Moving your business online

Some people may think that going online with your business is only relevant to retail businesses with an e-commerce site or hotels, holiday resorts and restaurants with an online booking system or even a wholesaler with a dedicated client portal. However, being “online” doesn’t have to mean creating a website that provides an interface for clients to make purchases or bookings.

Most businesses can take their business online

By deploying cloud-based solutions allowing remote working, using collaborative software to share files and documents, and the more recent adoption of electronic signatures being legally and commonly accepted into business processes.

Most recently I have been looking at our workflows and processes and seeing how I could make the whole system more efficient while remaining safe and secure.

Covid-19

The covid lockdown meant we had to introduce an electronic signing process into our system to confirm to our clients that we had delivered the service we were being paid for. This worked well with our existing Dropbox account providing a secure link for authentication between our support records and the businesses we have supported.

We did encounter a new problem with the increasing amount of data we shared both internally and externally to a point where we had to adopt a better multi licence account with an associated increase of storage. Migration to this system was quite painful but after a couple of weeks of internal trials and tests, we finally had a system which we could use with multiple users.

Functionality

The functionality to share documents and directories easily and safely with individuals both internally within CDI and externally to both our clients and customers was now available to the business, simplifying workflow and efficiency. Integration with HelloSign and Trello also enables us to have a single copy of a document and use it for multiple applications ensuring we are always working on the correct document.

While taking a lot of time and effort to implement and test, sometimes with little assistance from the online help functions, the ease of use, flexibility and standardisation we can now achieve across all our projects and systems has made it all worthwhile. Our system continues to comply with all the GDPR requirements as well as our Cyber Essentials accreditation.

CDI Alliance can help you prepare to take your business online

We always start with the end: what are you looking to achieve for your business by going online. We can then look at your processes and procedures to help you understand more about how data is used by your business before we work with you to look for solutions.

If you are based in North Yorkshire or the East Riding then you can access our “Taking Your Business Online” support package with 40% funding through Calderdale College’s Business Scale Up Programme. To find out more about how we can help you with this then contact us at enquiries@cdialliance.co.uk