Business information technologies: stages of development, tools and security. Modern information technology in small business The concept of information technology in business

The impact of information technology on society as a whole, on its economy, social relations, culture, education, psychology, health, etc. today is the subject of research and discussion. IN modern world they are considered an integral part of any enterprise. Computer technologies are the result of the implementation of a certain, precisely formulated business purpose. Before investing in information Technology it is necessary to conduct an objective study of the needs of the enterprise and fully assess the impact of the information system on the formation of the image of modern enterprises, on the possibilities and prospects for their development.

From the standpoint of information technology assessment information system is a set of models and architectures based on various processes, functions, data flows and other static and dynamic aspects of the corporation. But from a business standpoint, the information system is a tool for maximizing profits, saving money, identifying reserves to reduce costs, that is, improve management efficiency.

The information system should promptly provide real information about the current economic situation of the enterprise, reflect the objective (not only financial) results of the enterprise and allow to manage by human resourses, be able to form options possible solutions according to specific requirements.

Enterprises have always been engaged in the collection, storage, processing and dissemination of information to solve their problems. In other words, IS has always existed in enterprises. In traditional hierarchical schemes for organizing enterprise management, pencil and paper technologies have long been used. In fact, organizational schemes for managing an enterprise are nothing more than the use of a certain technology when creating an enterprise information system. It is believed that all organizations have some of these properties. These "ideally typical" characteristics of the organization were described by the German sociologist Max Weber in 1911, who called organizations bureaucracies with certain "structural" features.

Enterprise management adequacy depends on understanding general condition affairs at the moment, from the presentation of the goals that it is going to achieve, from the level of perfection of the management organization.

The task of providing effective enterprise management can be divided into two main parts:

1. actual management;
2. improvement of the enterprise structure.

Investments in information systems are primarily investments in management structure. The classical management model, which describes the actions of managers, has not been in doubt for more than 80 years. Henry Fayol and others first described five classic control functions- planning, organization, coordination, decision-making and control. This description dominated for a long time and is still popular today. In accordance with these functions, the work of the manager consists of the following main stages: collection, processing, dissemination of information; decision-making; personnel Management.

The introduction of an information system in an enterprise corresponds to the main tasks of current management. The main goals of automating the management process:

1. Provide management control over processes.
2. Eliminate errors in the work of personnel.
3. Provide the ability to analyze solutions.
4. Provide strategic planning capability.
5. Provide processing and analysis of a large flow of documents.
6. Minimize the time required to complete operations.
7. Minimize the cost of operations.
8. Ensure the possibility of increasing the number of operations without increasing the number of staff.

Thus, the introduction of information technology in the enterprise is intended, first of all, to ensure a higher efficiency of the current management of the entire organization. Optimize the collection and accumulation of information and reduce decision-making time through better access to data and their processing. The impact of information technology (automation) on the enterprise is that the system begins to independently perform routine operations, and the person only performs the functions of control and, sometimes, data entry.

Much of what appeared in the field of management theory of organizations and enterprises in the 50s and 60s today may turn out to be quite capable, acceptable and effective due to the rapid growth of IT, the volume and quality of the services they provide. At that time, matrix, hybrid, and other management structures were developed that quite adequately met the needs of the management of large enterprises as large organizational and economic systems. Then came automated systems management of various levels and functional purposes. In conditions of weak technical support the introduction of all these innovations was hampered by information overload and emphasized by inefficient, extremely expensive duplication of resources under those circumstances.

The large-scale introduction of information technologies and the implementation of computerization of enterprises became a reality only in the 80s. It is believed that the emergence of IT in the enterprise increases labor productivity, simplifies access to information. An information system, as a core element of IT, can already be of benefit when traditional structure enterprises by replacing paper documents with electronic ones. Any enterprise should be able to efficiently collect, process and use information in the shortest possible time. This logic has led to the fact that in one form or another almost all enterprises began to introduce electronic document management, regardless of the level, size and other parameters.

As a result, a fairly reliable picture of development trends has emerged. electronic document management. At many enterprises, by now, as a rule, local networks already exist, and there is enough communication equipment and servers available. Almost every enterprise has an accounting information system in one form or another - accounting, warehouse accounting, logistics, etc. Step-by-step modernization is on the agenda of these enterprises today, and for some large enterprises, the introduction of systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). The most intensive development today is still going on in the field of primary information processing tools, financial accounting programs and document management. And also, in the field of teamwork support systems, which allow not only to take into account certain facts and events, but also to ensure purposeful joint work of employees. At the same time, it is characteristic that the demand for analytical systems begins to grow disproportionately to economic growth.

Paradoxical as it may seem, but the initial effect that a company receives when creating a complex information system or its modernization is the “deprivation of illusions” about the success of the business. Approximate calculations of efficiency are often erroneous. When implementing an integrated accounting system, it becomes obvious that there are much more loss items.

The task of the information system is to track processes with a high degree of accuracy and reliability, to identify trends, on the basis of which the manager takes managerial decision and immediately gets the opportunity to quickly see the result of their actions. The company becomes transparent. Top managers get full control over the financial and material flows within the enterprise.

The information system does not make decisions, but creates a resource - high-quality management information, thereby defining a new system quality enterprises. Management information is not only source documents and financial reports. This is information about the structure of the company, and the business processes taking place in it, the distribution of duties and responsibilities for decision-making, business goals, information about everything that can affect the business.

Management information is not only primary documents and financial reports. This is information about the structure of the company, and the business processes taking place in it, the distribution of duties and responsibilities for decision-making, business goals, information about everything that can affect the business.

Modern major projects IS is characterized, as a rule, by the following features:

• the complexity of the description of the object (a fairly large number of functions, processes, data elements and complex relationships between them), requiring careful modeling and analysis of data and processes;
• the presence of a set of closely interacting components (subsystems) that have their own local tasks and goals of functioning, often of a non-systemic nature (for example, traditional applications related to transaction processing and solving routine tasks, and applications of analytical processing (decision support) that use ad hoc requests to large volume data)
• the absence of direct analogues, which limits the possibility of using any standard design solutions and applied systems;
• the need to integrate existing and newly developed applications;
• functioning in a heterogeneous environment on several hardware platforms;
• disunity and heterogeneity of individual groups of developers in terms of skill level and established traditions of using certain tools;
• significant time span of the project, due, on the one hand, to the limited capabilities of the development team, and, on the other hand, the scale of the customer organization and the varying degree of readiness of its individual divisions to implement IS.

For successful implementation of the project, the design object must be adequately described, complete and consistent, functional and information models of the IS must be built. Until recently, the design of IS was carried out mainly on an intuitive level using non-formalized methods based on art, practical experience, expert assessments and expensive experimental checks of the quality of the IS functioning, which allowed for the inadequacy of description and modeling.

Improving the structure of the enterprise is a necessary step to improve management efficiency.

Automation of irrational processes is meaningless, which is why the process of implementing IS in an enterprise is inextricably linked with business process reengineering.

“Office work is difficult, especially in large organizations. Many small steps lead to the final result. And if specialized services are included in this business, work can wander from table to table for a long time. P. Strassman illustrates these steps in the decision-making process with visual diagrams. The vast majority of clerical processes are invested in linkages between managerial, specialized and technical staff. They are driven primarily by organizational structure, not cost. end result which is paradoxical in nature.

When a simple notification of a design change requires several different actions—for example: phone calls, reprinting of instructions, discussions (at a cost of about $100, $500, or $1,000), this reflects a system of information processing procedures accepted among specialists rather than an actual function, a monetary cost. or the relative importance of the design itself. The obvious irrationality of what is happening led P. Strassman to the need to introduce a kind of "Parkinson's coefficient" to describe the actual number of information interactions undertaken within the organization when non-standard requests appeared.

Improvement of business processes goes in several directions: balanced capacity planning and their use; reducing stockpiles and working capital requirements; extreme sensitivity to consumer needs. Modernization of supplier-consumer chains has a positive effect on marketing. The development cycle of new products is drastically reduced, which provides a number of advantages:

• a short cycle of product development and its promotion to the market;
• quick response of the brand to market requirements;
• synchronized production capacity planning;
• the ability to effectively expand market positions.

Modern enterprise management systems are divided into process-oriented systems, that is, systems configured for rigid logic (for example, the SAP R / 3 system), and function-oriented systems, that is, systems that are configured in accordance with a given process structure (Oracle Applications system from Oracle). -oriented approach to enterprise management allows you to get a structure whose activities are aimed at continuous quality improvement final product and customer satisfaction. Within the framework of this approach, the structure of the enterprise is rebuilt in accordance with business process maps provided by the IC manufacturer. Process-oriented systems are most widely used in European countries, where it is considered beneficial to change organizational structure enterprises according to some "ideal case".

Functionally - oriented systems, whose structure is configured in accordance with the organization of the enterprise, are most common in the United States. This does not mean a complete rejection of business process reengineering, but rather a rejection of the structure of the "ideal" enterprise. Both of these groups of systems are being actively introduced in the domestic market, each playing its own role in the life of enterprises.

Analysis of key factors (what in English is called Business drivers) allows you to answer the question: "Why does the organization need to improve?" Understanding these factors allows IT investments to be linked to business plans and provides a perspective on IT investments as developing the organization's key capabilities or capabilities in terms of doing business.

Thus, key factors reflect the view of the top management of the organization on what is important for the business (within a given time horizon) and at the same time important enough that it necessarily requires certain changes.

We have already noted that it is possible to achieve any positive changes only when people begin to do certain things in a different way. Once the need for change is recognized, it is clear that some investment of time, effort and resources on the part of management is required to implement the change. At the same time, the following logical chain is built: understanding the Key Factors leads to the realization of the Necessary Changes, and this, in turn, sets the Investment Goals.

If IT is seen as a tool for such change, then this is the basis for initiating an IT project. At the same time, it must be linked as closely as possible with the Goals that the organization seeks to achieve in the process of change.

Note that the key factors themselves cannot be changed or cancelled. They are external to the organization and exist independently of any programs and projects. Programs and projects are the organization's conscious choice in response to these factors.

In the process of analyzing key factors, it is necessary to consider whether the issues of the organization's survival, achievement of success or prosperity are considered. To do this, you can use various tools, one of which we will give below. At the same time, it is also important to understand what kind of changes we are trying to achieve:

• "business as usual" - management in a stable situation;
• point incremental improvements - improvements within existing resources and management concepts;
• radical change - improvements due to the fact that certain things are done in a completely new way;
• elimination - improvements due to the rejection of unnecessary procedures, actions, etc.

There is a certain way to have a structured discussion of issues related to the identification of key factors and opportunities that the organization can achieve. Trecy and Viersema formulated the concept of value discipline. It consists in the fact that organizations in their activities, in order to achieve good results, must make a choice of one of the possible main ways to achieve them:

• Maintain close relationships with your customers.
• Highest operational efficiency.
• Leadership in products and services.

Rice. 1.12.

Gartner proposes to add one more dimension to these three dimensions: the strength of brands, or trademarks owned by the organization.

Different strategies require the use of different types of application systems and even different technological infrastructure. Operational efficiency means, for example, streamlined supplier processes, effective inventory management, etc. This requires fast, reliable underlying transaction systems that automate day-to-day operations and minimize the costs of such operations.

The strategy of maintaining a close relationship with customers involves gaining in-depth knowledge of customers and effective use this knowledge to build long-term relationships that are beneficial to the organization. This requires increased attention to the storage, analysis and availability of significant amounts of information about customers, usually more than is required just to complete a transaction. More extensive customer databases are required, containing both structured and unstructured information (documents, letter images, etc.). Data analytics also requires appropriate analytics, as well as significant efforts to integrate multiple touchpoints and customer interactions.

Leadership in products and services involves the introduction to the market of any unique products or products with high quality characteristics. To do this, it is necessary to create opportunities for the free exchange of ideas between the most diverse departments of the organization (departments of research and development, design, information technology, marketing), as a rule, in a geographically distributed environment. In turn, the implementation of these capabilities involves the use of not so much transaction execution systems as technologies that provide context and communication, such as collaborative work systems, etc.

Therefore, one approach is to work with business managers to identify how the organization positions itself relative to competitors and other market participants along these three dimensions. For each of the three dimensions, an organization can be assessed as "adequate" (if it corresponds to the general level of the market in this area), as "lagging behind" or as "leader". IT projects that target areas identified as lagging behind can be called "survival-oriented". Projects that are in the "Business as usual" area are focused on incremental, incremental improvements. Projects that aim to keep the organization ahead of the competition can involve radical change, as by definition they mean doing something that other organizations in the industry have never done before.

It should be noted that attention needs to be paid to the combination of competencies as they are ultimately interrelated. For example, you may not be able to maintain close relationships with your customers for an extended period of time if your organization has problems with the efficiency of operations and the quality of products and services.

Figure 1.13 shows a conditional example, when the above three dimensions that ensure the success of an organization (some hypothetical trading company), possible IT projects are superimposed that contribute to success in each of the areas. At the same time, instead of the dimension "Leadership in products and services", another strategic dimension was chosen, called "Flexibility (dynamic) of the organization" (agility), which refers to its ability to quickly respond to external circumstances.

An organization that has chosen close relationships with its customers as the primary tool for its success must design its business models, IT systems and other operational activities accordingly to support this strategy at the process level.

An example of a business strategy based on building close relationships with customers is the American pharmaceutical company walgreens. The company sought to maximize the accumulation of information about its customers to ensure close relationships with them. In the early 1980s, before the Internet boom, the company pioneered the Intercom network. The idea was simple: by linking electronic network all Walgreens pharmacies and accumulating information about customers in one clearing house, they have turned the entire drugstore network of the country into a "district pharmacy" for each customer. It doesn't matter where you live, but in whatever area you happen to be during a business trip or vacation, you have no problem getting prescribed medicines. It required serious investment into telecommunications infrastructure and information systems, but was justified by the company's business strategy.

An example of leadership based on operating efficiency, is Fannie Mae , a mortgage lending company . The mortgage loan service itself is not something new, but what the company has learned to do better than all other competitors is the most effective way to assess the risks associated with mortgage loans. The company in its activities has moved from focusing on the indicator "return on credit" to the use of such an indicator as "return on the level of risk". This required the development of more than 300 computer applications, including a sophisticated analytics program to monitor a $600 billion mortgage portfolio, a computer database of 60 million properties, and the implementation of business processes that greatly reduced paperwork and clerk work. With this set of technologies, lenders have reduced the time it takes to approve a loan from 30 days; up to 30 minutes and reduced their costs by $1,000 per loan. This is a great example of how a business strategy has identified the appropriate IT architectural elements needed to implement it.

The comments made by Nick Price, IT Architect at Dairy Farm Group, capture the essence of the benefits of developing enterprise IT architecture and how it relates to business strategy. In doing so, he uses the term "technological architecture" to describe what we call "IT architecture":

"The value of technology architecture is enormous. You just have to think about IT investment decisions in your organization or other organizations you know. It's easy to be smart in hindsight, but I can tell you that we've spent millions of dollars over the past three years on technologies that simply weren't workable or adequate at the time of the decision or today because the people who made those decisions didn't understand how those technologies fit into the business.Honestly, with wasted money, we could develop 5 or 10 technological architectures.

The value of technology architecture is difficult to measure, and the cost of developing it is almost negligible. Today, I cannot imagine an organization moving forward without a technology architecture. Any business executive who lives up to his job will tell you that he has a business plan, which is drawn up in the form of one document or another, and represents a vision of the direction in which the business is developing. Why should technology be the exception? We must have a sound technology strategy and governance processes for all aspects of IT use, and these two things must be inextricably linked to business strategy."

By the way, the IT architecture project at Dairy Farm Group took 4 months. Even in the conditions of constant Russian shortage of time and resources, this is not an impossible task for either commercial companies, nor for Russian state structures. All that is, by and large, needed is the gray matter in the head, a pencil and paper, thank God, which we have in abundance.

Several concepts and approaches can be used to apply this approach, focused on explaining the additional business and core business benefits of using IT. It is probably impossible to enumerate all the possible tools to structure the discussion and exchange of views between business and IT leadership. We present only some of options. Of course, the approaches listed here will not replace the full depth of analysis that can be achieved by professional business consultants, but they give some idea of ​​the possible tools for such analysis.

In seeking answers to the questions formulated above, it is important to determine the relationship between the organization's business strategy, information technology architecture, and IT strategy.

We will use the word "strategy" so often that one involuntarily wants to resort to the help of the classics in defining this term. Here is Porter's definition of strategy as "... an integrated set of actions aimed at improving the well-being of an enterprise in the long term." Those. is a concept that helps managers to transform the daily chaos of various events and decisions into some orderly way of understanding the position of the enterprise in environment. In this regard, the strategy consists of a set of informed choices and compromises and provides a general direction in decision making.

The business strategy should identify the direction of business development (the main area of ​​activity) of the organization and the reasons for moving in this direction. The IT architecture must identify those information systems that are required to support the business strategy. The IT strategy should show how these systems can be implemented in the organization and what technologies are needed for this. By considering these factors, you can get an idea of ​​the contribution that each application system makes to the business organization.

An IT strategy defines how technology will be used in an organization. At the same time, the IT architecture is a link that, on the one hand, reflects today's and tomorrow's business needs, and on the other hand, is ensured by the implementation of the plans prescribed in the IT strategy.

Rice. 1.7.

When justifying the benefits that an organization receives from the implementation of IT in accordance with the principle of "Benefits in return for invested funds" (Value-for-Money), it must be remembered that additional value and benefits are obtained at the interface of "Business - IT Architecture" and, before all in the field of applied systems. At the same time, it incurs costs associated with the creation and development of this IT architecture, which is the result of the implementation of the IT strategy.

The correct approach is to focus on the side of this relationship that is associated with obtaining additional value, benefits (Added-Value), because business management, when it understands the benefits derived from the implementation of IT projects in a deep enough way, usually has a much better idea of ​​what means it is ready to invest in these projects. This approach increases the chances that IT projects will have real support from business management. This is what is called to have project sponsor. As soon as a project "rolls" exclusively into the field of information technology, its success and support will often not correspond to the real goals of business management.

It should be noted that the relationships in the diagram above are not only top-down. New business opportunities can emerge as a result of the use of IT, so formalized processes are also needed to find these new potential business opportunities associated with new information technologies.

A powerful tool for describing plans related to the use of IT in an organization is the Application Portfolio. It describes investments in application systems and services (those that are available, planned and possible for future consideration) not in terms of how they will be implemented, but in terms of their Roles and Contributions into business.

Each IT system is placed in a quadrant that reflects the importance of the system from a business perspective.

The strategic quadrant contains those systems that are critical to the implementation of the future business strategy. The High Potential Applications Quadrant contains those applications that may be important for future success. The Key Operational Applications quadrant contains the systems that the organization relies on today to achieve its results. Enabling applications are those systems that are important but not critical to success.

The nature of the advantages that various information systems bring depends on their positioning in this classification. Generalized sources of benefits for different types of applications are shown in

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• CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT
• COMPETITIVENESS
• SMALL BUSINESS
• INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The article attempts to show the importance of information technology in the successful development of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the composition of their functions and the functioning algorithm.

• The influence of economic factors on architecture and urban planning
• Methodological approaches to assessing the competitiveness of a product, organization and industry
• Human capital as a key factor in the country's competitiveness
• Economic resources. Resource constraints

Today modern technologies significantly changed the work of most companies, making changes in its structure and technologies with high productivity. A division was made into micro-enterprises, small, medium and big business, as well as transnational corporations (TNCs). And companies began to compete in the struggle for customers (consumers). The market has become bigger and more international. In addition, a new meaning has emerged that was not so important before: information. The saying became very relevant: "Who owns the information, he owns the world." Global markets need new approaches to managing the logistics and production of a company, which can be reduced to management. Information technology has long played a very important role in management. large enterprises. Especially for solving the problems of multinational companies and large companies, expensive information systems have been created that are designed to simplify management and ownership. information resources. In these companies, IT solutions are reduced to just one of the software and hardware systems that require significant effort to maintain and develop. One of the leading suppliers software high level- Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, which offer ready-to-use solutions, the starting price is approximately 20,000 US dollars. This price is more suitable for large companies that want to invest much more in information technology (IT), and in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises, these solutions are not available. It is also worth noting that important aspect is not only a purchase, but also quite complex services for the maintenance of the service by the enterprise's own efforts. For small businesses, there are practically no integrated solutions now. The reasons for this situation may be a rather complicated model for achieving economic recovery and a low rating of the head of a small company who does not consider it necessary to introduce such a system into the activities of his company.

According to the article "Modern tools for effective management in small business", in order to be in demand in small businesses, an information system must meet certain characteristics:

• Ease of implementation and use;
• There are no features that are not required;
• budget;
• Probability of working on the Internet;
• Russified system interface;
• Technical support by phone in Russian;
• Integration with existing systems.

The main tools that are available for IT implementation and meet the above characteristics can be considered:

• VPN technology;
• Enterprise messaging server (corporate E-mail server);
• CRM system;
• Virtual PBX and multichannel telephone number.

And, I believe that these are absolutely correct characteristics that information technology must meet, since this is quite logical and such characteristics are necessary for effective work at the enterprise.

Network is a generalized name for technologies that allow one or more network connections (a logical network) to be provided over another network (for example, the Internet). Similarly, secure access via the Internet to existing resources in local network. With this technology, small businesses can afford the following benefits:

• integration of several offices in different cities;
• recruitment of employees, as well as the full-time work of employees who are located in different cities or work at home;
• The manager has access to all documents of his organization anywhere in the world where the Internet is available;
• Work during internal system from any place where there is an Internet connection, you can also not be afraid for the security of confidential information.

This is just one of the main features that VPN technology can provide for small businesses. As for the cost of this solution, the initial investment in its configuration and connection will be approximately 7,000 rubles. You will have to pay monthly for services (about 600 rubles per month). The technology configuration and implementation period can be extended during the working day. The actual connection process and configuration is of medium complexity, the process is well documented, but there may be technical issues that require expert intervention.

Corporate Messaging Server - This technology is based on a domain name owned by a company that can improve its image and promote its recognition. Within the system Email company each employee of the company is assigned an email address while they work for the company. Thus, email addresses that are known to customers belong to the company, not to a particular employee. In addition, the company, using its own corporate system messaging, received very effective tool, which promotes quality of service and prevents leaks and finds commercial information. These goals can be achieved through the parameters of the messages that come in via e-mail and the ability to collect all the information received and send it to the specified address, controlled routing. In addition, your own message domain is very beneficial to the corporate image. At this stage of creating an email server company, there are several ways:

• Use the website of the postal service;
• Creating your own server or renting;
• Transfer of mail service to the Google or Yandex website.

The best solution can be considered the last option, when the company sends a messaging server professional services. In addition, based on the site's solution, Yandex has a number of advantages: stability, one of the best in the Russian segment of the Internet, spam and antivirus protection, while it is free and has no additional restrictions. As for the installation and implementation time, you can take one business day. The actual connection process and configuration is of low complexity, the process is well documented, and if you have technical difficulties, you can always ask for free support.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business strategy for attracting (selecting) and managing customers, aimed at optimizing their value in the long term. CRM implies the presence in the organization of a philosophy and culture focused on the client, aimed at the effectiveness of work in the field of marketing, sales and after-sales service. CRM applications make effective customer relationship management possible, provided the business has the right goals, strategy, and culture. Nowadays, if a company wants their work to be efficient, they absolutely need a CRM. The reason is competition, which obliges the company to improve the level of service to its customers.

Currently, the following solutions for small businesses are offered on the CRM systems market:

• Software installed on a PC;
• cloud CRM solution;
• The server system that is used for the corporate server.

One of the best solutions for small businesses is one that is based on the principle of cloud systems.

We can fully agree with the marketing.spb.ru website data on the pros and cons of cloud systems.

pros cloud CRM systems:

• theoretically, in cloud systems, the amount of disk space, RAM and the number of processors is absolutely unlimited;
• users do not have to spend their time installing and configuring software, a web browser or smartphone is enough to access cloud services;
• no need to purchase expensive equipment;
• significantly saves time and effort of employees (and sometimes the space occupied by equipment) to perform certain tasks;
• payment is made only for the used computing power and transactions;
• the company does not need to allocate money for infrastructure deployment;
• there is no need to waste time on training, since almost all users know how to use web browsers, as well as Internet services, as a class of services;
• cloud systems are serviced mainly by highly qualified professionals, which in turn has a very positive impact on the quality of software maintenance.

Disadvantages of cloud CRM systems:

• due to constantly emerging security issues, it becomes clear that not all data can still be entrusted to a third-party provider (by the way, this applies not only to storage, but also to the processing of some data);
• the possibility of losing data, for example: due to a technical failure at the service provider;
• the inability to "fasten" additional functions, taking into account the business processes of the enterprise;
• Internet access required. Of course, on the one hand, this is quite convenient, but on the other hand, sometimes the Internet "disappears" from several hours to several days.

In addition to the economic benefits of this technology, it can be said that it is effective, which is quite obvious, as it helps to solve problems such as customer experience control, training, and integration of remote offices. Low-cost solutions, again, depend on the service provider. The technology configuration and implementation period is extended by five working days. The actual connection process and configuration is of medium complexity, the process is well documented, can support service developers, but may require assistance with technical issues at the connection point. This article describes technologies that are easy to understand and apply and that will greatly improve the efficiency and competitiveness of any small business. In other words, these are technical innovations that facilitate the transition of business management skills to a new level. In the next period, we should expect the appearance of completely new systems and services in the domestic market, which will be focused on small and medium-sized enterprises. The basis for these solutions is technical innovation combined with company methodology and efficient information management. But these solutions have distinguishing feature- the company will have to restructure its business processes within the framework of the needs of the system, and not vice versa. In fact, small businesses will be subject to external influence and optimization to improve performance, competitiveness and overall management efficiency. The novelty of these systems lies in the fact that they are available to small businesses and are being implemented in small businesses through standardization using the management principles required to work in large companies, external system consultants and complex systems.

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1. Modern tools for effective management in small business. V.Yu. Golovin, Ya.D. Gelrud, V.G. Mokhov. 197 c.
2. VPN. Wikipedia. [ Electronic resource] URL: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN
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