Business growth is always at the top of every business manager’s and/or owner’s mind. Without growth, no matter the size or scope of a given business, the chances of failure are always very high. That is because stagnation in today’s dynamic, overly competitive world of business is never an ideal position – someone is always trying to steal customers from you, wrestle you off your market grip, and eventually edge you out of business.
That is why you need to build a strong growth strategy, one that will help you scale up your operations, facilitate success in your target market, and take employee productivity and satisfaction a notch higher. And guess what – digital transformation has to be the center of every small business’ growth strategy.
Technology is, without doubt, a key driving force behind long-term growth and success for small businesses. It is the tool you need to automate operations, expedite manufacturing and distribution processes, manage both in-house and remote employees, and reach target customers faster and more productively.
Technology is the tool that will facilitate a smooth rise to the top of your industry in the modern business world.
Here are five more ways how technology can help you drive small business growth:
1) IMPROVED FLEXIBILITY AND PRODUCTIVITY
Technology improves your productivity in multiple ways. For starters, it expedites production processes, helps you analyze employee performance, helps employees to collaborate, and can increase efficiency in team projects.
Task management tools, for example, allow you as a manager to keep tabs with every employee and every project to ensure that all deadlines are met and every talent, every resource at your disposal is optimally utilized. Email management processes and other digital communication solutions, on the other hand, help you guide employees through projects so that everything is done to perfection.
Digital communication solutions also improve flexibility. Employees can work and be productive from anywhere in the world. You can now connect with your remote employees via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other remote collaboration tools. Studies have shown that improving your company’s flexibility can improve teamwork and overall employee productivity.
Integrating flexible and remote working into your organization can create new opportunities for even great productivity and flexibility. For example, hiring from anywhere in the world. If you ever needed to hire employees in South Korea, you could use a company like South Korea PEO to handle all HR, payroll, benefits, and tax needs of staff members. Hiring via a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) has lots of benefits for foreign employers, the biggest of them all being that you don’t need to establish a legal entity – a subsidiary or branch office – in South Korea or your chosen country in order to tap into the immense talent pool that the global workforce has to offer.
2) IT IS A TIME SAVER!
Most small business owners run most departments in their companies. They are in charge of finance, HR, marketing, production – you name it! The owner is in most cases the most valuable employee in their own company. That means time is every small business owner’s most critical resource. There is never enough.
With technology, however, you can get some of your time back. You can, for example, face-time with suppliers and other business associates while stuck in traffic. You can attend virtual meetings thanks to technology so you don’t have to travel for business. You can hold virtual sales and marketing events thanks to videoconferencing software. Technology reduces paperwork, so you don’t waste time signing documents, photocopying, and filing.
Technology eliminates redundancy so you spend your time pushing profits, not paperwork.
3) PERSONALIZED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Again, you probably are the senior customer attendant in your business. Maybe you have a customer care department, but it is not sufficiently staffed. How do you satisfy customers in this era of personalized, personally relevant shopping experiences? How do you build a loyal customer base with your limited resources? Well, the answer is technology!
You now can use mobile personal assistants to personalize shopping experiences, brand websites to tap into the growing online marketplace, and social media to connect with customers.
4) BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGY
Your business cannot grow without a solid growth strategy, and a growth strategy cannot be solid without the following:
- It has to be backed by big data analytics. There is too much data both online and offline that has to be collected, analyzed, and adapted to a growth strategy in order to develop the right tactics for growth. This is made possible by artificial intelligence (AI).
- It has to incorporate cloud computing for increased operational efficiency. Technological advancement, along with enhanced cybersecurity, has made it easier and affordable to store data in the cloud.
- We already mentioned how a good communication hierarchy, through communication technology, is critical for achieving efficiency, productivity, and success in business. It has to be part of your growth strategy.
- Mobile technology is what potential customers use to surf the web and make purchases. You have to appease the mobile demographic by having a mobile-friendly site and engaging them through mobile platforms.
5) ONLINE MARKETING
This goes without saying: You have to refine your marketing strategies through technology if you are to stand any chance in today’s online market. You need social media marketing, geo-targeted advertisements, and modern marketing software to reach your target audience.
CONCLUSION
Technology enhances relevance. It makes you visible online. It gets your marketing message to the right audience. It is safe to say that technology is the backbone of today’s business. You cannot choose not to incorporate it into your business
