Janric Website Design

The future of computing and how we use our computers and attach to the internet is changing. Gone are the days of cumbersome laptops, slow dial up internet connections and being left without the internet when travelling. Now we demand and expect internet access everywhere that we go and can just about get it anywhere. If we are without internet access for more than a few days we feel lost, out of communication and worried about what we are missing.

But, how do these changes affect the ways that we will be doing business in the future?

For a start, people who depend on internet access for their business can rest assured that almost everywhere they go they can keep in contact with their business. If you sit down for a while to wait for a plane, it is easy to grab a netbook and connect up to the airport’s WIFI system or use a mobile broadband dongle to get internet access.

Whichever you choose, you are then back online. A holiday is no longer a true holiday away from the pressures of work, but for small business owners this can mean that you are arriving back at the desk after a couple of weeks away from it all with all of the main emails read and replied to. Personally, although this means that I am not away from the business for more than a couple of days, it does mean that arriving back at my computer after a holiday is not such a stressful task as it has been. The benefits of the holiday are not lost in the first 5 minutes of putting your machine back on.

For the small business owner this mobile office can also give more freedom. I do not need to be at the computer all of the time to respond to enquiries, send out quotes and generally nurse my business. I can pop down to the golf course and check the emails at the cafe before I go for a game. As soon as I have finished, I am back in touch. Likewise days out with the family become less of an intrusion to the working day so you can fit in more days out!.

There are other benefits of the mobile office. Not all businesses have good broadband access in their point of work and many shops have not put in place broadband connections, so running an e-commerce website means processing orders at night and despatching the next day. Not only is this eating into time at home, it immediately loses a day during which the goods have been despatched.

Instead, a cheap netbook and a dongle will ensure that orders can be checked a couple of times a day. Maybe even just gathered in shortly before the packages need to be sent. Likewise, loading new stock and managing stock control on a website become easier, with the possibility of fully integrating the POS system with the sales system of the website. This not only means the website can be managed in quiet times of the day, but also it is right up to date.

The future of our computing is changing rapidly. If you want to know more about mobile internet and its uses in businesses, do pop over to our website at janric.co.uk or visit our internet marketing blog.

Written by Keith Lunt