The economic environment is challenging, with political unrest, war, the rising cost of living, diverse cyber threats, and the persistent cloud of COVID-19 adding to the pressures. However, it is an exciting time to be doing business.
In some ways, making the most of what you have got has never been easier. Technology offers many solutions to help businesses of all sizes mitigate the threats of their business environments while maximizing their potential on multiple fronts.
So many technologies exist that businesses need to focus on the highest-value technologies rather than throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks.
Here is a look at ways businesses are increasing efficiency, talent, profits, security, and flexibility by leveraging technological solutions.
Multiple Payment Solutions
Businesses looking to improve their cashflows or profits would do well to consider accepting more payment types. This can make it easier for people to do business without considerable fees.
Taking card payments is easy and secure with SumUp, for example, which takes a 2.75% fee per transaction, but allows small businesses to process more orders and meet the needs of more clients efficiently with attractive tools, a fast digital system, and professional receipts and options, such as gift vouchers.
Online Marketing
Digital marketing offers an excellent return on investment compared to traditional marketing, with most digital marketers making $5 for every $1 spent on their campaigns.
One of the best things about content marketing is that content managers can repurpose content to increase its mileage. For example, a 1000-word blog post can be transformed into a Facebook post, an Instagram photo, a shareable infographic, a video, and a podcast, among other ideas.
Search engine optimization is the gift that keeps on giving, attracting customers to businesses by providing solutions, information, and entertainment tailored to their needs. Rather than the intrusiveness of other marketing techniques, such as cold calling and even billboards, content marketing is targeted, making it efficient, effective, and relevant to consumers.
Tools like SEMRush and the software and resources offered by Hubspot help businesses push themselves to the next level via a suite of SEO and digital marketing techniques.
Remote Working and Talent Search
An organization that facilitates remote working does not restrict its workers to a geographical location. It can hire talent from all around the world. This is not limited to enterprise-level businesses, but accessible to any organization that could do with a little help from some of the best people in the world.
As well as being useful for creating marketing lists, Leadar connects businesses to all kinds of professionals, making it invaluable for business leaders and human resources teams looking to attract the best talent that aligns with organizational values.
Language and time-zone barriers aside, businesses can work with people worldwide using digital collaboration tools. Many tools that facilitate remote teamwork are free, such as Google Docs and Google Sheets, video calling via Whatsapp or short conferences via Zoom, which might be enough for some small businesses.
As businesses and their needs grow, they can extend to systems like Basecamp, which is easy to use and powerful enough to provide most businesses with quality project management and online collaboration capability across various projects.
Cloud Technology
Businesses are leveraging cloud technology for multiple reasons, particularly managed IT services and cloud storage. Using managed IT services benefits small businesses because they can scale the services according to their needs with flexible contracts.
A small company can start with the support of managed IT services, knowing it can expand that support if the company requires it a few months down the line.
Another benefit of cloud technology is that it can be cheaper than purchasing or licensing software, physical equipment, and paying full-time employees to run it. It also promotes the ability to offer remote or hybrid working and effective storage and backup solutions accessible from almost anywhere in the world.
Workflow Automation
This is a popular business trend, and for good reason. Rather than replacing human workers with machines, workflow automation empowers staff by freeing them from laborious, time-consuming tasks.
What is left are the tasks that require a human element, deeper decision-making, and the kind of engagement and expertise that make people’s roles more meaningful and worthwhile within an organization.
Automation is prevalent in the HR industry. It helps HR teams triage potential hires, rejecting those not meeting minimum requirements and responding to them automatically. This is particularly useful for a large business that attracts massive numbers of applicants or a small business with limited resources.
The staff that would normally spend its time filtering applicants who have accidentally applied for a closed or non-existent post might now be responsible for reviewing the automatically generated shortlist for the most suitable candidates to interview.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Cybersecurity
Using cloud technology and other third-party solutions allows you to leverage technology to make the most out of your business but also opens you up to third-party risk. Your organization’s security is only as good as the weakest link in your supply chain.
As well as using some kind of third-party risk assessment tool, businesses are increasingly using antimalware and threat detection tools to keep their information, staff, and clients safe from data breaches.
The cybersecurity industry is leveraging AI and machine learning to provide real-time threat detection with systems that can react to simultaneous attacks and adapt to unknown threats by analyzing patterns and responding automatically to anomalies.
Modern cybersecurity and antimalware systems improve the security posture of any business with automation.
Conclusion
Using more technology doesn’t make a business more productive. Using the right technology does. Businesses need to leverage the technology that makes sense for them, their clients, and their staff.
While there is more competition than ever and the business environment may not be ideal, the tools exist to help businesses get the talent, support, security, and focus they need not only to survive but to flourish as well.
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