How To Set Up An Office Network For Your Growing Business

For many small business owners, setting up an office network doesn’t become a priority until they’re ready to onboard new members of staff. Once this expansion milestone comes around, however, you may find yourself too preoccupied with training new employees to be able to invest the time and energy required to arrange networking solutions for your office. In this regard, readying the digital infrastructure that your staff will require well before your team actually grows, can help employee integration go a lot smoother.

But there are a myriad of other reasons why business owners should be proactive about establishing their office network. For starters, setting up an office network is particularly crucial for service-based businesses, as employees are required to pull up client data from multiple devices. And using web-based applications for storing business data only provides so much efficiency and – more importantly – security.

If you’re not a digital native, however, the prospect of setting up an office computer network can feel like a monolithic task. Thankfully, this task can actually be broken down into a step-by-step process, which we’ve outlined below.

Step 1: Gather your networking hardware

From ethernet cables and switches, to the office computers and accessories themselves, it’s no secret that office networks require a decent amount of tech hardware in order to be set up. With that, the first step when setting up an office network is always going to be determining exactly what resources you’ll need to configure a network that’s ideal for your business’ needs.

This preliminary step can be completed by asking yourself a few simple questions. For starters, what are your business’ current and projected computing needs? How many departments are occupying your office space, and how many members of staff can you expect to feasibly join each department? And will all of these staff members require connected computer resources in order to fulfil the responsibilities of their respective roles?

Answering these questions now can help you determine exactly how many computers, cables, and perhaps even range extenders and connected IoT technologies that you’ll need per department.

Step 2: Map out your ideal set-up

Once you’ve allocated networking resources for each department as well as identifying your whole-systems networking components (i.e. modems, routers, switches, range extenders, etc.) and where these will be situated, it’s time to actually set up all your hardware. Consider the location of your router to be the central point of your office network, taking into consideration the bandwidth of that router, that is if your network will not be utilising any ethernet cables or switches and is relying solely on wireless connectivity.

Once you’ve identified your central point, it’s time to organise the desks in your office around this location, and ideally around the powerpoints available in your office space. Connect all your computer components up to each powerpoint. Be sure to use surge protectors to keep your office devices secure in the event of any electrical faults. 

Keep in mind too, that mapping your ideal network set-up should also involve ensuring that all networking software solutions have been properly configured and put into effect. This includes all of your network security tools like VPNs, firewalls, and IDS/IPS (or ‘intrusion detection and prevention systems’).

Step 2: Evaluate data management processes

Upon procuring all the necessary hardware and software components required to set up your network, the next step is to outline exactly how you’d like your organisation to manage its sensitive business data. A good place to start is by identifying which company data you’d ideally like to be stored on-site in physical drives or through secure servers. 

Remember too that network servers tend to be a bit more complicated than other ‘set and forget’ network devices. For starters, commercial servers can be quite large, so a lot of physical space is required in order to set them up directly in your office space. On top of this, servers can use a lot of electricity, which can in turn lead to hardware overheating. For this reason, having servers in your office will require business owners to allocate additional financial resources towards office heating and cooling. With all this in mind, business owners are encouraged to ask themselves this crucial question: will your office have adequate space or budget for on-site servers, or will you need to outsource elements of your data management processes to data centres?

Alongside this, it’s imperative that business owners and their employees sit down to outline what business data is considered to be ‘sensitive’, just to ensure that all staff members are on the same page with regards to information security and ethical data management. A failure to correctly communicate how to handle sensitive data may result in breaches of privacy, either to your staff or to clients and customers.

Step 4: Ensure proper network configurations

The next step is to make sure that all of the components of your office network have been correctly configured and are ready to be used by your wider staff. Make sure that all your individual user account access channels have been established, and that stipulations for administrative network access are also in place for additional network security. 

Account passwords, company emails, intranet configurations, and other file management and access infrastructure are all elements that should be considered here. But it’s also important to note that network configuration isn’t just a task that’s conducted entirely on a digital admin panel.

With the technical components of your network configuration finalised, it’s time to finally put the finishing touches on your office’s physical network set-up. This means ensuring all hardware elements are fixed into place. For many office spaces, the peskiest part of this is naturally cable management. 

Taping ethernet cables to the undersides of desks and across office floors is vital, as it removes tripping hazards for your staff. Taping cables down can also drastically reduce the risks of your office network going down during crucial business hours due to physical disturbances (i.e. cables accidentally being pulled out). Cable management solutions can also include cable organiser boxes, wall- or desk-mounted holders, brackets or baskets, and sleeves.

Step 6: Assess the scalability of your network

At this stage of the process, your office network is now all ready to be used! But the process is by no means over either. Why? Because your office network is not a static asset. Just as your business is subject to changes in staffing, office organisation, and other factors, so too is your office network subject to similar changes. If your team grows, then chances are you will need to revamp your office network to ensure that there is space for additional users and devices. 

The adaptability of your office network is also referred to as its ‘scalability’. Assessing the scalability of your office network can be achieved by routinely examining how your network is being used, both within departments as well as company-wide. Doing so can help increase the chances of your office network adequately catering to all departments and their unique operational requirements. 

Finally, an overarching requirement when establishing an office network of any size, is to make sure that network users are well-equipped to keep that digital asset as secure as possible. Business owners are advised to invest in education by creating network policy documents and providing their staff with internal training materials and resources whenever required, but ideally once a year, just as you would your workplace emergency training. 

Making sure that your staff only use office devices securely and responsibly can help to keep your office network secure at every stage of your business’ growth strategy.

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All things considered, an office network can be a superb asset for all small businesses, but especially those that are preparing for imminent expansion. By following this step-by-step guide, you can help make sure that your office computer network is as effective and conducive to your business’ digital operations as possible.