Moving away from outdated technology can help you win more customers and get more done Keeping your technology current offers a wide range of advantages, from greater security and customer retention, to happier, more productive employees, and more.
You may think your technology works just fine, but you could be missing out on capabilities that fuel business success. Having the right technology can boost productivity and keep employees happier. It can allow you to expand your business beyond your geographical boundaries. It can keep your crown jewels—your company data—safe.
And it can increase customer satisfaction and make people more likely to do business with you.
Having the latest technology also lets businesses pursue new customer services such as mobile apps. It makes customers see you as being forward thinking and innovative. It produces fast service delivery.
A Business with newer technology provides better service and a flexible network with customers and also provide more secure operations.
When it comes to outdated technology, an old maxim rings true: “You don’t know what you don’t know.” You might feel there’s no need to upgrade because you believe your operations are running fine with your current technology. However, if you are accustomed to older technology, you may well be unaware of what capabilities are now possible. Everyday processes that you take for granted may currently take twice as long as they might take if you were using more modern technology.
If you’re not sure what technology to update, here’s one good starting point for finding a powerful payback from new technology: If you look at all your processes end-to-end, note how many places require you to handle information manually? Those are potential spots where new software can improve your workflow and effectiveness. Software can allow you to do more with less.
Outdated technology is particularly frustrating for employees, because they are the ones who experience the inefficiencies firsthand.
Cloud technology in particular serves the new way employees work, making it possible for individuals to work from anywhere, and for colleagues to collaborate seamlessly even when working from separate locations.
“If you are using an operating system that is older than that, you should be aware that there are security threats, as well as amazing new capabilities, that didn’t even exist five or ten years ago.”
Assessing Technology Needs
If you’re not using technology that enables you to do the following, you might be impeding your own success.
• Remote access to important documents and files. In a recent survey, 93 percent of small business have at least some remote workers. On average, around 20 percent of all employees work remotely.
•Unified communications platform with IM, voice, video conferencing, and online meeting capabilities. “Unified communications (UC) can save a ton of time, and prevent a lot of duplicate entries and wasted work going back and forth,” Campbell says.
•Professional-grade email. “A lot of small business professionals and sole proprietors use free email services that are designed for personal use, but when potential customers see that, it can make them question the credibility of the business,” Bates says.
•A professional looking website. Seventy-seven percent of consumers expect that your business will have a professional website, according to the survey. If you don’t, it’s the equivalent of having a run-down storefront, and people are wary about doing business with you.
•Mobility solutions. In our increasingly device-centric world, all you need is a mobile phone or tablet to accomplish many different types of business tasks. Retailers of all sizes can accept credit card payments on a mobile phone. Doctors now have the ability to review x-rays and medical charts with their patients using a tablet device. Think of how you can make your business more mobile and untether your employees from their desks.
Keep Your Head in the Cloud
Ask yourself if the following apply to you: Do you ever need to work from outside the office? Do your employees need to be out in the field or have the ability to work from home? Do you have employees in different locations who need to collaborate with one another? Could you use access to a larger talent pool?
If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then cloud technology
makes sense for you. It used to be that in order to have the most advanced technology, small businesses would have to invest in the same expensive hardware as large companies.
It was cost-prohibitive. Now with cloud technology, small businesses pay for cloud-based versions of those same enterprise-level capabilities based on what they use, making it incredibly affordable.
The cloud also makes it easy for businesses to scale. If you hire a new employee, you just add them as a user and pay an incremental cost.
If you’re a small retail shop preparing for the holiday rush, you may have to think about how you’ll provide seasonal workers with email addresses and access to your inventory database and your point of sale systems for a limited amount of time.
Instead of buying new software licenses for workers that will only use the technology for two to three months, you can buy access on a subscription-based, monthly model that allows you to pay-as-you-go.
In addition to the overall business benefits, the cloud also delivers benefits to the way individuals can work. It makes it easy to sync across all the devices you use for work so you can edit a document on your phone, and access the updated document when you log on to your laptop. It also enables stronger collaboration between employees and eliminates version control issues because you can access documents online and choose to either enable simultaneous co-editing or allow only one person to edit at a time. The capabilities offered by new technology are tremendous. And it’s easier than ever for a small business to avail themselves of these capabilities in a cost-effective manner.
You might think you’re saving money by not upgrading, but you’re missing a huge opportunity in terms of productivity, security, mobility and overall flexibility in how you work.
Modern technology can revolutionize the way you work, help you grow, help keep your employees and customers happy, and save your business money in terms of efficiency.
