As a small business owner, you probably spend countless hours each week on a wide variety of tasks. You might make products, provide services, respond to voicemails, pay your employees. Simply put, if your business is involved, you’re involved.
Managing every facet of your company is undoubtedly time-consuming (and most likely stressful); so, on the surface, you may not want to look into adding more to your plate. Nonetheless, there are tech tools on the market today that can help you run your business more smoothly, save you time, cut down on that stress load, and make you money in the long run.
Tech sometimes costs a little money upfront, and it sometimes takes a little time to get used to. But in the end, some tech will help your company stand a greater chance of thriving in a fast-paced business world. If you’re a small business owner, consider these tech tips if you haven’t already.
Entertain at work
Taking breaks is important—no matter how impressive your attention and focus. Why not offer yourself and your employees some entertainment in the office breakroom? You don’t even need to sign up for an expensive cable subscription. Rather, by investing in an affordable streaming device, workers will have access to endless channels and apps for thousands of movies and TV shows. Unlike a cable package, a streaming device allows you to pay only for what you will use.
Get on the cloud
As ZDNet explains, the cloud is a web-based platform that allows you to access, store, share, and work with data through the internet. This saves you from having to keep the physical storage of your files or work on multiple platforms via your hard drive. You can use accounting cloud services for anything from customer relations management to accounting, and from analytics to marketing. Working and storing on the cloud will give you much more than you pay for. It will make your business operations more flexible, scalable, and secure.
Make everything mobile-friendly
According to Smallbizgenius, in 2018 more than 52% of all website traffic around the globe was generated through mobile devices. What’s more, about 40% of online purchases were made through a smartphone. Making your website mobile-friendly and accepting mobile payments are two of the most important ways to use tech for your business. Most of the top website platforms will automatically design a mobile-friendly version of your site, which includes things like:
- Making sure content is readable
- Showcasing company information (e.g., name, address, contact info, store hours, etc.)
- Decreasing usage of plug-ins and large files
- Reformatting templates for optimal responsiveness
If your website is not currently mobile-friendly, there are affordable online services— such as mobiSiteGalore, bMobilized and Mobify—that can convert your site to mobile or create one from the ground up. Moreover, more and more consumers are using mobile payment apps for their purchases. Look into services like Apple Pay, Paypal and Venmo to provide your customers with a more convenient transaction from wherever you are.
Take Security Measures
Keeping your information has never been more important. Security Magazine points out that in 2018, 67% of small businesses experienced a cyber attack, and 58% experienced a data breach. There are several things you can do to protect vital information, such as company intellectual property and customer credit card numbers:
- Regularly update all software.
- Backup data on the cloud.
- Keep web browsers secure.
- Use data, mobile and email encryption.
- Use antivirus and other security software.
- Make sure all workers change their passwords periodically.
The importance of technology for small businesses is becoming increasingly obvious by the day. Incorporating it into your ongoing operations can help take your company to the next level. Add some entertainment to your break room and take advantage of all that you can do on the cloud. Also, make sure your website is mobile-friendly, consider accepting mobile payments, and take any precautions necessary to protect company and customer data. You will likely see any minor upfront investments paying themselves off in no time.
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