Technology and gadgets for your business

New technology and gadgets can mean anything from business conference phones or mobile phones, to laptops and iPads, all of which can be particularly useful if your business employs homeworkers.

Conference Calling

More than 3.1 million of the UK's workforce do their job from home, but this can pose some problems with keeping in touch and making homeworkers feel like part of the team.

Conference calling is one way to do so as it allows more than two people to be involved in a call at once, making it easy to communicate within the team or perhaps with clients.

Another benefit of installing a phone system capable of handling conference calls is that the business becomes more efficient as less time is wasted travelling to and from meetings or asking members of staff to make the journey into the office.

Smartphones

The growth of smartphones in the UK is also a major boost to start-up businesses as it means employees can be in touch with work at all times. The convenience of having instant access to emails day or night is something a smartphone can provide, as well as the ability to open documents that used to require a desktop or laptop computer.

Smartphones have the power to make members of staff constantly available, which is obviously a good thing from the point of view of an entrepreneur opening a new venture – whether staff will agree is another matter.

BYO is an option

Most people have heard of the phrase 'Bring your own Booze' but now a variation of the theme has entered the world of business 'Bring you own devices'.

A global study by Citrix, of around 700 chief information officers, found that 94 per cent of organisations have plans in place to allow staff to bring in their own smartphones and tablets by 2013.