Making sure your business thrives is all about staying ahead of the curve. It's not enough just to offer a great product; you've got to make sure everything about the way you work, from the interfaces your customers use to the way your company's data is stored, is efficient and up to date.
Keeping track of all the curveballs new technology can throw your way might feel like a full-time job in and of itself, but luckily we're here to help you make sense of it all. We're going to go over 7 tech upgrades you should seriously consider implementing in your place of business.
1. Optimizing for Voice Search
More and more people are choosing to conduct web searches by speaking into a phone or a speaker-activated digital assistant as opposed to fumbling around with touchscreens. As we talk about in this piece, it is very convenient for your prospective customers to have a voice search option on your site, and greater convenience frequently leads to higher engagement. This is a relatively simple "quality of life" tech enhancement you can add to your service that will make your clients' lives easier - and, by extension, yours.
2. BIM
BIM stands for Building Information Modeling, and it is gaining fast traction in the world of home renovation, construction, and other architectural pursuits. It's a tool that renders the outline of a project in three dimensions, allowing for a tactile explanation and exploration of your business plan that a simple PowerPoint or blueprint probably won't be able to provide. If you work in the architecture marketplace, check out our list of reasons you should get BIM into your business plan ASAP.
3. Software as a Service
SaaS, or Software as a Service, is an innovation in software provision that is revolutionizing workplace computing with the way it seamlessly integrates into big and small operations. By relying on third-party, off-site licensing, companies are able to have access to the most recent versions of all their operating software in real time. And, perhaps most significantly, the off-site data storage makes data loss a thing of the past.
4. Two-Step Authentication
If you've run into a system like CAPTCHA while trying to make an online purchase or download data from a sensitive link, you've encountered just one variation of what's known as two-step authentication. Two-step authentication is a sequence of passwords that are input in different forms, such a normal password plus a string of digits you receive via text, and it provides a level of security for your information that a normal username/password combo won't be able to provide. This is a great and surprisingly easy system to implement on the backend, and it'll make sure your employees' information will have that much harder of a time being compromised or used to nefarious ends.
5. NUCs
NUC stands for Next Unit of Computing and essentially describes a small, extremely powerful computer that has nearly limitless customization options. Companies like EWC Technologies have been making great strides in this realm of hardware-including Power Over Ethernet, which pairs data and power delivery - and an ever-increasing number of businesses are seeing the benefits of these small, but powerful, computers. A NUC could be a great addition to your company if you want total control over every aspect of the computational needs of your business.
6. CRM Software
CRM is short for Customer Relationship Management, and it's a vital kind of software to invest in for making sure your clients' experience with your product or service runs as smoothly as possible. Depending on what type of CRM you invest in, these programs can accomplish everything from customer analytics to keeping track of bills and invoices, and can seriously cut down on the number of programs you need to sift between to keep track of your company's most important matters. You can get a good overview of different CRM programs and find the one that's right for your company here.
7. Content Marketing Tools
You can have the best company in the world, but it won't matter if no one knows who you are or what you do. As we discussed in a previous entry, content marketing is vital for making your business thrive in the twenty-first century, and from programs that help you centralize all your contacts to online depots for hiring top-of-the-line bloggers and SEO specialists, there are tons of resources out there that can help get your online marketing game up to speed. A little research and a willingness to explore your options can help get your name out there in a major way.
Conclusion
Check out our blog for the best money moves you can make for your venture in everything from marketing to legal queries and beyond. And if there's a bold new tech innovation in the world of small business that we forgot to mention here, leave us a comment!
Guest Author
Chris Scalise is a technical writer and content strategist from Los Angeles, CA. He writes about emerging trends in the tech sector and how they help companies communicate with evolving consumer bases worldwide.