Small business owners today are confronted with an array of challenges, let alone the challenge of information technology. Running a small business is much more than opening a store front or creating a website. Before the Internet, it used to be local businesses were in competition with either other businesses in the neighborhood and large department stores, but today, as a blessing and a curse, owners are competing against business entities from around the corner to around the world.

To have a successful business today you must have an Internet exposure, and that entails more than a one page website providing your name, address and phone number. Customers today want instant gratification. They want to know what you sell, what you have in inventory, videos demonstrating how your products work, and real unbiased feedback from your customers. Your customers want to order your products online and have it delivered to their doorstep for a reasonable shipping cost. This is not a fad, it is not going away. In fact, it is quickly becoming the norm, and businesses that are not keeping up with the norm are going to fail.

Another area that I see business fail in all the time is not having a proper backup of their data, including accounting information and customer databases. Many times I have had customers come to me with a dead hard drive. Their question is always the same; can you get my data off my dead drive. Most of the time the answer is no, but then I ask, you do have a backup don’t you? Sadly most of the time the answer is "kind of" or worse yet, a simple "no". That means if a hard drive failure occurs, your data is lost forever. No more accounting records, no more customer mailing lists, no more inventory records.

The failure of drives is not the only reason for backups. What about natural and man-made disasters such as fire, burglary, or catastrophic weather events such as tornados or floods? Fortunately, setting up a reasonable backup system is neither expensive nor difficult; you just need to do it and I will show you how.

Another area that small business owners need to be concerned about is network security, especially if you offered wireless networking for your customers. Network security can range from the simple to the complex, depending on your business needs. Keeping your operating systems up to date is one way to assure that security holes with your computers are closed. Maintaining a firewall between your local computer network and your Internet provider is another method. The onslaught of computer virus and malware unleashed upon the world today is never ending. Making sure that your anti-virus software is up to date and active on your network, computes, and servers is very important. It only takes one virus to bring your business to its knees by destroying your data, application software, and computer operating systems.

You may believe that none of these events will ever happen to you, yet the longer you have survived without such an event, the more likely it will happen to you. The odds are not in your favor. If the answers still elude you, then get in contact get with me and I will help you solve your setup or computer problems. You can email at: Charles@LeggConsulting.com