First Midwest BankFirst Midwest Bank logoArrow DownIcon of an arrow pointing downwardsArrow LeftIcon of an arrow pointing to the leftArrow RightIcon of an arrow pointing to the rightArrow UpIcon of an arrow pointing upwardsBank IconIcon of a bank buildingCheck IconIcon of a bank checkCheckmark IconIcon of a checkmarkCredit-Card IconIcon of a credit-cardFunds IconIcon of hands holding a bag of moneyAlert IconIcon of an exclaimation markIdea IconIcon of a bright light bulbKey IconIcon of a keyLock IconIcon of a padlockMail IconIcon of an envelopeMobile Banking IconIcon of a mobile phone with a dollar sign in a speech bubbleMoney in Home IconIcon of a dollar sign inside of a housePhone IconIcon of a phone handsetPlanning IconIcon of a compassReload IconIcon of two arrows pointing head to tail in a circleSearch IconIcon of a magnifying glassFacebook IconIcon of the Facebook logoLinkedIn IconIcon of the LinkedIn LogoXX Symbol, typically used to close a menu
GET INSIGHTS

Get monthly ideas delivered right to your inbox.

Subscribe for Insights

For Your Small Business January 12, 2020

Planning for 2020: Leveraging technology to alleviate basic business woes

Use modern technology to improve daily business activities. Many medium-sized and small businesses are tapping into the new technology to help them come up with a more innovative, more efficient, and more productive workforce. Similarly, the rise in remote workers has led to an increase in the demand for on-demand data. Below are ways that technology can help you increase efficiency in your business.

Using the right technology

Ensure that your business utilizes the appropriate technology to increase its productivity. Depending on how you use technology, it can build or destroy your business. Therefore, evaluate your business and come up with areas that need a boost in productivity and conduct research on the right technology to employ to realize the results.

Automate

Research and come up with the tools that will aid in the automation process. Use tools that will help you from bill paying and scheduling to updating your contact list and responding to customers' emails. Similarly, find the technology that will help you in digitizing the manual production processes to increase efficiency and minimize losses.

Additionally, you can train your workforce to use these technologies to ensure maximum production.

Password Management

When you have a password or manual logging into the system, phase them out and replace them with biometric authentication. Ensure that you manage the business passwords and data well by installing and regularly updating the security software. 

 The issuance of passwords in the process of production is both financially and operationally costly. You can manage the business credentials in any device by using tools such as 1Password and Google Cloud Security to track all your passwords from external threats.

Collaboration

Although collaboration is vital in business, your employees should not be enclosed in a room to achieve it. Your remotely working staff members can share documents and collaborate easily using free applications from Google's range of cloud products. You can use customer cloud solutions to solve your production problems and secure sensitive data. 

Your business can use Unified Communications systems that offer various worker interactions such as phone calls, video chatting, conferencing, or sending instant messages.

Additionally, your workers can use Customer Relationship systems such as Insightly, Zoho, or Salesforce to keep track of their engagement with prospects and store them in one location. When you use these systems, the consistency in prospect relations will be boosted, thus increasing profitability and productivity.

Organization

Often, a lot of time can get wasted in searching for vital information stored in large sets of data. These data frequently get accessed through one device. When you invest in the database system, you will enable your employees to access and add any vital data easily. Your remotely working employees can use ClickTime to keep track of their expenses, mileage, and working hours.

 Employing such technology will help you in keeping your critical data accurately in one place. When implemented, your clients, employees, and managers will be productive, well-informed, and compliant.

Ease of access

Provide your remote workers with the support solutions and the updated mobile devices to ensure that they are well-connected throughout. You can think of investing in a phone solution with service providers to ensure that all your employees stay connected.

Similarly, use worker caller ID, softphones, find-me-follow-me, and voicemail to email features to ensure that your employees maintain professionalism and never miss any business opportunity with a client.

Employ virtualization

When your business has old desktops, you can extend their lifespans through virtualization of their operating systems to offsite servers. Conducting this will help you reduce the cost of capital expenditure, and hardware maintenance as the regular updates and the cost of service upkeep will get minimized.

When your business is already practicing redundancy, you can add your phone system to save more costs. You should task yourself with managing your office. Ensure that your employees get focused on their jobs. Similarly, source anything that is outside the scope of your expertise and trust the hired experts to do their jobs. Use the appropriate technology and watch your business increase its productivity.

 

This article was written by kevin.gardner2 from e27 and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

Subscribe for Insights

Subscribe