For my next few blogs, I am going to argue (hopefully persuade) that most small to medium companies should really consider outsourcing many of their non-core activities. Great candidates for outsourcing include:
- Email Servers
- Accounting Systems
- Telephone Systems (Hosted VOIP)
- Human Resource functions
- Top Financial Officer
- Graphic Arts and design
- Product design and development
- Day to day marketing activities
- Payroll and benefits
- Lead generation
Actually, the list is nearly endless. But I will take a few minutes to offer an overview of some outsource alternatives, and perhaps go into more detail in the future. Of course you are always welcome to call or email me if you want to discuss in more detail.
Email Servers
Supporting Microsoft Exchange Servers and the email clients is a lot of work. And failure to properly manage your Exchange Server can take your company “Off-the-Air” for days, which can be nearly fatal for many companies. There are great alternatives to move your email accounts to outside services. The two that I like are Google Premium Apps with Google Docs and Microsoft’s Hosted Exchange Service.
Google Premium Apps is definitely the best “Bang for your Buck.” At $50 per user per year with 27Gb storage, Google will meet the needs of most businesses. It’s fast and reliable with great Spam filtering. It comes with a group calendar system and the ability to share documents with Google Docs. It’s not MS Sharepoint, but it’s very good. Google also supports iPhones and other Smartphones, which is becoming an increasingly difficult burden on smaller companies.
The biggest downside is that it’s new and Google has very limited technical support.
Microsoft Hosted Exchange Service is similar in price to Google ($60) per year but offers less storage (1GB) per user. It may become more expensive if you wish to add iPhone or Blackberry support as well. But it’s a great choice for organizations that want to stay with a Microsoft Standard but eliminate the hassles of owning and maintaining servers, backup systems, etc.
There are many companies that offer MS Exchange services other than Microsoft and they’re worth checking out. Intermedia (www.intermedia.net) is a well know and well regarding hosting company.
