Technology is now used in virtually any facet of life, and business isn’t missing on the list. Businesses have to be more efficient while offering better services, therefore the need to incorporate technology in the day-to-day running of businesses. There are tasks that ordinarily will take weeks to accomplish, but with technology in business, these tasks are taken care of in a day.
Due to the fact that businesses have several components comprising them, you will have to target these components while incorporating technology in business. Also, the scope of your business determines the kind of technology you use. A small business will use something slightly different from bigger businesses.
Business Technology Tools
Overall, the four technology tools that are most commonly used by small business owners deal with social media and cloud storage apps. Facebook is there for business purposes, LinkedIn, Google Drive and use Dropbox, to mention but a few.
Classification of business technology tools into categories helps have a better understanding of them, and how to use them. Some of the classifications and corresponding technology tools include:
- Communication among workers – The tools needed here are Facebook at Work, Slack and Yammer. Facebook is free, while Slack has both paid and free services.
- Email – Email services are vital to the running of businesses. Some tools include- Gmail and Yahoo mail.
- Project Management & Collaboration- Collaboration tools help teams to stay in sync for optimum efficiency. Some of them include; Asana, Trello, Wunderlist.
- Wireframe – For a website or App idea, you would need to draw its skeletal structure, what all the pages would look like from start to finish. Tools that come in handy in doing so are; Balsamiq and Mockflow. Mockflow offers a free plan as well as a paid premium plan.
- Prototyping – For prototyping, your best bet is Envision.
- Hosting – Having a website is a must have for businesses today. And these websites are hosted by web hosting companies. A reliable company is best, to avoid poor services. Examples are Blue host and Amazon web services.
- Transaction & Marketing Emails –Emails are vital in businesses for marketing, and for transactions. Some tools for this include; Mailchimp and Sendgrid.
- Customer rou– Real-time response to customers boosts a businesses’ relationship with its customers. It can be done through popular platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, but tools like Chat Chatlio, Olark, and Smooch are changing the market.
- Finance –All businesses can’t do without accounting. It is factual, and since it is something very important to a business, using technology tools for efficiency should be welcomed. Business tools like Freshbooks and Quickbooks can always get the job done.
- Cloud Drive – Having additional backup for files can come in handy when needed. And there are cool technology tools for that, amongst which include; Dropbox, Google drive and One drive.
- Analytics – The tools mentioned are excellent for analytics of a website and a mobile app. Google Analytics, for web and Flurry, for mobile.
