Three Technology Tools SMBs Can Use to Help Hit Business Goals in 2020
Three technology tools SMBs can use to help hit business goals in 2020. It is no secret that SMBs need to transform the way they deal with technology to boost their business operations. Technology tools are a great way to optimize all their processes and start prioritizing important tasks over others that might be secondary in importance to their companies.
A recent report from SMB Group showed incredible insight into how SMBs are currently handling technology. According to this report, 36% of SMB companies are currently implementing technology in their companies, while 16% are not planning to use tech tools. Why does this happen? Most small business owners think that tech tools are going to be expensive and not useful. However, the cost of tech tools has dropped incredibly in the past few years.
Kim McCumber, the founder of Floodlight Training & Consulting, said: “First, the cost of technology has fallen significantly with the rise of cloud-based SaaS applications. This makes the tools far more accessible than they’ve been in the past. Second, the capabilities of these tools have increased exponentially. For example, the ability to actively review how a prospect has engaged with your brand over time is a game changer.”
That’s why it is getting more and more important for SMBs to get into the digital transformation process. Working with tech tools will help them not only optimize their processes but also obtain new, effective ways to engage with customers. Another way you could benefit from tech tools is to make your company more productive.
On top of that, it should be acknowledged that we’re currently living in an uncertain situation that could potentially disrupt your company’s operations. Therefore, it is important to learn all types of techniques to stay ahead. In this guide, we’ll show you three essential tools that will allow your SMBs to hit business goals this year.
Tools to Stay Productive and Monitor Workflow
These days the remote working model has grown exponentially. According to a recent report from Owl Labs, small businesses are twice more likely to hire remote workers than other companies. This is great for SMBs because they’ll save costs that come with physical space — electricity bills, office rent or paying for equipment.
Yes, employing remote workers may save you money, but non productive practices doesn’t. You’d still need to monitor your workers’ productivity while they’re working remotely and manage the workflow. There are a couple of tools that can help you with this:
Slack is a great tool for SMBs because it’s a platform that allows you to communicate with your remote team, create specific groups, share files and bring together all your favourite integrations for your company’s operations. These are some of the integrations you could use on Slack such as ClickUp, Google Drive, Dropbox, and many others. McCumber had previously said: “Slack is a great tool for SMBs, especially if team members or vendors are geographically scattered. It’s great for communication and sharing files with one or multiple individuals at a company.”
ClickUp is a cloud-based project management tool that streamlines your communication and task management processes. With ClickUp, you can assign tasks, create statuses and alerts so your team knows what’s the deadline and priority of each assignment and you get to track the performance of your team. ClickUp allows your team to communicate with each other to talk about the tasks and assignments through the comment section.
Why has ClickUp become so popular these days? Task management tools are very helpful to keep the productivity of your SMBs on top and monitor through an intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard.
Video Conferencing Tools
Video conferences or meetings are not just cost-effective. They’re also a better way to approach meetings. When you’re in a physical meeting, it is typically hard to juggle paying attention and taking down notes. This is an issue that can be easily eliminated with video conferences. You’re able to record the meeting so that everybody in the team can view it again if they need to go back and hear something that’s important.
People will fully concentrate on what’s happening in the meeting rather than taking notes. In this current circumstance where almost every company is operating remotely, video meetings have become more useful. If you’re thinking about getting one of these tools, there are several that you can choose from. Skype and Google Meet could be some of the most popular ones. However, there is another tool that has several advantages that you can benefit from. Zoom Cloud Meetings is one of the most complete video conference tools.
Zoom Cloud has a very handy tool called remote desktop control which gives you access to other members’ desktops. This way, you can monitor other members’ work even when you are miles away. But be aware that there have been some questions raised about the privacy of Zoom meetings, so don’t say anything on Zoom that you wouldn’t want your competition to hear about. Zoom are currently addressing these issues, but just be aware that they currently do exist.
Human Resources Tools
Human resources (HR) could be one of the most important aspects of any company. That’s why it is important to invest in optimizing this process to augment the productivity of your company and reduce human errors. HR-related tasks can definitely be done by an employee or a group of employees. But these tools allow you to streamline all your HR processes and automate all of them to optimize the dynamic and maintain a seamless process.
HR tech tools take the weight off your shoulders of having a team that deals with all HR tasks and this way, you can focus on other aspects to push your business goals. Most of these tools are cloud-based which allows you to have all the info you need in one place, on an easy-to-use platform.
One of the best human resources tools you could use at your company is Bamboo HR. This is a data-driven tool that allows you to automate your human resources processes such as hiring, payrolls, and time tracking. Bamboo HR recruiting software helps you keep all the applicants’ relevant information in one place, so you can focus on finding the best talent instead of gathering the info from them. On the other hand, Bamboo HR’s tracking tool automatically updates each employees’ balance when they add another hour. So you don’t have to worry about creating a balance based on hourly work.
So there you have three technology tools SMBs can use to help hit business goals in 2020, plus one bonus tool. Do you have any technology tools that you use in your business? Let us know in the comments below.
