Have you just gotten your company off the ground and are struggling to keep your sales up? Maybe you’ve been in business for years but have noticed your profits plateauing. In any case, it may be time to rethink your business’s strategy.
Some businesses utilize more technology in specific areas than others. For example, SmallBizGenius reports that 90% of small businesses use technology for digital communication, but only 40% use it to improve sales.
It may be time to make changes if you are stuck in your old-fashioned pencil-and-paper ways. Especially if your business is brick-and-mortar, it may be confusing or intimidating to switch to using more advanced technology to improve efficiency. Here, we’ll cover how technology can increase your business’s productivity and overall bottom line.
Assemble & Your Team
It doesn’t matter how advanced your equipment or office setup is. If you don’t have a knowledgeable and competent team leading the way, your business won’t experience much success. With this in mind, you must have the right technology to build a reliable and dedicated team.
You should invest in quality HRM (human resource management) software to get started. Ideally, this software will help you construct job descriptions and applications. It will help you manage applications as they come in, devise questionnaires for applicants, and facilitate communications between your company and hiring prospects.
The right HRM software won’t stop with the hiring process. It will also help you manage your employees in your company’s day-to-day operations. You’ll be able to keep track of vital information regarding your employees, like their:
● Profiles
● Departments
● Designations
● Attendance
● Workhour counting
HRM software is essential for businesses of all sizes. While larger-scale companies with hundreds of employees need it, they are not the only benefactors. Up-and-coming startups can use this technology to track essential information regarding their full- and part-time employees. They can ensure that everyone is scheduled when they are needed and that they are not breaking any labour laws.
Understand Your Customers & Track Their Activities
This step is especially important to online businesses. You need to understand your customers to optimize your sales and ultimately increase your business’s efficiency. Who is your target audience? What does your ideal customer look like? What are your customers’ browsing and shopping habits? All these questions can be answered by using technology and extensive research.
Consider investing in quality CRM (customer relationship management) software. This kind of technology will allow you to:
● Create unlimited contacts
● Monitor customer activities
● Schedule emails
● Manage email communications
● Review time-sensitive reports and analytics
Without technology, you won’t be able to successfully manage the individual relationship that every customer has with your business. Instead, you need reliable CRM software to keep track of all these relationships in one convenient location.
Ramp Up Your Social Media Efforts
Social media is an underrated form of technology. It can improve your online presence when you implement the proper strategies. However, many businesses will follow this dangerous trap: creating multiple social media accounts and enthusiastically posting on them for several weeks. Then, they get caught up with other operations and allow their social media efforts to slip. Having inactive social media accounts can be damaging to your business. You’ll miss out on gaining a lot of new followers. Plus, you risk losing followers and ruining your business’s credibility.
With this in mind, you should ramp up your social media efforts. Create engaging content that will compel your audience to take action. Hire a social media manager or a digital design agency to create stunning visual photography for your social media accounts and website.
No matter what stage your business is in, you can increase efficiency by using technology. Introduce these changes in small phases so your business and its employees can adapt and make the most of the new technology.
