The advancement in technology has made our lives easier, convenient, and has also improved our work efficiency. The businesses are also improving their performance by adopting these countless technological inventions, innovations. Every business can not afford these technologies. According to a recent study, 40 percent of the small and mid-sized small businesses are affected because of the changing technology. The business analysts believe that technology can enable small businesses to compete with large enterprises. For business owners, it is crucial to understand which technology is essential for their business.
Here are a few technologies that must for any small business these days:
Social media marketing tools
Social media was started as a platform to communicate with friends and family. It has now grown as the biggest and most effective business communication tool. Social media is a great platform to connect with customers, introduce and attract them towards your product, and generate leads. It can also be used as a marketing tool as well as for receiving feedback from the customers. It is an interesting fact that 63% of small businesses believe that social media helps to find and maintain more loyal customers. Several small businesses remain cautious about social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others because of two reasons: 1) They haven’t done much social media marketing in the past, and 2) The process seems to be more time-consuming.
Data Security
Data security is one of the most crucial technologies that small businesses need to consider to protect the data from breaches and cyberattacks. According to the study, only 50 percent of small businesses are using technology to prevent data from hackers. The only reason that small businesses are targets of hackers. The government is also aware of data security, and regular changes made in the laws. If once your data has breached, then your business will be helpless. Data security is essential, whether the small business has 10 or 40 customers.
Read More : THE IMPORTANCE OF DATA SECURITY FOR NEW REMOTE WORKFORCES
Video Conferencing Tools
During the COVID-19 pandemic situation, video conferencing tools such as Skype, Zoom, and others are helpful for several organizations. These tools are an effective method of communication with other people through an electronic medium. These tools enable small businesses to have face to face meetings with people anytime and anywhere without moving from a particular location. There are several other benefits of the video conferencing tools such as:
- It saves your travel time as well as money
- Connect you with the whole staff through a single software.
- A better and quicker way to connect with more people at the same time.
- Increase your as well as employees productivity
Chatbots
Chat bots are simply computer programs that are designed to help the customers in finding answers. According to “The Chatbot Consumer Report,” 80 percent of companies are planning to have chatbots on the websites by 2022. The chatbots benefits the small business in several ways:
- Finding leads, converting leads into customers, and providing better customer service.
- Chatbots are an easy medium for customers to interact with your business.
- It is an affordable technology and does not require much time for your employees to respond.
- They will be an essential technology for online businesses in the next few years.
Business intelligence applications
Business intelligence is a combination of different approaches used for assembling, analyzing, and storing data. It makes the whole process easy, fast, and accurate. Every small business needs to identify ways of reducing operational risk, reducing cost, increasing revenue to grow and compete for big companies. Big data is frequently used when discussing how managers can make more informed decisions and strategies for your business. Several small owners believe that big data is for large companies. The research found that in the past 2- 3 years, 20 percent of small businesses and 30 percent of mid-sized businesses have already bought a business intelligence solution. I think that in the future, it can be a vital technology for small businesses.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
CRM is a cloud-based software that helps small businesses in increasing revenue, customer retention, CRM usage growth, lead conversion, and decreased marketing costs, etc. According to the study, 60 percent of the businesses are using these tools. If you’re also a small business, then you should try different CRM available in the market. After using, decide, and select the most suitable software for their business. Here are some CRM programs, such as HubSpot CRM and Salesforce.com are full-featured CRM programs. Insightly is an alternative, which is less costly and easy to use as compared to other CRM software. It provides small businesses with advanced features like integrated project management, Powerful Integration with email, Google Apps, and Office 365.
Bottom Line
In today’s digital business environment, every big and small business is utilizing the potential of business technologies to make the best of their time and resources. Customers are largely relying on technology for products and services, thus businesses can find the concentrated market of potential customers using technologies. Adopting technologies in day to day business operations is crucial for big and small businesses to accelerate their move towards profit and growth because it saves time and cost. Being able to find out the latest tech trends and adopt them in the business is the key strategy for every big and small business to stay ahead of the curve in 2020.
Author Bio-
Piyush Jain is the founder and CEO of Simpalm, a mobile app development company in Maryland. Piyush founded Simpalm in 2009 and has grown it to be a leading mobile and web development company in the DMV area. With a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and a strong background in technology and entrepreneurship, he understands how to solve problems using technology. Under his leadership, Simpalm has delivered 300+ mobile apps and web solutions to clients in startups, enterprises and the federal sector.
