Technology is the key to improving how business is done in our modern age. With every new technological advance, savvy minds are always seeking to know how such advancements can improve how people approach handling business-related problems. When technology provides a company with a solution to one of these problems, this can often lead to improvements in the area of time savings, reductions in spending or an increase in profit potential.
With this in mind, there are four technologies that are helping small businesses perform better than in years past:
Smartphones.
With the advent of the smartphone, modern small businesses have reaped a number of benefits that were formerly out of reach. For starters, smartphones make it possible for employees of small businesses to be more mobile with the company’s operational interests. No longer chained to a desk, many employees are able to utilize the power of apps to multitask and output higher rates of performance at work. This in turn makes it possible for an employee of a small business to operate more efficiently and potentially cuts down on the need to hire additional employees to obtain the same level of productivity.
Social Media.
According to PEW Research, 20 percent of employees rely on social media sites on the Internet to help them connect with others to solve work-related problems and improve overall performance while on the clock. Although many small business employers may imagine that their employees waste time on such sites at work, evidence of improved worker productivity has been observed with the increase in this type of Internet-based technology.
In general terms, people who have access to social media can often obtain answers to major problems from those they connect with more easily than in decades past. An added bonus of social media site availability is that small businesses have an opportunity to use such sites as an easy way to market to large droves of people online. Through Internet marketing methods like digital ad campaigns and the ever changing landscape of article marketing methodologies, social media becomes a technology that has changed the face of how modern advertising and marketing is being done by small businesses everywhere.
Digital Software Solutions.
As the role of computers becomes more cemented into the world of small business, there can be no doubt that software-based technologies are critical to a small company’s ability to compete in today’s marketplace. Whether your team is utilizing a workflow software package or trying out the latest installment of your small business’ data management software, the value of digital software solutions are often difficult to calculate in light of the amount of money, time and other savings they make possible. As software is able to do more for a small business, this trend will only continue to show how even small companies leveraging these digital technologies properly can better compete against larger companies.
Off-Site IT Services.
Being able to afford a fully dedicated in-house IT department may not be the most cost effective move for a small business in these modern times. According to research the business world spends around 288-billion dollars in its attempts to outsource the burden of IT needs. Among the broad sample of businesses doing this, small business stands to gain some of the greatest benefits from the technology that makes off-site IT procedures possible.
Not only does this cut costs by reducing the amount of in-house equipment and number of employees a company needs to keep on staff, it also makes it possible for small companies to cheaply scale their off-site IT operations as changes in the business’s IT needs take shape over a company’s lifetime. From virtual IT systems to cloud-based data storage solutions, off-site IT technologies have paved the way for small companies to operate as if they were much larger businesses.
Conclusion.
There is no doubt that advancements in technology have opened numerous doors of opportunity for small business owners. With these technologies in hand, a small business has the potential to compete with larger companies for control of a greater portion of the market. Often the issue is not how large the business is. Rather, the issue centers more around how effectively its strategy for implementing and leveraging technology to provide itself with a path to a greater outcome happens to be.
Cameron Johnson is a business consultant and social media expert. Over the course of his career he has conducted case studies on both social media optimization and non-profit marketing. Cameron has also had the opportunity to speak at international marketing conferences and was recently recognized as one of the world’s top 100 advertising experts to follow on social media.
