Time is money, right? Well, this phrase has never been truer than it is for business owners who have demands on their time coming from left and right! Most small- and medium-sized business owners face so many demands on their time, they can’t afford to waste time. Luckily, you can turn over many tasks to technology, which is not just more efficient, but never take a vacation or forget to perform a task. Technology offers countless opportunities in our day-to-day lives, so when you need ways to make your business more efficient, look to technology.
The whole idea behind technology is to make our lives easier. The menial tasks that make up much of our daily activities, such as generating reports containing business metrics, are faster when executed with the use of technology. When it comes to business, though, the use of technology can make the difference between whether your business seems professional. Without the right enterprise applications development and software, your business falls behind competitors made more agile and efficient through the use of technology. Instead, investing in the right technology and software upgrades can ensure you’re positioned to compete.
So, when it comes to technology, business improvements are a natural consequence of using the right tech. The question is how your business benefits from technology and how technology makes your business more efficient. Let’s take a look.
Growing your business
Growing your business is a primary concern so your first task is to determine how your business can use technology to scale up operations without a ton of new resources. Technology provides an obvious benefit by providing extra help with things like automation, use, for instance, by monitoring prospects and customers to ensure their needs don’t fall through the cracks. You can also use analytical and data-driven tools, like Omniture, to provide insights so you can create a better strategy for your business to grow.
The investment you make in your technology helps ensure business growth.
Telecommuting employees
Another huge benefit that comes from investing in the right technology for your business is that you can allow telecommuting. Remote work is big right now, with more businesses than ever allowing their staff to work from home. Not only does telecommuting ease overcrowding in your workspace, but it helps when attracting employees, especially younger workers and those in large cities where commuting is a pain.
But, telecommuting isn’t simply something you can just decide and implement, you need the right software, app integration, and enterprise systems to support telecommuting. The right tools ensure your staff feels like they have a better work/life balance while you improve your working conditions. It also allows you to choose from a talent pool that is much larger than you imagined – the entire world.
You will need to know what you are talking about to make this work effectively. You’ll have to use an appropriate telecom management glossary, install the right systems, and ensure that your employees are fully brought on board with it all. You will need to establish strong communication channels for your staff and your IT system. The right platform and an experienced project manager ensure your employees are happier, which makes them more productive. It helps when you are on the go between sites and client meetings, you can still collaborate with your team as you go.
Delivering excellent user experiences
With the right hosting, you can deliver an excellent user experience. There is no excuse for a poor online presence in the digital age in which we live. In order for your business to be taken seriously, you need a responsive website and the quality of your website depends on the quality of your technology and hosting. You should look at features that include an uptime of over 99.99%, and the customer service quality should be high, too.
There are plenty of companies around the globe able to offer such excellence, and that’s purely because they have invested solidly in the right technology to support their website and deliver a user experience that is unforgettable. The user experience has to be on point if you want your business to earn money and drive growth – it all ties together.
Speech-to-text improves efficiency
With technology comes the benefits of artificial intelligence. We don’t mean aliens, but we mean the type of technology that goes far beyond most other businesses. Speech-to-text transcription in AI opens up so many possibilities for your business if you are interested in investing in futuristic technology. Not only does it give you a chance to take notes of your meetings simply by talking, but you can also record customer service interactions into text by simply talking. This takes customer service and training to new heights, and this is going to boost the efficiency of your business.
Communicating with teleconferencing
Similar to telecommuting, teleconferencing was only ever known as something “of the future”. Well, the future is now, and we are able to teleconference with platforms like Skype. Most businesses invest in teleconferencing facilities to make interoffice interaction much simpler. This is especially helpful for businesses with overseas offices. It will never replace the need for face-to-face meetings around the conference tables, but they are an excellent alternative and just like the real thing! There have been so many improvements made in teleconferencing over the years that it would be wrong not to invest in the service.
Reducing IT inefficiency
Did you know that remote workstations can improve the efficiency of your IT infrastructure? If your company invested in the right remote software, you would be able to support your business IT structure much more. This leads to less pressure on the system, better working conditions for employees and the day-to-day functioning of your company is far simpler. When you do this, you take away hours of unnecessary running around in your business.
Realistically, technology can do so much more for your business than these six points. However, this is a start that your business will benefit from and it eliminates some of the mistakes and difficulties that you may be facing with your technology strategy. Your business will benefit from having a better technology strategy to be more efficient. The exposure to better talent in the workplace, the introduction of remote working to save money and the overall benefits that technology brings makes it an investment that you cannot – and should not – be without.
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Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.
