We received such an enthusiastic response to the article originally titled "3 Strategies to Thrive in a Down Economy" in the December 2008 edition of ETA's newsletter, ListenUp!, that we thought we'd share it with you again this month.  

Read on to learn three powerful ways a growing number of ETA customers are leveraging their communications programs to reduce expenses and protect their company's vitality in this challenging environment.

3 Strategies to Thrive in a Slow Economy

1.  Reduce your MOOSE expenses. 

No, not that other cold-weather animal with the big antlers.  MOOSE stands for Maintenance, Operations, and Ongoing support of Systems and Equipment, which according to Forrester Research, can account for almost 70% of IT budgets.*  This is largely due to the steady, substantial flow of capital required to maintain, update, and upgrade today's complex IT infrastructure.  

That's why several years ago, ETA had the foresight to create MyWay™, our innovative managed services program for business phone systems. For one monthly fee, MyWay™ enables companies to select the specific technology that meets their needs, without the financial burdens of ownership or limitations of a hosted platform.  

MyWay™ helps free up capital and overcome budget limitations by eliminating the hefty downpayment, maintenance fees that increase annually, and significant replacement costs associated with traditional purchase programs.  This empowers MyWay™ customers to tailor their business communications platform to their exact specifications - Something they often otherwise could not afford to do.  Of course, since ETA manages the system, there's also no need to worry about upgrades, updates, or ongoing administration. 

This flexibility and customization is also one key reason MyWay™ stands apart from hosted solutions.  With MyWay™, you're not just a tenant of someone else's equipment - You get all the benefits of on-site technology with none of the costs or headaches of ownership.  That means you can take advantage of upgrades, updates, and new applications when you want them - Not when your provider decides to implement them.  If that weren't enough, MyWay™ also eliminates many of the setup costs associated with hosted platforms.

Click here to learn more about how MyWay™ can help "reduce your MOOSE!"

2.  Stop overpaying your wireless, voice and data bills. 

Did you know that companies spend an average of 12-20% over their actual  telecom expenses every month due to erroneous charges, invoicing mistakes, and other uncontrolled expenses?**  For a company with $10,000 in monthly telecom expenses, that can mean up to $24,000 wasted a year.  For a company with $50,000 in monthly telecom expenses, that can mean up to $120,000 wasted a year!

Unfortunately, most of these problems aren't easily detected or solved.  Telecom bills are often hard to decipher due to confusing and inconsistent formats and a plethora of ambiguous fees and charges.  Most of the time, you can't even tell if you're being billed correctly for the service fee discounts and special rate plans you signed up for.  And of course, the fact that there are often separate bills for wireless, voice, data, Internet and other services doesn't make things any easier.  

That's why Expert Technology Associates recently introduced a state-of-the-art, high-value Telecom Expense Management (TEM) solution to help our customers regain control of their telecom dollars.  Our TEM solution provides one Web-based portal to manage and pay all of your communications expenses - wireless, voice, data, Internet, you name it.  We even proactively identify and notify you about inappropriate or erroneous charges. Click here to learn more about how ETA can help you reduce wasteful telecom spending!

3.  Safeguard your ability to earn revenue.  

It's hard enough in this economy to keep sales up when things are running smoothly - So what happens if your business-critical data resources become unavailable?   Whether it's due to a lost or stolen notebook computer, power or network outage, equipment failure or natural disaster, every hour you lose getting back up and running cuts into your productivity and profits.  In fact, industry studies show that 40% of companies that suffer a significant, unrecoverable data loss for 3 days go out of business within 36 months.***  (And that's in a good economy!) 

That's why it's so critical to implement an integrated business continuity plan that covers the top three threats to productivity and profit: Your ability to get your critical  servers up and running during any interruption in service (not just a disaster!), recover data from lost, stolen, or damaged PCs and the ability to send and receive emails.  

ETA's PoweredUp!™ suite of services does just that, by empowering small to mid-sized businesses to take advantage of Enterprise-class data protection and recovery technology, at a fraction of the cost.  Our comprehensive, integrated solution helps safeguard your:

Server Data: Server Data Recovery PoweredUp!™ an take snapshots of your servers' data every 15 minutes and send it to a secure, off-site data center.  If your servers go down, a virtual copy can be available within an hour to get you back up and running.

Desktop and Notebook PC Data: PC Data Recovery PoweredUp!™ helps ensure the data your employees save on their desktops and laptops is protected.  If an employee's PC is lost or damaged, all of the programs and saved files from the original can be restored to a replacement machine in a flash.

Email:  Email Continuity PoweredUp!™ provides instantaneous, Web-based access to send and receive email in the event of an outage.  Email PoweredUp!™ also includes best-of-breed spam filtering and virus protection - all for about the same or less than the cost of spam filtering alone!

Whether you're interested in one, two, or all of these services, Click here to learn how to get your business PoweredUp!™

* "Managing IT When Times Get Tough," pp. 2-3, by Alex Cullen and Phil Murphy, March 25 2008, © Forrester Research, Inc.
** http://www.itemizetech.com/itemize.php
*** http://www.ironmountain.com/resources/tape/cost.pdf