For most companies, you have to upgrade your entire system at least once every 3-5 years and the cost of technology just keeps on growing. This constant upgrading is just not sustainable for small-medium size organisations.

It is also far too expensive to upgrade or replace traditional systems while trying to keep ahead of rising standards for quality ICT products. There is a way to to reduce technology costs it’s called cloud computing with Google Apps for Business.

In April 2010 Bradford & Barthel completed the implementation and successful firm-wide roll-out of its Google Apps cloud-hosted collaboration platform. The Google Apps for Business strategy and implementation earned the firm two ILTA 2010 Distinguished Peer Awards and led to a major culture shift resulting in increased knowledge sharing, communication and collaboration within the firm and with firm clients.

Opting to use a virtual office setup has been a craze for small to medium sized businesses for a number of years now. The obvious benefits that attract business owners is a reduced need for office space, a flexible family friendly work environment, better business continuity arrangements, wider geographic coverage to name but a few.

Communications play an important role in any virtual office environment, a simple telephone system will be able to provide some of that, but what about access to emails, calendars, office documents, plus some of the more social oriented requirements like access to company wide updates, effective teamworking, getting quick answers to short questions etc.