Technologies that you should be investing in
Once upon a time, running a tech-savvy company meant having a basic website to promote yourself and using email for your communication needs. But with the advent of the cloud, rising mobile penetration, and the proliferation of the internet — things have changed, to say the least.
Today, as entrepreneurs and startup owners, you’ll need to think about the latest technologies to power your business.
Wondering which technologies you should keep a tab on? Here’s a list of some fundamental, yet overlooked technologies that I think you should jump onto:
1. Cloud software
Give the boot to siloed on-premise solutions in favor of integrated applications, many of which are cloud-based. And as I see it, group collaboration apps are the overarching theme for many of these platforms.
Flock, for instance, is an enterprise team management app that focuses on streamlining team conversations and speeding up decision-making processes that might otherwise take too long. And the benefits of using this tool are immediate — when you keep your team together, everyone is encouraged to improve their daily productivity and quality of work. See the stats for yourself here.
2. Mobile-first and mobile-only experiences
For some of us, smartphones and tablets are the only devices we use to connect to the Internet and hence, collaborations apps and other business communication apps. And the numbers agree. According to the Digital in 2017 Global Overview Report, almost two-thirds of the global population has a mobile phone and more than half of the world’s web traffic comes via mobile phones.
So much so that mobile-first and mobile-only development and design concepts are becoming a reality. Clearly, businesses can no longer get away with relying solely on responsive design on traditional platforms.
An effective example of an app that is primarily used — or proves more useful — on mobiles is Waze, an app where you can share real-time traffic data, including reports on accidents and other road hazards. While you can access some parts of this service through its website, most of the functionality relies on the mobile-first design and feature set. For me, Google Maps comes close to this description as well, as it’s meant for on-the-go route and traffic information.
3. Automation solutions
If you ask me, one of the biggest productivity and buzz killers in the workplace is having to do time-consuming and repetitive tasks. And studies show that performing such tasks leads to significantly higher levels of disengagement. According to the folks at HBR, “knowledge workers spend a great deal of their time — an average of 41% — on discretionary activities that offer little personal satisfaction and could be handled competently by others.”
The solution, in short, according to the research is to ‘eliminate or delegate unimportant tasks and replace them with value-added ones.’
Luckily, with artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies kicking in, automation solutions are gaining a lot of ground. By automating a lot of your daily processes, you can free up time for your team to do better, more higher level work, rather than getting them to do just administrative tasks.
Salesforce, a customer relationship management software, uses machine learning to automate key parts of the lead nurturing process. Sales people get to focus their attention on the last few stages of the sales funnel and closing the deal, rather than figuring out what pre-sales content to send to their prospects.
4. Influencer marketing software
If you’re in the business of buying and selling — which is all businesses — you know how important it is to market your product or service well. There’s no denying that the traditional forms of advertising are falling out of favor with the younger generation. Ad-blocker plugins wipe out online display ads, cord cutters use streaming services for their media entertainment, and overzealous spam filters are always sorting through inboxes aggressively.
Thus, companies are changing tactics so they can get their marketing message out in ways that their target audience is willing to accept. Influencer marketing, which relies on key influencers to talk to their followers about a company’s products or services, is a great way to address today’s audience. With a multitude of influencer marketing software being developed, you have the valuable opportunity to help your organization expand to untapped markets.
The technology world is always changing, and companies that don’t have a dynamic technology strategy will always get left behind by the early adopters. So why not use this list as a starting point in your journey towards creating a smarter, more tech savvy company.
Care to share pointers on technologies you think are useful? Let us know in the comments below :)
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