Every single day the average business owner is introduced to all sorts of new apps, gadgets, and technology that promises the world but doesn’t always live up.
Jumping to the latest shiny thing time and time again can be a bad habit that really doesn’t get much accomplished, but that’s no excuse to remain stagnant either. Here are some examples of ways that you can implement technology into your business to experience immediate improvements in efficiency.
To upgrade or not to upgrade your business technology?
It’s not unusual to find very outdated technology in large corporations, simply because if it’s not broken, why fix it? That old adage can be true, but it can also be very, very false. As a simple rule of thumb, if upgrading your business technology means you and your employees can be more efficient it’s almost always worth the investment in the long run. If your staff are stuck using these ancient computers that are slower than molasses, it’s not only going to impact productivity but also morale.
Here are a few examples of in-expensive and very effective tools to help your business be more efficient with all things tech.
Collaboration tools
Technology makes it easier than ever for coworkers to collaborate in organizations both large and small alike, which is very important especially for marketing purposes. If you need an entire suite, Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 are both good choices and they include everything from calendars, to email, to file storage, to spreadsheets and word processing and a lot more.
Premium hosting
Having a website is essential, but many business owners don’t put enough thought into their hosting plans. If you do a quick search for hosts, you’ll find a lot of companies advertising very low prices, you’ll find a lot of untrustworthy reviews, and you’ll often times end up with an inferior host. What thing to look for is what the host offers in terms of value added services, because one host may look more expensive at first glance but once you factor in all the value-adds they include, a premium host usually won’t end up costing you much more and you’ll be able to rest easy knowing that you’re covered.
Track your competitors in the search engines
If your business relies on traffic from the search engines, then data is your lifeblood. The more data that you have, the easier you’ll be able to make smart decisions. A next-generation rank tracker such as SerpWoo allows you to get a snapshot of exactly what everyone is doing to earn their rank in the search results, and as such it can save you or your team a lot of time that you would otherwise have to spend collecting this data manually and then displaying it.
Make the most of your marketing efforts
Do you have employees who get their best ideas while driving around, or travelling around the world? By having the infrastructure in place to allow them to work remotely, even if it just consists of catching up on email or staying up to date on projects. Something like Trello can help for coordinating smaller teams, but might not be ideal for larger enterprises.
To get the most out of technology, however…
The most important thing is to ensure that you and your team know how to use all of your technology most effectively. Investing a small amount of time in training and keeping up to late can go a long way in the long run. Little things add up. If you can systemize enough smaller, menial, time-consuming tasks, you’ll be amazed at how much more efficient things can be!
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