Create, Run and Grow Your Business

Home Business Magazine Online

Due to technological advancements, businesses now make more money, gain more customers, and serve a larger global audience, whilst enhancing the quality of their products and services.

Technology enables humans to increase their output and activity. Before the invention of the steam engine, for example, coal mining was much harder and less productive. After the invention of the steam engine, water pumped from the mines and the output greatly accelerated. The steam engine led to the birth of the global techno-industrial revolution and the modern world we live in today.

The driving force for technological advancement is to improve the living standards of humans. In other words, the drive for technological progress stems, in part, from basic biological drivers to enjoy a better standard of life.

When it comes to running a business today, technology fundamentally altered the way we design, launch, manage, and sell our products and services. Examples of how technology impacted the business world include: cloud computing, driverless vehicles, drone delivery, 3D printing, artificial and business intelligence tools, collaboration tools, CRM, and more.

AI and cloud computing already made huge differences in the way businesses function, from service led industries to the real estate industry. We have only seen the beginning of this technological revolution. AI and machine learning are the next technology revolutions that businesses must prepare for. This technological revolution affects the cost of business, human labour, and interaction with consumers.

Using artificial intelligence to learn about business trends and consumers has a significant influence on the way business interact with their customers. These interactions include when to send an email, when to call, and how to sell a product on the internet. Many business operations, such as sales and marketing, require fewer people to perform these tasks because operations are automated and conducted by artificial intelligence.

Time-consuming travel to and from business meetings both inside and outside of the city drain a team’s ability to be productive. Management and team members still must travel for meetings and negotiations today. However, technological advancements alter the way companies hold business meetings, connect with their teams, and present ideas.

Video conferencing became widely used in business. Companies connect with partners, training staff, and participate in webinars from the workplace with high-quality HD audio and video. During the pandemic, the use of Zoom meetings and conferences greatly increased. This likely set a trend which will remain permanently in many business sectors.

Video calls, live streaming, and several other techniques are possible for even the smallest of businesses from any location and any device. Businesses now communicate with clients, partners, teams, and individuals through video conferencing, and video calling technology.

Because of this, businesses conceive, develop, and sell video conferencing, telephone, and business communication products. People continuously look for simple solutions that allows them to host and attend meetings from virtually anywhere.

Steady cash flow is the lifeblood of any business, and without it, a business grinds to a halt. Businesses must have payment systems that are simple and quick, so they get paid by customers in a timely fashion.

Today, people have online banking, smartphone applications, internet payment gateways, payment wallets, debit cards, and credit cards. As a result, customers pay for products, services, and bills via mobile applications, debit cards, online banking, and digital payment wallets, allowing businesses to get paid for goods and services on time. As a result, a growing number of businesses incorporate online payment options into their operations

This is possible thanks to technological advancements of new banking and financial technologies (FinTech). The growth of information technology and the issues that businesses and consumers encounter in day-to-day operations accelerated businesses’ transitions to a digital economy.

Distributed ledger technologies like blockchain also have an impact on how payments are made. In offering a secure, open, and transparent chain of payments method, blockchain now gives property investors an opportunity to invest in fractional portions of property. This in turn lowers the entry point for small-scale investors.

Creating and editing business documents and spreadsheets is a lot more difficult without Microsoft Office. Some estimate nearly all corporate and government offices globally use Microsoft Office. The popularity is due to Microsoft Office’s impressive array of functions and features.

Anyone who runs a business knows how important it is to use letterheads, service invoices, business letters, and various types of reports and documents, such as expense reports, etc. IT technologies make these tasks much simpler and more convenient to do.

All sorts of templates that enable businesses to perform a huge array of tasks are found or purchased. So, there is no need to take time to write them up or have deep knowledge of what to include. IT technology allows you to save your work straight to the cloud, and files synchronize across several devices. Team leaders and employees interact in real time by using Microsoft Office Online to make, modify, and exchange business documents.

Using a word processor, spreadsheets, and presentation programs together with computer and internet technology results in increased productivity, lower costs, and better collaboration.

Businesses fundamentally altered their approach to dealing with customers. Businesses today want to create long-term relationships with their consumers and do not want to lose even one. For example, when visiting a company website, they invite you to sign up for their newsletters to get regular updates. Subscription boxes show in just a few seconds since clients are hard to come by.

With more and more businesses going online and competing in cyberspace, it is not easy to gain internet traffic. This is because of the intense competition for keywords in search engines.

Customer service and sales systems are easier for firms to use because of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Most notifications generate automatically because of user actions on the site. Businesses and other organizations now use cloud computing and collaborative technologies to build trust with their customers, encourage value of their business, and create simple and easy-to-use systems.

For forward-thinking companies, the transition to digital platforms offers an enormous opportunity for sales and marketing departments to enhance and streamline processes. Consequently, the internal connection between sales/marketing and IT operations grows. This is due to defining new solutions that take advantage of rising trends such as the rise of mobile computing or social media. Put differently, the boundary lines between IT and sales/marketing increasingly blur.

There is a long tradition in organizations of handing out computers and smartphones to employees in the sales department. For remote sales, cell phones, laptops, and tablets equip with analytical tools. These tools connect with the back-end line of business software so data such as stock levels and lead times from suppliers are assessed.

Technological advancements developed the most effective tactics, approaches, and tools for promoting a business online. As part of digital marketing, these include search engine optimization, social media management, and email marketing to promote brands. Because of the larger reach online marketing is more successful than traditional marketing. This is due to data analysis, location targeting, and keyword targeting based on user behavior and browser history,

The fastest way to discover new clients is to market and promote your business online. There are now a lot of offline companies that get their names out there online. Personalised campaigns, lead management analytics, free templates for small businesses, sales, CRM automation, and social media marketing automation are all available from a variety of providers. There is no doubt that marketing tactics changed because of new technology and internet marketing methods.

The post Technological Advancements in Business appeared first on Home Business Magazine.

Home Business Magazine Online

A disaster recovery plan is a formal, official document created by an organization or a consulting authority. As imagined, disaster recovery planning is more important now than ever before.

If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that all businesses need to be prepared for all kinds of disasters and unprecedented circumstances. Otherwise, they risk losing money, or even closing their doors for good, if a catastrophic event such as this happens again.

Disaster recovery planning covers all disruptive events, such as natural disasters, cyber attacks, power outages, unplanned incidents, and so on. For each event, the disaster recovery plan lays out how one might respond effectively to the event in order to minimize the disruption.

For example, when disaster recovery planning in case of failure of IT and voice services, consider a cloud-hosted unified communications and VoIP software. With these solutions hosted in the cloud, they are accessible by any device with internet connectivity. So, if phone lines were to go down, then your phones are not affected. In addition, if computers crashed or power went out, you would still be able to operate communications using battery powered laptops, tablet computers, and even smartphones.

Disaster recovery planning offers many benefits. These include the following:

Disasters do happen, and when they do, this means you might have to close your doors. However, with a disaster recovery plan, you ensure that business downtime keeps to a minimum, and thus less money is lost.

One event potentially has a huge knock on effect to the rest of your business. By lessening the impact of an unforeseen event, you ensure that long-term damage keeps to a minimum.

In today’s day and age, consumers want a business that they can trust. By showing that you have the necessary plans in place to protect your business and their custom, you are more likely to assuage their fears, and thus increase customer retention.

Many disaster recovery plans involve cloud-hosted software and tools. By investing in such technology, it makes it much easier to relocate or grow your business.

Once you settled on a plan, follow these steps to implement it:

What is it you need to protect? Which of these objectives is the most important? Consider how you might solve potential problems, whilst still sticking to the order of priority.

Draft the plan. Include the necessary protocols and softwares that you might put in place.

Simulate a disaster, such as by switching off your IT systems or power. This is in order to test how effective your plan is. Identify potential problems, tweak the plan, and then redraft until optimized fully.

Distribute the information on the plan to all employees. Ensure thorough training so that everyone knows what to do if the time comes.

Overall, you should now know what a disaster recovery plan is, why you need one, what it brings to your business, and how to implement it successfully. With this information in mind, you have all the tools you need to begin future proofing your business.

The post So You Bought Disaster Recovery Planning… Now What? appeared first on Home Business Magazine.