Tip of the Week: How Technology Covers a Business’ Needs

If you look around your company, there’s a good chance that it has a lot of technology that you completely take for granted. No matter if you run a small retail store, a factory, or a multi-location office, your business needs IT to function properly. Today, we will take a look into several ways your organization can use technology to improve your business.
Customer Service
The relationships you forge with your customers are some of the most rewarding you will build in business; and, unmistakably the most crucial. When businesses fail to support the products and services that they sell, they have a much harder time sustaining positive consumer relationships. There are plenty of technologies that can help a business improve customer service. One such technology is customer relationship management software. Not only does it provide a ticketing system to get customer complaints and concerns in front of decision makers, it also provides several options to help manage support work.
Today, companies are routinely utilizing social media, including social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter to engage with their customers. These platforms in particular give the business the chance to promote their knowledge base, their products, and also hold a public conversation about their products and services. While this may not always work out in the business’ favor, it has proven to be a great outlet for businesses looking to engage in substantive conversations with customers and prospects.
Productivity
In order to be a successful business, revenue needs to flow; and, in order for that to happen productivity has to commence. No matter what your businesses, some value has to be created for you to be doing what you are doing. As a result, companies are looking to make investments in technology that will help build their revenue streams. That’s why you see many of today’s businesses, regardless of their industry or size, using technology to facilitate a boost to their organizational productivity.
One solution that is very useful for any service business is time-tracking software. Typically, this comes as a part of a scheduling solution. Software like this allows managers to assign time for certain tasks, while being able to review how long projects and service delivery takes, providing a way to best monetize the time their employees spend and streamline work processes.
Moreover, many of today’s most useful technology-based solutions for productivity are filled with collaborative options and hosted in the cloud. In utilizing cloud-hosted software solutions, companies are giving their employees the flexibility to do more. Cloud-hosted apps typically are available on any device and are scalable to ensure that the company isn’t paying more than it needs to for the productivity solutions they need.
Finance
It would be an understatement to say that money is a major consideration when it comes to business. Decisions are made every day with the bottom line the major consideration. Technology solutions can help small business owners better manage their finances. They can utilize online invoicing services to help them collect payment and reduce expenses.
The use of software to manage payroll and accounts receivable not only makes those inherently frustrating tasks much easier, they allow them to be handled with care. These are, after all, crucial aspects of your organization’s ability to conduct business. By having software solutions that provide the ability to streamline your organization’s revenue streams and expenses, business simply runs better.
Security
Let’s face it, security is crucial to the sustainability of every single business. Whether it is network security or physical security, if people are free to do other people harm with impunity, there is total chaos. With solutions that include antivirus, firewall, content filtering, and spam blocking, technology can keep the business’ IT safe.
On the other end of things, IT-fueled physical security is a big hit with organizations of all types. With digital cameras, biometric security locks, and more solutions keeping a constant eye (or eyes) out, you can ensure that your workplace, your employees, and your assets are properly protected.
Nowadays, organizations also have to worry about their wireless networks and mobile access. Today there are plenty of solutions aimed at enhancing your business’ mobility, while keeping the increased amount of enemies out of your business’ network and infrastructure.
Growth in the use of technology has been leading the way for quite some time, and, with all the new solutions on the market, this trend doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Call the technology professionals at Machado Consulting at (508) 453-4700 to talk about getting an assessment to see how you can improve your business through technology.