Often when forming a new business, you decide on the name and visit a hosting company to purchase a domain. Usually, this is the same place that offer website and email hosting. However, the problem with these email hosting services is the limited functionality when it comes to your business email. The technology behind most of these email hosting solutions is called POP or IMAP.

Both POP and IMAP have their limitations, which become very apparent as your business grows. Hence why this is the first of our IT requirements in this business guide. Therefore, upgrading your email to the right service provider is crucial for your day to day tasks.

There are currently 2 main choices when it comes to having a business email service. Either Office 365 or G-Suite (formerly Google Apps). For now, it’s worth paying that little bit extra for one of these two services.

In addition, you may also require an IT company to move your current company domain to Office 365 or G-Suite. As with anything in life, it’s not straight forward but once on the platform, it is well worth the hassle.

Spam protection is part of both Office 365 and G Suite as standard.

You won’t get any form of internet security from regular website hosts email service so again this is another selling point when migrating to a business email system.

Now you might not think much of spam to start off with but as time goes on your email address will more than likely get added to a few email lists where it can become a real problem.

This will clog up your inbox and distract you from the real emails that need addressing.

It can also be a security issue as some of the incoming spam will have attachment invoices and PDFs which are meant to look genuine.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, and they are malicious and more likely to be a form of email phasing.

Both Office 365 and G Suite will protect your email from security threat up to the level of 99% but there’s also the wider internet where having business grade virus protection on your main computer systems is well worth the investment.

There are multiple antivirus suppliers on the market all with their own unique benefits but the one-word advice I would give you here is do not go down the free route for your anti-virus protection.

I’ve seen time and time again, many systems infected that have previously been secured with “free anti-virus software”.

For a breakdown on which Anti-Virus software to choose just ask us.

The main topics we’ve discussed so far in this article have all been technical and nature and you might not feel comfortable jumping in hands-on setting up new systems, emails and configuring outlook.

This is where you’ll choose from a selection of IT companies to assist in the setup of your new business.

What can you expect from a company providing IT services?

Usually, they’ll offer a form of proactive monitoring of your IT systems. In the form of a software tool, it will monitor your desktops & laptops and alert them to any problems that might be going on in the background.

The proactive monitoring works well for most businesses and complements the reactive IT support that all IT providers usually offer.

A helpdesk which can be called upon to help you remotely or where necessary onsite to assist with technical and IT support issues is one of the life saving IT requirements you should invest in.