Technology is levelling the playing field for small businesses, and more companies are seeing the results when it comes to strong IT investments and improved performance. Those small businesses that are improving their tech solutions are more likely to receive higher revenue.
Here are five tech solutions to help solve common small business problems:
1) Analytics
The problem: Many small businesses use social media to engage with potential customers, but how do you know if your efforts are paying off?
The solution: Turning your raw data into insights will help to gain massive advantages. Certain apps can help gage web traffic and even create heat-map website images so you can see exactly where users and potential customers are clicking.
2) Mobile Applications
The problem: For many small businesses, being out of the office makes it difficult to be available to customers or to share information or data.
The solution: Most small business owners believe mobile devices improve efficiency. Devices such as smartphones and tablets help to keep you organised and available and give you the ability to take notes and capture web pages anytime and anywhere. There are also mobile payment devices that can be attached to your smartphone and allow credit card payment on the go.
3) Mobile Security
The problem: A lot of small businesses rely heavily on the use of smartphones and lost or stolen devices are one of the main security concerns.
The solution: you can prevent thieves from accessing your sensitive data by encrypting or data wiping your mobile devices, there are great tech solutions that can enable users to lock, wipe and even locate devices remotely.
4) Cloud Storage
The problem: Limited time and resources for IT can be a big issue for already stretched small businesses.
The solution: Adopting cloud services and outsourcing IT tasks such as data storage is one of the more popular tech solutions. There are apps for sharing photos, videos and documents across multiple devices and ones that enables you to replicate files on an array of systems.
5) Web Telecommunication
The problem: Communication with employees, clients and vendors that are spread across different locations can be expensive for some small businesses.
The solution: Find a web-based teleconferencing service that allows large groups to make voice and video connections, this can usually be achieved without the use of special equipment or high fees.
