Where well and truly into the digital age of life right now. It’s a stark contrast between now and, say, fifty years ago, isn’t it? We have an awful lot of things around us that make life so much easier. The coolest part is that we’re still kind of in its infancy; there’s so much more left to come! You could argue that the digital age is turning us into an Orwellian society and that there’s a little too much, but it’s super convenient right now!
As a business person, you need to find all kinds of ways to maximize your productivity, efficiency, and revenue. Business has always been a game of outsmarting competitors, and working harder than them – we now have a few more ways to do just that. How? Technology. Some of the programs and software available to us now makes things so much speedier and way more convenient. If you’re looking to take a business idea and turn it into a success, then you’re going to have to utilize some of the programs on offer! If you’re not exactly tech-savvy, then this kind of idea might seem a little alien to you. The good thing is that it’s all very straightforward to operate. What kinds of things can this new technological age do to help out budding entrepreneurs? Well, here are six examples for you right now:
Project Management
In order to get through the days, weeks, and months in business, you need to have everything planned out and logged down. It’s not a mandatory requirement, of course, but you won’t get very far without this kind of structured order. You’re probably used to planning things out by now if you’ve already written a draft or two of a business plan, so this line of thinking shouldn’t exactly be new. Managing projects can be quite a pain in the backside if you’ve got a lot on your plate – there’s a lot that goes into them, right? You could obviously hire a specialist project manager, and that a sensible idea, but there are many different programs available that can almost do everything for you. It’s just a case of inputting a little data!
Customer Engagement
Whether you’re in the business of selling a product or offering a service, you’ll need to know how to manage your customers and the relationships you have with them. You’ll need to analyze from the very beginning to the close of the sale (and everything in between). Again, using only your brain and a blank canvas, this kind of thing can be quite tricky. Thankfully, we have things such as Dynamics 365 for Customer Services which helps out a business with each section of a transaction.
Social Media Management
Social media is a huge part of business these days. Some old-school companies are still to latch onto the social media world, but most companies with their heads’ switched on are there already. Billions of eyes are on different social media platforms, so it’s only right that you get yourself firmly in their eyesight.
Knowing when to post certain promotional bits, and when to interact with the public is an art. If you do things slightly wrong, you could mess your entire campaign up. With the likes of Hootsuite, you can quite literally post things at certain times, and analyze how different things have gone. You go from being a naïve person with an account to a fully-functioning and professional firm operating on social media.
Accounting Software
You are always going to need to balance the books and pay the right amount of money to whoever it may concern. The money side of things can be very tedious – especially if you’re not exactly very good with numbers. You can obviously learn how to handle the books over time, but it’ll be a lot easier if you had, say, something walking you through it all. It’s a lengthy process most of the time, and you’d rather be doing something you’re good at (and that can make money), right? Programs like QuickBooks can lay everything out for you so very easily. It’ll have every facet of your finances covered, and it’ll teach you about what you can do going forward.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing jobs to people that are more skilled has been a thing for years and years. Now, though, we can make it happen so much quicker and easier. We’re able to literally chat to somebody from the other side of the planet in seconds. Because there are so many budding workers waiting in the wings all around the world, offloading jobs to specialists is so simple!
