5 Ways Technology Can Be Used For Business Growth
The first challenge that any business faces is surviving long enough to break even without running out of cash. When you reach that point and your business is in a fairly stable position, it’s time to start thinking about the future. Some people are happy to keep things ticking over as they are because they enjoy the work-life balance of a small business. But most business owners will be thinking about growth at this point. If you want to take your business to the next level and increase your income, you need to find ways to grow the business by breaking into new markets or launching new products.
Businesses across the board are increasingly reliant on technology in all areas. Investing in the right technology can help to streamline a business, cut costs, and improve their marketing efforts. But a lot of businesses underestimate the power of technology when it comes to growth. If you’re looking to expand your business, you should start looking at some of the tech solutions that can help you to move things forward. If you’re not doing that, you’re making things a lot harder for yourself. These are some of the best ways to use technology to grow your business.
Improve IT Support
Before we look at the specific strategies that you can use, it’s important that you think about your IT support. When you start introducing new technology into your business, you need a good IT support team on hand to make sure that everything is implemented properly and it’s all running smoothly. Technology is an asset but only if it’s working properly. If your tech isn’t well maintained, it can actually be a hindrance. You may not have thought about how IT Support can help grow your business before but it’s absolutely vital. If you don’t have good IT support, issues with technology will not be resolved quickly and that adds up to a lot of lost time for your employees. If you’re going to grow a business, you need everybody to be working at maximum efficiency and you can’t do that if your employees are constantly dealing with badly maintained technology.
As you start to grow, you become a bigger target for cyber-criminals. All businesses are at risk but the bigger you get, the more likely you are to come under attack. That’s why online security is so important and the right IT support team will be able to help you stay on top of it and keep your data safe.
Before you do anything else, you need to take a look at your IT support and make sure that you’re working with a company that can handle all of your needs as you start to grow.
Online Financing
You’re going to need money if you want to expand your business. You can pay for some of the extra costs yourself if you’ve been putting money aside but if you have big plans for growth, it’s likely that you’re going to need some investment. In the past, you would have to go to the bank or pitch to investors to get the money that you need, but those aren’t your only options anymore. There are plenty of great online financing options available to you, like crowdfunding or peer to peer lending. Crowdfunding is similar to pitching to an investor and you’ll need to lay out all of the benefits of your company, but instead of asking one person to front all of the money, you take small donations from lots of different people. The major benefit of doing this is that you don’t have to give them a stake in the company so you maintain complete control, you also don’t need to return that investment. The only issue is that there is a lot of competition on crowdfunding sites and you might not be able to get all of the money that you need.
If crowdfunding doesn’t work out for you, you can look into peer to peer lending instead. It works in much the same way as a loan but you cut out the middleman and borrow directly from people that have capital to invest. If a bank isn’t willing to lend you money and you can’t find any traditional investors, you might have more luck with a peer to peer lending site.
Productivity Tools
Productivity is essential in a growing business and there are some great tools out there that you can use to improve efficiency around the office. It’s worth investing in time management tools, project management platforms, and communication tools because they all make it a lot easier for your employees to do their jobs effectively. A lot of these productivity tools will help you to streamline and automate processes that had to be done manually in the past. That means your employees aren’t wasting time on menial admin tasks anymore, and they can focus all of their efforts on increasing sales and pushing the business forward.
Cloud Storage
The cloud is the latest innovation that is changing the way that people do business. Storing all of your information in the cloud and giving employees quick access can improve productivity in a big way. It means that people have easier access to the tools that they need to do their job effectively. It also gives people more opportunities for collaborating on projects in real time without having to send documents back and forth via email constantly.
The biggest benefit of cloud storage systems is that they allow you to make better use of remote workers. So many businesses are moving towards remote workers and this is great for growth. Most employees find that they are more productive when they can work on their own terms and create their own working environment. Having fewer people in the office also means that you can downsize, which will save you a lot of money. Making those savings on your overheads will be such a big help when you’re trying to manage the cost of business growth.
Mobile Apps
It seems like every business has its own mobile app these days, and you should have one too if you’re looking to expand. There are a lot of different benefits of building a mobile app and, depending on what your business does, there are lots of different ways to use one to your advantage. Regardless of what business you’re in, a good mobile app is a great brand building opportunity. If you get a lot of downloads, that’s a lot of people that see your company logo every single time they open their phones, which boosts your brand awareness.
You can also use a mobile app to help boost sales. If you’re selling products online, you give people an easy way to browse and buy your products when they’re on the move, which makes them far more likely to make a purchase. You can also send deals and discounts through the app and use notifications. If you create limited time offers and send them direct to people’s phones, you’ll see a big increase in sales. It’s also a good way to boost your customer service if you include a live chat option. It gives people another point of contact and they can get a more direct answer without having to wait in a long call queue or wait for a response to an email.
These are all great ways that you can use technology to push your business forward and achieve your goals for expansion.
______
