Today’s business arena is essentially an adapt-or-die environment where only businesses that embrace technological innovations can enjoy sustained and immense successes. The rest that failed to see the need to incorporate technology in their respective businesses usually stay on the sidelines watching their tech-savvy competitors make significantly more money than them.
With such a scenario, it should be reason enough for you to begin your digital transformation soon by making applicable technologies essential elements of your daily business processes from sun up to sundown.
Here are five of the best tech tools that you should invest in soon to make your business several steps ahead of the pack:
Dedicated business app
These days, many consumers use mobile applications to book hotels, buy electronic devices, order food, and avail of professional services. In short, mobile apps make businesses well within people’s easy reach.
If you want to be that business in your area that people see as accessible, then you should invest in having a mobile app of your own. You’ll need to hire a professional iOS app developer for mobile devices from Apple. The same app developer can develop a counterpart app for internet-capable mobile gadgets that run on Android operating systems.
By having such a revolutionary tech tool, your business can offer your products or services to your target market. You can have it customized to include specific functionalities that highlight your business’ offerings and advantages, as well as features that will ensure a seamless experience for users.
Data analytics
In the Internet of Things (IoT) system, consumer products are embedded with chips that beam wireless information through the internet to other devices within the system. This little “conversation” between digital devices allow companies to analyze data based on individual user’s habit and then make decisions based on the same data set.
These decisions include modifying products to suit buyer preference and improve device construction. In short, each time somebody uses an object that belongs to a certain IoT system, that device somehow lets analysts and decision-makers “peek” into that user’s psyche and emotion. From a marketing and product or service development standpoint, such a possibility is no doubt groundbreaking.
Process automation
If you have the money for it, you should invest in software and hardware that would allow you to automate critical processes that would improve efficiency and save your business a lot of money.
For example, you can get proprietary software that would make billing and payment intuitive and seamless on both your end and your clients’. You can also invest in robots that can perform dangerous or repetitive tasks that would be hazardous or inefficient to be left to humans.
While they may cost you a considerable sum, the benefits your business will get from automation will be huge. You can cut down on paid man-hours and employee benefits while increasing your productivity several times over.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing technology has been around for quite some time already, but there are still a lot of business owners that are yet to embrace such a game-changing tech tool.
If your business data are critical in your daily operations and you have remote employees who need access to such, you can’t possibly guarantee a quick and seamless collaboration if such data are stored in your servers or physical computers in the workplace. You should, therefore, gradually migrate your most essential data to a dedicated cloud hosting solution for easy access of all collaborators from any internet-capable device.
There are B2B companies that provide commercial-grade cloud solutions for a few dollars each month, but you can always use Google Drive if you want free storage. Take note that Drive has a limit to the amount of data you can store for free. You can, however, opt for an upgrade for a few bucks if you need more digital real estate for your data.
Teleconferencing and remote collaboration apps and facilities
One of the many disruptive effects of COVID-19 on how business gets done is forcing the latter to shift to a remote work setting to continue operations during the pandemic. As such, given that the ongoing crisis doesn’t seem to end just yet, you should soon invest in teleconferencing and remote collaboration facilities and applications.
These should include apps such as Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, and Webex, among others. You should also have desktops and laptops with webcams and noise-canceling headphones, tablets and smartphones, and pocket or portable wifi modems. You should issue these to your employees who need to do work remotely, so you can continue your smooth operations throughout the crisis.
Just make sure to fit these tech tools in your operations budget and you’ll surely gain a much-needed edge over your competitors.