Every business owner has the same ambition – to grow their business and over time become extremely successful and profitable. Entrepreneurs have used various methods over the years to achieve scaling and overall success, but in the 21st century, those methods have changed.
This is, of course, because of technological advancement. Nowadays, you can find a plethora of technological solutions that can significantly help you speed up your growth and achieve it much easier. However, since there are a lot of different solutions, sometimes it can be hard to choose just one.
That is why we’ve made a list of some major technological solutions you need to consider.
1. Business intelligence tools
In today’s data-driven world, you can’t make any type of business strategy or hope for long-term success and growth without a business intelligence tool. This type of solution allows businesses to unify all of their data sources and keep track of information.
The global business intelligence market is predicted to reach $33.3 billion by 2025 and the reason is that more and more businesses are seeing the benefits this software brings.
Just some of the benefits you can hope for include:
- Increased operational efficiency, as the tool, will unify all of your data sources and bring more organization to your operations.
- Fast and accurate reporting thanks to customized reports that monitor all of your KPIs.
- Invaluable business insights including department-specific performance, employee productivity, overall success, and the company’s revenue.
- Data that are not only collected but also updated and organized, so you’ll have top-quality data.
However, the biggest benefit you will see from a BI tool is that it improves your decision-making process since it tracks, stores, processes, and analyzes data in a way that allows you to make better decisions.
If you use a solution such as Microsoft SharePoint, you’ll be able to harness the power of predictive analytics and use big data to your advantage. In case you’ve never used this tool before, we highly recommend it for businesses of all sizes, and your company can adapt to it seamlessly thanks to Microsoft Office 365 migration services. These professionals can help you transition fast and use SharePoint as soon as possible.
2. Social media automation
Just like practically every other company on the face of the earth, you are probably using social media to grow your audience. However, to have a successful social media strategy, you need to put in a lot of time and effort, and sometimes not even that is enough.
While there are tips you can use to build brand awareness and generate leads on social media, the best way to ensure success is through social media automation.
When you automate your social media campaign, you will be able to publish content regularly, have much better control over your strategy, and generally have more time for other important tasks.
There are different tools that fall into the category of social media automation and the tool you choose will depend on the platform you want to focus on. However, one social media platform you should be on is LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is the only true business social media platform and it has 722 million members. It is perfect for networking and building relationships, and one of the best things about the platform is that all of the communication is easy. And if you decide to use a LinkedIn automation service, you’ll be able to automate connection requests and lead generation, as well as improve your messaging and integrate other apps as well.
3. Cloud computing
Since cloud computing came into the picture, traditional IT was disrupted and the marketplace changed to make way for this technological advancement. Nowadays, cloud-based services are everywhere because they provide a more reliable and scalable IT infrastructure.
As much as 94% of enterprises already use a cloud service and if you don’t adapt to this change, your business will suffer for it. That is because the enterprises who are already on the cloud are enjoying a number of benefits, and you need to keep up.
Here are just a few of the benefits of cloud computing:
- A high level of flexibility thanks to almost unlimited bandwidth and storage space eliminates the need to constantly purchase and install new equipment and upgrades.
- Business continuity is guaranteed with reliable disaster recovery and backup solutions.
- Scalability and performance are possible thanks to high storage spaces and bandwidth that will support increasing traffic to your website.
- Automatic software updates and integrations that ensure your cloud servers are up and running and fully updated at all times.
- IT operational cost savings will occur, as you will be able to get rid of in-house storage IT equipment as well as overhead costs for things such as data storage, management, and updates.
4. Team collaboration tools
Team collaboration tools allow for much better and more efficient communication within your organization and they can have a great impact on your business. Collaboration tools can change your work environment, and there are three reasons for it:
- They improve communications. With these tools, your team members can have seamless conversations as well as find and share information in one-on-one and group conversations. You can also have improved communication within your team thanks to features such as chat and live video.
- They streamline collaborations. As these tools allow you to share the most relevant and up-to-date information, you’ll greatly reduce the time needed for follow-up activities.
- They strengthen company culture. When all employees use a team collaboration tool, it will be much easier to increase openness and transparency. This will facilitate meaningful engagement and make everyone feel like part of the team.
5. Cybersecurity
The reliance on technology in the business world keeps growing, and you can’t expect to survive in this technologically advanced world without tools and solutions. However, this also means that your company needs to increase cybersecurity and protect all sensitive information.
Unfortunately, a majority of businesses aren’t equipped to handle any type of cyber attack, and this mostly includes small businesses. This is because a lot of small business owners don’t realize how much cybercriminals attack smaller corporations because they know the security systems they implement aren’t sufficient.
And if a data breach occurs, not only will you lose a lot of money but your customers’ personal information will also be compromised and you will lose the trust and credibility you had. Needless to say, it’s going to be incredibly hard to earn back your customers’ trust and even harder to fix the damage.
That is why it is important to invest in a security solution that will protect your company’s endpoints, recognize threats, and quickly respond to any security breach. Additionally, you need to train all of your employees in the proper protocol that should take place if an attack does occur.
And don’t think that your business is already well prepared if you don’t use a cybersecurity solution, because data breaches and security attacks happen more often than some people realize.
Final thoughts on technological solutions
Technological solutions are here to stay, so companies that want to grow and prosper need to adapt to this new technological age. While some business owners are still resisting, you can be sure that their companies won’t stay in business for much longer.
So don’t run away from technology. Instead, embrace it and enjoy all of the benefits it has to offer. If you implement the technological solutions you just read about, you’ll see an improvement sooner than you realize.
![Consider These 5 Technological Solutions When Growing Your Business 5 IdeasPlusBusiness](https://ideasplusbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/IDEAS-2.png)
The Ideas Plus Business Editorial team is responsible for this post. For collaborations and partnership requests, kindly send an email to the Editorial Team at ideasplusbusiness[at]gmail[dot]com for the terms and conditions. You can also follow IdeasPlusBusiness.com on Twitter here and like our page on Facebook here.