Use technology to your advantage!

Technology is all around us.  Changes within the last 10, 20, 30 years have advanced how we conduct business and live our daily lives. 

Technology can be a blessing, or a curse and time seems to be always against us, so what can we do to bring efficiencies into our business?  Here are just some ways you can use it to your advantage.

Business automation can be a cost-effective way of managing a variety of tasks simultaneously.  It’s a great way to increase service quality or improve service delivery.  There are various platforms available that allow you to automate your workflow from email marketing to effective lead capture and ecommerce. While it might take a little work to get the workflows written, the output will far out way the upfront work required. 

Use online platforms such as Dropbox Business or OneDrive to help your team collaborate effectively and far more efficiently when sharing documents – it’s the way forward without anyone having to look over multiple documents or emails.  Collaborate in real time and do away with the clutter and the confusion!

You can also easily automate payroll and HR processes through the likes of Xero, this is particularly helpful if you’re a small business owner and have to wear numerous hats and juggle supplier invoices, pays lips, holidays, sick leave. 

Manage passwords effectively.  The number of different applications and passwords required in today’s society to perform a simple task is vast!  Whether you’re posting on social media or measuring website analytics, email marketing or logging into your business bank, you could find yourself switching between several different platforms throughout the day all requiring a password.  And of course, we know the importance of not having the same password for multiple log ins.  However, 1password is a handy app which stores all your passwords securely in one convenient place – which granted needs a password to access it but all you have to remember is one password and not 20 or 30!   

Technology can be counter intuitive.   According to Forbes, you need to identify the areas where you waste the most time and then engage with apps or services which meet those needs.  However, you will find there is a technological solution for nearly every problem you face and if you engaged with every app to help you, you’ll actually find that you decrease your productivity!  So be selective!