It’s becoming increasingly common for businesses to have employees use personal devices for company work. Data from Syntonic shows that 87 percent of businesses are already having employees use personal devices for corporate applications. But there are some important things to consider here. These are five tips for running a successful bring-your-own-device program.
Determine What Devices to Use
There’s a long list of things that need to be considered when it comes to choosing what devices to use for a bring-your-own-device program. There are two main ways to go about this: Give all qualifying employees devices that they can take home; or allow employees to bring in their personal devices to work. There are some pretty distinct pros and cons to each scenario.
Business owners probably balk at the idea of handing out laptops and smartphones to all of their employees. Devices aren’t cheap, especially if they’re equipped with high-end hardware. But there’s a flipside to every coin. When employees just bring in their own pre-existing personal devices, it’s hard to know what’s being brought onto your network.
Employers need to determine which devices make sense to allow into the BYOD program — along with operating systems, and whether they should be utilized by the business or the employee’s preexisting device.
Nail Down Any Reimbursement Plans
People who benefit from a BYOD program tend to be those whose work isn’t restricted to the confines of an office. It’s often people who spend a significant amount of their time travelling or working outside of the office for a variety of reasons.
Due to this, they might find themselves in a situation where they need to use their personal data or other means in order to do company business. This is obviously not something that’s fair to the employee. Make sure there are protocols in place for how to reimburse anyone who needs repayment from any aspects related to the BYOD program.
Ensure Network Security
Network security is undoubtedly one of the most critical aspects to building and executing a BYOD workplace. There’s far more that needs to be considered on the security side when people are bringing devices to and from the workplace, remotely connecting to enterprise applications, and potentially using infected tech.
It’s essential for enterprises to employ endpoint protection to ensure the security of devices. This kind of monitoring can set off red flags even if a device isn’t on a company network. The perimeters of the modern workplace are expanding. Therefore, it’s necessary to adapt network security to this type of change. Opting for endpoint protection services can help deliver real-time responses to issues as they arise.
Be Transparent with Employees
It’s important the terms and conditions of your BYOD program are clear to all your employees who are part of it. Make sure everyone understands and agrees to what you’re telling them before moving forward.
For instance, it’s a very real concern that employees could be using compromised apps or programs on their devices without their knowledge. Employees need to understand why this is a danger to the organization. Education and careful approval into the BYOD program can limit the risks of this.
You also need to make it clear who fixes things if there’s an issue with a device. If someone’s device breaks down while doing company work, it’s not fair to expect the employee to pay for the repairs. Make it clear upfront who foots the bill in various instances.
Have an Off-Boarding Protocol
Not everyone in your organization is going to stay there forever. When they do decide it’s time to move on, you need to wipe your company’s critical applications from their devices.
Failing to do this could allow former employees to access sensitive data and other information after leaving the company. It’s also a vulnerability in case that former employee’s device is compromised at any point. Determine a BYOD protocol that allows for you to clean out all company apps without eliminating personal data.
Many companies find running a BYOD program makes sense for their businesses today. Make sure you understand some of the challenges before leaping ahead and implementing this kind of system.
Hundreds of thousands of businesses open their doors on an annual basis. Given how attractive the economy has been as of late, many would-be entrepreneurs have been trying to get in on that trend by starting up ventures of their own.
One of the largest barriers that many of those people run into is coming up with a great business idea.
Circumventing that barrier is the aim of this blog post.
While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to the kind of business that you should open, below, our team shares some good commercial ideas that we feel are worth your serious consideration is given their 2020 growth potential.
Escape the room or escape game, is a physical game where players are locked in a room and a required to examine clues and solve a puzzles. The word “Xcape” is the password for this cryptex riddle
1. Financial Services
With unemployment rates at record lows, there are a lot more people out there with money in their pockets. Many of those people have no idea how to manage their newfound wealth.
If you’re a financial wiz that can help people make sense out of their cents, you can make waves in today’s business landscape.
Many financial services might legally require certain licensure to practice. Other professions in finance may have certifications that prospective clients will expect you to carry.
Look into which facets of financial services you’re most interested in, which pay the best and find out what you should acquire to run a successful practice.
2. Virtual Assistant
Some of the world’s biggest companies were founded by big thinkers. Those big-picture people are excellent at charting out what the future could look like.
What those big-picture people are not so good at is managing the small details that go into creating all of the change that they’re after.
That’s where you come in.
If you’re an organized person, sell your services as a virtual assistant that can help juggle visionary’s administrative tasks.
While being a virtual assistant isn’t a good commercial idea suggestion in the sense that it’s going to make you rich, once you build up a network of people that need assistant services, you could start employing people and build out your own agency.
3. Social Media Consultant
It used to be that businesses could go on social media, throw up some posts and get traction. Today, things are very different.
Impaction on social media has made it difficult for even the world’s biggest brands to hit their platform goals. If you’re a social expert that knows how to cut through the digital clutter, you can help out.
Social media consultants are brought on by businesses ranging from motion picture companies to escape room organizations. Consultants are hired as contractors or even as in-house full-time employees.
If you’re adamant about being a business owner, opt for the contractor arrangement and scale your company from there.
4. Home Cleaning
Homeownership is up in the United States and now hovers around a whopping 65%.
While the vast majority of those homeowners love owning the place where they live, do you know what they don’t love? Cleaning it.
If you can start up your own residential cleaning business, given the amount of expendable income that people have in today’s economy, you can make a killing.
Once you find success on the residential front, you can even branch out to commercial cleaning services to further diversify and stabilize your business.
5. eCommerce Retailer
The average consumer makes 1 out of every 10 of their purchases online. That 10% figure is slowly but surely working its way upwards and many speculate that soon, people will make the majority of their purchases online.
To cash in on that trend which is sure to continue picking up steam in 2020, source goods to sell on popular eCommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.
You can acquire products from yard sales, discount stores or even manufacture items on your own.
6. Tutoring
That state of public schools in America is dire. Depending on where you live, your local school district might, on average, be producing students that fall well below basic reading and math levels.
Many parents that are trapped in these districts and can’t afford private schools opt to hire private tutors for their kids.
If you’re confident in primary school basics and are good at explaining things, this is a commercial idea go-to that’s both flexible and lucrative.
7. Ridesharing
There is perhaps no business that’s easier to get off the ground these days than ridesharing. Simply pick your agency (Uber, Lyft, etc.), pass a few basic checks and start earning money.
The global ridesharing industry is predicted to grow by 11% in the next year. You can be a benefactor of that growth by getting started driving now.
8. Technical Support
Technology is slowly but surely taking over the lives of everyday people.
Many of those people are senior citizens and if we know anything about seniors, it’s that they tend to struggle with today’s latest and greatest gadgets.
A lot of people that spent years mulling over which commercial ideas would net them the best returns have found gold mines in starting door-to-door technical support agencies that are targeted at the adult community. It’s not too late for you to grab your piece of that fortune.
Our Final Thoughts on Good Commercial Ideas That Are Primed for Growth
2020 is going to be a big year for some industries and a painful one for others. In our opinion, throwing your resources behind any one of the good commercial ideas that we’ve just outlined will put you in a great position to succeed in the new year.
If you find yourself in need of more business advice as you get your company off of the ground, dive deeper into our blog’s content pool.
The world of digital is divided between businesses that offer a modern and engaging experience to their users and businesses that have stopped considering the well-being of their users. It’s the latter category that interests us today, namely all the businesses that anger digital customers with old-fashioned and ridiculous practices. In an age when you can order a pizza with a click and get a taxi with another, it’s high time for digital users to make their voice heard and get businesses to change their ways. Here’s a list of the top 7 digital sins that are making users’ life impossible and that some – strangely unaware – businesses continue to perpetuate.
#1. The ones that think people don’t use smartphones
Smartphones are not exactly new anymore. iPhone celebrated this year the 10th anniversary of the little rectangle without which we couldn’t survive. There is no word to illustrate the social importance of smartphones but to give you an idea, try to name at least five adults who don’t own a phone. In short, it’s no wonder that most business strategies focus on maximizing the impact of smartphones on their revenues. Search engines have even agreed to regard responsive designs and mobile accessibility as a ranking factor. Some companies continue to rely on their mobile-unfriendly website that requires users to zoom in to read and that are impossible to navigate. The reasoning behind it remains a mystery. But the result is always the same: Users switch to a mobile-friendly competitor instead.
#2. The ones that haven’t changed their website since the 90s
The 1990s were cool: They saw the rise of the Internet. Websites may not have been elegant, but they were functional enough, even though they needed several seconds – if not minutes – to load. Today, a website that requires more than a second to load is guaranteed to lose some impatient visitors. But nothing is as bad as websites that have not updated their design to the latest trends. Flash sequences in the titles, impossible color schemes, a layout that seems inspired by a page from a word processor program, you know the kind. You need to work with a professional web design company to give your digital presence a modern and aesthetic look nowadays. Users are web-savvy, they expect businesses to display elegant, engaging and responsive websites. Anything less is just judged to be unprofessional.
#3. The ones that think pop-ups are cool
If you are not familiar with Jakob Nielsen and Dom Norman, they are the user experience experts who founded the Nielsen Norman Group years before UX was a marketable term. In the late 90s, Jakob Nielsen was already sharing his views about user experience. Unfortunately, it’s taken several years for the rest of the digital industry to catch up and apply his suggestions. More recently, the group has published an article referring to the most hated online advertising techniques. Needless to say that their words sound almost painfully true for several users. They mention pop-ups or model ads – which is the name given to an ad that appears on top of the content and needs to be closed before you can interact with the site itself – as the number one enemy of digital users. “Don’t forget to download our free whitepaper”, “Register here for a discount”, “Latest offers”, and much more, these pop-ups have a negative impact on the user. They distract from the content, and they are intrusive.
#4. The ones that force users to sign up
The marketing team has to hit the numbers; we get that. But why they think that forcing people to sign up to access the rest of the content will help to increase leads is a question that nobody can answer. Do you like to be forced to give your email address to read an article online? Nobody does. But, unfortunately for the companies that employ such method, most users are digital-savvy. They give fake email addresses. Mr. Test at [email protected] is a regular on the lead lists. Thankfully, Mr. Test doesn’t mind the intrusive newsletters and other emailing, which is a good thing because the rest of us can continue to enjoy the web in peace.
#5. The ones that play music or videos automatically
Most users nowadays open several tabs at the same time as they surf the web, to quote an old saying. And the one thing that they hate with a great passion is when without warning one of their many tabs starts playing a loud video or a piece of music. Autoplay is not only irritating, but it is also commonly accepted by the digital community as a bad idea. For a start, autoplay items interrupt the browsing experience of the user. Believe it or not, dear website, we didn’t give you the permission to play sounds at us. In an office environment, that can generate constant interruptions. In any location, users tend to shut down the tab and never come back as a revengeful act.
#6. The ones that use only stock photos
Ah, stock photos. Aren’t they lovely, all the same since the 90s? Websites that rely heavily on stock photos should consider the impact it has on their brand. Users cannot take a business seriously, especially if they have come across the same stock photos in another context. It looks cheap, unprofessional and slightly laughable too – particularly if you’re using the photos to illustrate the most individual element of your web content, the about-us page. Users can only wonder if services are also stock items.
#7. The ones that don’t proofread
Spelign mistaks ar no funn. Visitors have an unforgiven eye for spelling mistakes, missing links – 404 doesn’t go down very well with users – and other content issues. They expect the company to care about its web content as part of maintaining a professional image. Presenting a website that shows incorrect words, that is unable to offer proper navigation and that doesn’t flow logically is an indication that the company doesn’t pay attention. As a result, users tend to assume that services or products will suffer from the same poor quality.
From a poor reading experience to an overzealous marketing strategy, some websites seem to play with the users’ nerves. Unfortunately for these websites, it never ends well when you annoy your users. They leave and buy elsewhere, in the best of cases. In the worst, they take it upon themselves to destroy your business reputation.
Two things are certain in life: death and taxes. The famous quote by Benjamin Franklin is applicable to everyone unless you are in the business industry. Yes, as it turns out, your business can avoid taxes and it can do it legally. Obviously this revelation is a huge deal because cutting your taxes will save you a fortune not to mention a lot of time. So what are you waiting for? Your taxes won’t cut themselves in half.
A 1031 Exchange
If you like real estate you might already know about the 1031 exchange rule already. If you don’t there is no need to worry because you can learn about it now. In basic terms it is a rule that prevents people and businesses from paying capital gains tax. Even more important is the fact that you can include other business assets. One last benefit – you don’t need to do it alone. The good news is that the industry is filled with companies like Triple Net that can provide help. The result is that you can avoid tax on everything from your office space to office equipment and company cars.
Claim Expenses
The government isn’t a monster that wants to take all of your money. They do want a cut, a cut that they think they deserve, but they also provide you with exemptions. Claiming expenses is probably the easiest and most well-known tax exemption at your disposal. All you have to do is figure out what your business uses that you can claim back and keep a record. And in this case ‘record’ means a detailed record. They are happy to give you the exemption but only if you are eligible. If they find that you aren’t they will hit you with a fine or a jail sentence.
Pay Into A Retirement Plan
The state doesn’t want everyone on their books when they retire. Instead they want them to be self-sufficient so they can save a lot of money. It is for this reason pension plans are tax-free and why you should take advantage. As an individual you can take your business’ profits and shelter them in a retirement plan especially if your business is profitable. Or you can create an employee retirement opportunity. As long as it is the business’ money that is going into the plan you won’t have to fork out for taxes.
Keep Up With The Law
Tax is a complex and intricate problem that is always changing. Even though it is hard you have to try and keep up if you want to take advantage. Not to mention that using out of date tax measures is dangerous. If you aren’t up to the job there is plenty of accountants with the expertise and experience to guide you through the process.
The above is legal and will save your business money. All you have to do is implement it into your business strategy.
With the advance of social media and new forms of communication, it has become increasingly easy to expose other people to a wide variety of products and services. There are billions of users on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and more, and these users are all interconnected with one another in some way. This vast expanse in communication has allowed for new forms of marketing. Social media influencer marketing is one of the most popular new ways to market and advertise. Businesses and enterprises partner with social media celebrities (people well-known on social media for their social commentary, jokes, singing, dancing, or other talents) to promote their product or service. This partnership is mutually beneficial, as both sides are given the chance to build relationships and trust with each other and their fan base.
Despite the success that influencer marketing has had—notable examples being LeBron James for Nike, Kim Kardashian for T-Mobile, and more—there are still some misconceptions about it. People have their doubts, and, in this article, we hope to lay some of those to rest. Here are some of the biggest myths about influencer marketing, debunked:
A high ROI is all that matters.
ROI stands for “return on investment,” and ROI is what businesses may only think of when they consider whether or not to use influencer marketing. However, ROI is not the only thing that businesses should focus on. While it is certainly critical at the end of the day, and this type of marketing will get you a high ROI, it is not the only factor to succeeding with influencers. It is also about providing a quality product and building a relationship with the influencers you choose (and their audiences, by extension) that consists of mutual trust.
These influencers don’t really care about the product; they’re just in it for the money.
This misconception is held by some members of the public, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Social media influencers don’t want to become known for advertising a product or service that is subpar. Their fans trust them, and they want to keep it that way. Influencers won’t advertise a product that would jeopardize that trust; i.e. a product that is terrible or would not do well with their fans. Their fan base is a major reason they are able to enjoy the celebrity they have, and no amount of money can make them sacrifice that.
Also, businesses and influencers build up a relationship. Forming relationships is one of the most important things to do in influencer marketing, and creating one between influencer and business is vital to the success of the campaign. This relationship goes deeper than money—it is based on mutual respect and trust.
It’s impossible to get in touch with celebs.
Influencer marketing platforms like NeoReach provide businesses with the ability to get in touch with social media influencers. It may seem, with influencers’ level of celebrity, as though they are difficult to contact, but that’s not true. These influencers rose to popularity because of their ability to communicate and their relatability. And they’re looking for you, too. Influencer marketing platforms like NeoReach have been developed to further assist with helping brands and relevant influencers find each other.
Influencer marketing is too risky because influencers can go rogue.
People are unpredictable. Influencers, like any other celebrity spokesperson, may say things that cause your company to cringe. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that your company will be harmed. You can always distance yourself from the influencer if need be, and, while the two of you work in tandem, there are safeguards against unpredictability and offensive commentary that can be agreed upon before the contract is signed and the representation begins. Also, if you pick an influencer you trust to remain in communication with you, you can ensure that they are reliable and consistent in helping your business — another reason why treating these partnerships as a mutual relationship is so important.
Any influencer will work; all they have to do is memorize some lines.
Different influencers promote different products. Building relationships and credibility is the fastest way to ensure that a business is successful in their ad campaign with the marketer. In order to build these relationships, the influencer has to take a genuine interest in the company itself, becoming invested in its success and seeing the product as personally important to them. While it’s true that anyone can “memorize some lines,” conveying enthusiasm and real interest in the product is something that only an authentically-dedicated influencer can do. And also, this authenticity (or lack thereof) is easily identifiable by fans.
People who don’t like the influencer will hurt the business that is partnering with him or her.
Every social media celebrity is going to have detractors and people who, for whatever reason, credible or not, dislike them. This dislike shouldn’t affect your business. Dealing with negative reviews to your business is separate from negative reviews of the social media influencer themselves. If you choose your influencer based on their reputation and relatability, you will be able to gauge whether or not they are likable. This likability will factor into your decision, and if you choose wisely and get to know them well, you can exercise a lot of control over how much of a concern this can really be for your business.
The relationship between business and celebrity is one-sided (or lopsided).
This is one of the most common misconceptions about influencer marketing. There is a stereotype that these relationships are one-sided, whether people believe that the business is taking advantage of the influencer or that the influencer is seeing more of an ROI than the company they are supposed to be advertising for. This is not true, and, once again, it comes down to the relationships that you build with one another. These relationships are critical, and without them, any ad campaign is doomed. By understanding what is expected of each party and what the ROI will be, the relationship is mutually beneficial.
These misconceptions about influencer marketing are harmful to businesses and enterprises. Hopefully, this article has helped debunk these myths to show that this type of marketing is beneficial not only for the influencer and the business, but for the public as well. Harnessing the power of social media in this day and age is vital to being successful.
Human effort has been drastically reduced by the use of computer applications. Software now improves everything in business so choosing the appropriate programs becomes a huge necessity for every single firm out there. It is really important that the program offers the features that are needed for the company to be able to operate at a really high efficiency. This is possible through bespoke app development, you can read more here about it. If you do know some, here are the reasons why businesses use custom development.
Business Process Coordination
Nowadays, the use of business web applications allows the firm to properly coordinate various different processes, all through the use of central information repositories. This allows much better communication between departments. Stakeholders can now use software that is centralized, thus increasing efficiency and delivery of services. Custom business software developers are going to analyze the needs of the firm and offer software that will improve process coordination.
New Content Update
Companies can manipulate and update content with the use of the custom software. This brings in so many interesting advantages. A website is now capable of always having accurate details, just as an example. In this case we see a business like a real estate agency always having up-to-date listings online. Since expensive cities attract investors, speed brings in huge advantages for the agencies that are capable of updating everything really fast.
Business Function Integration
Custom business software is important for the modern business because basically all business functions can be integrated, based on the needs of the clients. Programs will fit the processes that the organization has and integrating multiple functions is much easier. The employees are going to be able to access the different features that are needed even from their mobile phones, thus drastically increasing speed and efficiency. To make matters even more interesting, training is normally really easy and everyone in a company can learn how to use all the features included by the bespoke software developer.
Conclusions
As you can easily notice, custom software can be really effective for the modern business because of many interesting advantages. Keep in mind that we only mentioned some of them. Many other scan be included in the list. We are faced with a fast growing competition in basically all niches so custom software manages to offer that extra edge that is necessary for so many these days.
On the whole, we can say that investing in custom software is something that has to be taken into account by every single company owner out there. We are faced with quite a high initial cost but that money will soon be covered by the increase in profit that is sure to come. There are not many disadvantages that are associated with the use of the bespoke software solutions but it is important that what is created lives up to the high standards that the industry has at the moment. You will surely appreciate the fact that better quality is offered for you.
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