Today we take the Internet for granted. But when running a small business, this can be a huge mistake. It’s important to make sure you have internet fast enough to keep up with the competition.
Lightning-fast Internet has become a critical tool for staying connected to customers, suppliers, business partners, and employees. So, losing connectivity, even for a short time, can have devastating consequences. Every link in the business chain can find other sources to do business with, and when your communications are down, it may give those competitors a chance to swoop in. This is why it’s so important to ensure that your Internet connection is secure and reliable—in other words, a state-of-the-art Business Internet service.
“It’s…important to ensure that your Internet connection is secure and reliable—in other words, astate-of-the-art Business Internet service.”
Worry-free Internet Drives the Economy
Today’s Internet access is a high-speed connection capable of simultaneously carrying multiple channels or signals, including digital information and streaming media. The worry-free Internet available today has led to the creation of extraordinary new services leading to entrepreneurial ventures, including the vast universe of online shopping that helps drive our economy. The fact that the Internet service can be customized to fit various business models makes it even more compelling for small business owners.
“A lot of my marketing is done online—we’ve created this entire virtual presence…and it’s how people first came to know us.” Thom DeGeest, CEO of Waffles & Dinges
The Power of Internet: A Real-Life Example
A while back we told the story of Thomas DeGeest, a native of Belgium who had a six-figure job working for IBM in the United States, but longed to pursue the American dream by launching his own business. He started small by selling Belgian waffles out of a battered lunch truck in Manhattan, and today he owns a rapidly expanding business, plus a nationally recognized brand, Waffles & Dinges that continues to win the hearts of foodies everywhere.
So what do waffles have to do with the Internet? A great deal, according to DeGeest. “A lot of my marketing is done online—we’ve created this entire virtual presence, including the Belgian Ministry of Culinary Affairs, and it’s how people first came to know us,” he said. And of course, there’s an even more basic and critical reason: it’s how customers find the company’s trucks! On a daily basis, consumers go to the Internet to look up the locations where the trucks will be, and at what time. So, even a little downtime can hurt the bottom line. No Internet, no business.
An Internet Plan for Every Business, Large or Small
Like Waffles & Dinges, most small businesses are absolutely dependent on lightning-fast Internet connectivity, and because of the huge variety of business models in the small business space, each company needs a service plan tailored to their operating model. Top-tier providers such as Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) have the capacity and flexibility to meet the needs of businesses, regardless of size. TWCBC has become one of the nation’s top-ranked Internet Service Providers on the strength of its fiber-rich network that delivers robust performance at competitive prices. And for entrepreneurs who want to focus on their core business rather than the nuts and bolts of a technical infrastructure, TWCBC makes it easy.
Customized to Meet Your Needs
Again, not every business is the same, or even similar. Some firms are run out of the house and involve only light Internet use, while others are built around an e-commerce model and must be able to cope with heavy online traffic. Although its basic Business Internet package is robust and bundled with up to 10 email addresses with higher sending limits and a dynamic IP address that’s different each time you go onto the network, TWCBC allows you to customize your Internet service in order to meet your specific needs. For example, you can upgrade your service by adding a Virtual Private Network (VPN), Online Backup, Hosted Exchange, WiFi LAN, and Web Hosting, among other optional services.
Now that we’re 20 years into the Internet era, fast connections are no longer a luxury, and neither is reliability. These days when big corporations go down, they’ve got big problems, just like small business operating out of a spare bedroom. For businesses large and small, Internet is the ultimate business lifeline. Every business needs to ensure that it has a top-notch Internet Service Provider to keep that line open.
