of Solus Systems, says, "We presently use HP file server configured with Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID), which has all the features of a NAS drive."Even, HDDs can suffice depending upon the requirements of the organization.
Most importantly, you must get your back up system checked and tested at least once
in a month.
An Accounting Software
Tally seems to be the software of choice in the SMB sector. Most small companies rely on this software for their accounting needs. However, there are many types of software available today, which can be customized according to the organization's requirement.
Latest Computer Systems
It is said that old is gold, but computers are an exception. Ideally, the computers in your organizations must be less than 3 years old. The prices for computers have fallen in recent years. Nowadays you can get an efficient computer system at quite reasonable prices. Though some IT heads would consider this as an additional burden to their already stringent IT budgets, the benefits will be apparent in the long run.
CRM Software
"Even a small organization would benefit from having a Customer Relationship management (CRM) package," says Goel. Most companies prefer to manage the customer database manually using Microsoft Word and Excel. This is not a time-efficient practice. The chances of human errors creeping in are also higher. If companies feel that an on-premise CRM solution is beyond their budget, then they can opt for a software-as-a-service model. This will reduce costs of deployment and maintenance for the company.
ERP Software
Again, unsurprisingly, both the IT heads associate its deployment to the organization's requirement. The software helps you to create and deliver your product or service. It can act as your inventory management system or planning of sales and distribution system in your company. It actually integrates all functions into a unified system. You might not consider this to be a necessity for your organization.
However, the benefits are tremendous and it helps managing and efficiently integrating your supply chain management, finance, human resource, and of course data warehouse system among others.
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