The new decade is upon us! Although some argue that the next decade doesn’t start until 2021, here at Delta we like to think positive and chase new opportunities.

 So here we are in the year of the Optometrist, or is it the year of Short Format Cricket? Take your pick! Maybe instead this is your year of new opportunity… a new business venture might be on the horizon…

But where do you start? How can you go from having nothing to having everything you need? And how can you do it in a way that allows you to scale up as your business grows?

Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between business grade services and consumer grade services. Technology can take us places most of us would have never dreamed about 20 or 30 years ago, and as time has gone by it’s become accessible to the everyday user.

“So, if you are considering a new business venture, remember to equip yourself with the tools that enable you to be successful and grow.“

Who would have thought 20 years ago that you would be able to buy an affordable drone for your children at Christmas? Now, you can purchase a 3D printer for only a few hundred dollars, and all you need is the right skills to design your object. In fact you don’t even really need that, printable 3D models are available online for free, with tens of thousands of options available (check out www.thingiverse.com/explore/popular for a great range!).

But are those products suitable for you to run a business? 

You could attach a high-quality camera to a consumer drone and start a GIS mapping survey? But you would need to ensure that the drone is suitable for carrying a lot of weight and have controls for the camera. You could take a 3D printer and start a 3D printing service for commercial sale? But have you taken into consideration that you’d need to have a much faster output and a higher print resolution to be able to be profitable in a business?

So, if you are considering a new business venture, remember to equip yourself with the tools that enable you to be successful and grow. 

Here’s another example: A retail inkjet printer is great for photos at home, but when your print costs are 10x higher than a business grade product, the value is quickly evident in a business grade product. You can keep your costs down and have a printer that has a long-term service life.

 Just like it’s easy to set up an email address for your business by attaching an outlook.com address, or a gmail address, but the cost of adding your own website domain name (e.g. yourbusiness.com) is fairly minimal, and it scales up as your business grows. It definitely adds a professional feel to your business and helps show your clients that you’re in this for the long term.

With Cloud storage becoming more and more a normal practice, we should also consider how you structure and set up your files online. Are they stored in Google drive attached to a personal email address? This presents a big security risk that you may not have realised! Legally, the owner of that email address owns those files. If you have staff that move on from your business, they are entitled to those documents, not you – the fight to get access back is long and often not a successful one. Setting up a proper business Cloud Storage gives you higher security and helps protect the privacy of your clients.

Storing your data securely in business grade cloud storage also gives you great robustness – in disaster prone North Queensland we have to think about our Backup and Disaster Recovery plan. What happens if your office is flooded? No problems if you’re using Cloud storage!

All of these things may seem like a lot of work, so it’s important to choose a Business Partner that you can trust.

Delta Office Solutions can have a no obligation conversation with you about how to ensure that your business gets off on the right foot. Let’s make sure that your services are secure, safe, suitable, and scalable.

We’re in this together, let’s make 2020 the Year of Opportunity.

www.deltaoffice.com.au