Apptimi.

We hear time and again from business owners that managing health and safety is difficult and takes too much time. The fact is, managing this basic business requirement isn't that difficult and when properly organised will take only a little of you or your staffs time.  There are some basics to get right first. These are your obligations under law and are the minimum you must do: Health & Safety Checklist: Take out employers liability insurance. Make sure you display the certificate where your employees and contract staff can see it. Assign a competent person to manage your health and safety requirements. A competent person need not be an outside consultant. Any member of your staff who understands the workplace and the health and safety requirements can be viewed as a competent person. Create your health and safety policy. This is a plan on how you are going to manage your health and safety. Create your risk assessment . This is a list of anything (a hazard) that

We hear a lot about cloud computing and how it will empower every business, large and small. About how it will change how these businesses work and grow in the future.  While I agree with some of the messages that cloud computing brings, I also see problems with the reality. A lot of cloud applications come to the SME market from the larger enterprise companies and bring with it a complexity that is not needed by the SME. Cloud computing or web servers (or whatever name you give to it) at their most basic level need to just work for the business. The SME typically doesn't have an IT department and can't invest time and resources into getting applications up and running. It usually uses contract staff that come in and out of the business and full time staff fill in for those that are absent for any length of time. For the small or medium size business, web applications bring a promise of increased productivity, flexibility and a cost reduction that they could never enjoy p