Numerous businesses have significantly increased their technology spending in the past 3 years. Why so?
Well, that’s because they figured out that by investing in tech, they could:
- Boost efficiency,
- Simplify collaboration,
- Facilitate work from home,
- Streamline workflows,
- Compete with other companies,
- And, ultimately, drive massive growth and make running their business day-to-day more convenient.
Simply put, if you want your business to thrive and remain competitive, you just have no other option but to embrace the newest technologies. There’s literally no reason to skimp on this and be left behind.
To help you stay ahead of the curve, we compiled this list of viable strategies you can use to leverage technology in your business.
1. Automate Workflows
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I love invoicing, accounting, and payroll processing – said no one ever. These are just a few routine business tasks employees always put last simply because they are totally unexciting.
On top of that, although to err is human, working on tedious, mind-numbing tasks employees typically don’t give much attention to can lead to mistakes that can further cost the company a lot.
The latest technologies are gaining momentum because provide a no-brainer way to reduce risks and automate repetitive tasks. This can have an overall positive influence on employees, making them more productive and giving them more time to work on more meaningful tasks.
Forward-thinking companies are already using automation software for:
- Scheduling interviews and tracking employee applications,
- Running email marketing campaigns,
- Scheduling and publishing social media posts.
After all, workflow automation software is built to make it possible to streamline operations, cut costs, and save time, so this is a win-win situation for both employees and businesses. The best thing of all? Automation tools have become quite affordable and widely accessible to businesses of all sizes.
2. Improve Organization-Wide Communications
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During pandemics, most businesses switched to working remotely. Nowadays, some of them still operate that way while some have decided to embrace the hybrid model and work only 50% of the time in the office.
Either way, remote work posed a new challenge for companies – connecting team members and clients/customers regardless of their time zone and location.
Thus, collaboration and communication tools emerged as perfect solutions to this challenge. These technologies made it possible to bring business communications into a single platform, train and onboard new employees with ease, keep tasks organized, and keep employees in the know about the latest updates, motivated and engaged.
If you’re currently using Trainual or any other similar tool for onboarding new employees, you might want to check out this employee training software alternatives that make training and communicating with new team members a breeze.
3. Increase Customer Satisfaction
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As the saying goes, a satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all. Thanks to technological advancements (AI in the first place), you can offer top-notch customer service at any time.
Now that we’ve mentioned AI, it’s good to know that you can use automatic chatbots to keep the conversation going day in, day out since these systems can run continuously and need no human intervention.
Artificial Intelligence can process huge amounts of data, collect feedback from customers, identify patterns and behaviors, and respond accordingly.
Improved engagement – your availability to clients and readiness to respond to various requirements will almost certainly increase their satisfaction and generate sales-worth leads.
By using technology, you can learn a lot about consumer behavior, too. That’s why CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools are built for!
Once you gain insights into what potential leads and existing customers need and want, you can use this information to:
- Optimize your marketing efforts and optimize your website,
- Reduce marketing costs,
- Boost sales and increase your business growth.
AI can, again, help a lot with marketing efforts in terms of content creation and copywriting. It can do keyword research, SEO planning, and write content that ranks and converts.
Pro Tip
If you are launching new campaigns one after the other, and you need to drive customers to different URLs, a trick that can help you reach them without spamming is to use a dynamic QR code.
You can use a dynamic QR code generator to update the destination URL and use one and the same for every campaign. It will speed up your processes, and each time your customers visit your site they will directly go to your brand new offer.
4. Add an Extra Level of Security
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This is the best time to implement some cybersecurity improvements. Why, you may ask. Well, because cybercrime is the #1 threat to businesses that lost more than $6 trillion to hacks in 2021 only.
Almost 50% of cyberattacks were aimed at small and mid-sized businesses. The reason behind this is simple. A large portion of small businesses leave cyber threat protection by the wayside and lack the resources to defend themselves from hackers.
Not being aware of threats and not having a multi-factor defense strategy or resources to invest in protection against cyberattacks makes businesses an easy target for hacks.
Some of the most common cybersecurity threats businesses of all sizes, both SMBs and large enterprises, face include:
- Malware attacks,
- Phishing attacks,
- Weak passwords,
- Cloud jacking,
- Ransomware
Leave nothing to chance! Use technology (anti-malware software, firewalls, VPNs) to add an extra level of security to running day-to-day operations and to protect your website, sensitive business, employee, and customer data.
5. Introduce New Payment Methods
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Blockchain technologies have disrupted the traditional business and economic settings, big time. You can integrate this technology to make transactions more safe and secure, and, most importantly, verifiable.
The traditional business model is facing payment barriers since payment transfers typically take too long and involve additional costs. Blockchain eliminates any third parties involved (read: banks), invoices, and billing statements, reduces extra costs and eases the cash flow.
For instance, fees on most payment options vary between 1.5 and 3.5% while crypto payment fees rarely exceed 1%. Start collecting crypto payments on your website and you will, most likely, notice a sharp increase in sales since you’ll open yourself up to an international pool of customers.
Summary
Spending on software in 2022 exceeded 4.4 trillion dollars. We believe that this is more than a clear sign that you should start taking advantage of modern tech, too. Fail to do so, and you won’t be able to find a way to stop your business from stagnating. Harness the full power of new business technologies, and your growth will be unstoppable.
Source: https://startup.info/viable-strategies-to-leverage-technology-in-your-business/
