Small Business Growth Strategy for 2016: Stop Using Paper

by Erin Sherbert, Content Marketing Manager

So far, 2016 has been chock-full of small surprises. For starters, we’ve stuck to that New Year’s diet for longer than a week, and California has experienced consecutive days of rainfall.

Oh, and we learned that not all companies have gone totally digital.

We recently caught up with Ren Chin, VP of Marketing at GoFormz, who explained why he thinks, in this electronic era, businesses are still stuck on trying to be productive with paperwork.

Tell us about your company and the solutions it offers people.

GoFormz is the leading Mobile Forms solution. Used in over 170 countries by more than 12,000 customers, GoFormz helps you to eliminate your paper forms and modernize your business. We make it easy for any person, team, or company to turn themselves into data-driven powerhouses. With GoFormz you easily convert your existing paper forms into smart mobile forms. They are still your forms, only better, because they are electronic, available on any mobile device or computer, automate calculations, integrate new data types such as GPS location and images, auto-fill fields to maintain accuracy, and much more. Your forms and data are stored in our cloud-based platform (or with partners like Box) and can be accessed from anywhere. You use our advanced reporting and analytics tools to monitor your operations and analyze your business in real time. You can also integrate your data with other business systems such as Salesforce and ServiceMax via our existing integrations or through our API.

Are you surprised that in 2016, businesses are still using paper to the extent they are?

Though the extent to which paper forms are still being used around the world is shockingly high, I am not surprised. The explosive growth of the mobile workforce over the past decade has made using paper forms a much bigger problem now than it was 10 years ago, increasing the urgency to replace paper with digital versions. A fundamental concept that we embrace is that it is hard to change existing processes, especially paper-based ones. Existing processes have inherent dependencies that are often hard to fully identify and understand. Many folks are hesitant to replace their paper-based processes because they don’t want to disrupt or break these dependencies. The GoFormz platform solves this problem for businesses around the world.

A new year comes with new challenges. What are some of the challenges you’re facing this year and how do you plan to overcome them?

GoFormz has a global community with customers in over 170 countries worldwide. This is an exciting aspect of our company, but it challenges us to find ways of providing the best customer experience globally. We want our customers to be successful and thrilled with our product and services, and we aim to reflect that sentiment across our organization, evolving our product, customer success tools and team, and our culture to deliver on this challenge.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received and what’s the worst advice?

It’s no secret, and often quoted, but the best advice I have ever received is to “stick to what you do best.” As a high-growth company, there are always temptations to move in different directions to further accelerate growth, but we continue to focus on making it easy for anyone to move from their paper-based workflows to modern, electronic processes fueled by real-time data.

The worst advice was to draft Andrew Luck for my fantasy football team.

What are 3 new growth strategies small businesses should implement to kickstart the year?

1. Manage by the numbers — they don’t lie, and they can point the way.

2. Make sure that all of your information is in one place and measure your growth initiatives meticulously.

3. Treat your customers like gold. It is so much easier to keep an existing customer happy and healthy than to find a new one.

If we looked at your phone now, what non-business-related apps might we be surprised to find?

Different weather apps and a very old version of Audible.

And just for fun, what music genre best describes your company and why?

Funk. Because, slap bass.

Get more tips from other entrepreneurs on how to grow your small business here.