If, as a traditional business, you’re looking to make a successful digital transformation for your company, you need the right tools to work for you.
By addressing key areas of your business with digital solutions, you can create an efficient workflow that enhances productivity, increases employee engagement, and improves workplace satisfaction.
Not only this, but you’ll be able to automate a number of tasks thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning, so you have a competitive advantage over other small businesses.
With a digital business transformation, you can design more efficient business processes so you can compete with larger enterprises, even on a budget.
These digital solutions are useful for a variety of business models, so no matter what kind of business you operate, you can take advantage of what they have to offer.
Project Management
Businesses, especially those using a remote workforce, or any that require collaboration across multiple teams and departments need help tracking projects and goals.
Email may seem sufficient at first, but it’s easy for team members to accidentally be left off of an update if they aren’t included in the latest message. Plus, it clogs the Inbox and makes things hard to keep track of when there are multiple projects in the works at the same time.
Instead, you can use a project management platform such as Trello, Wrike, or Asana. As cloud-based tools, they are much more efficient at providing a complete and transparent look at the status of each project. They are accessible from anywhere an internet connection is available and updated in real-time.
Team Communication
It’s hard to keep track of conversations between employees, especially as your business grows.
Using a platform like slack will make it easy for your teams to chat, share files, and more. Plus, Slack integrates with other apps to make for a smoother workflow.
You can create a Slack channel specifically for water-cooler chat so that employees can have conversations off-topic like they would in a traditional office setting.
This helps remote companies with employee engagement and company culture.
Slack is available for both desktop and mobile devices, so your team can communicate from wherever they are.
Good communication is vital to business success. Not only do team members need to be able to communicate amongst themselves, but they need to share information across other teams, as well. The right tool can make all the difference.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the most effective and popular digital marketing tools out there.
With a platform like GetResponse, MailChimp, or Constant Contact, it is easy to design, send, and review the results of your email campaigns.
It’s possible to see who opened your email, the links that were clicked on, and who might be most interested in a follow-up offer or message.
With segmentation, you can send personalized email offers to both new and repeat customers to ensure a unique customer experience for everyone.
Social Media Management
Long gone are the days where having a website alone is enough to effectively run a business online.
Beyond the website itself, you need a presence on all social media platforms where your audience is active.
This means you need to post content, engage with users, respond to questions and feedback, and remain active to show you are committed to the platforms.
That said, it can be tempting to try to be on all the social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn… the list goes on.
While social media management platforms do make it easier to maintain an active presence on multiple platforms in a fraction of the time, it’s better to focus only on a few platforms where you know your audience is active, than it is to try to be everywhere.
Picking a few core platforms and doing it well is better than being everywhere with a mediocre approach.
Instead of spending all day focused on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms where your audience is engaging with your company, you can use a social media management tools such as HootSuite, Buffer, or Cinchshare (most useful for groups), to monitor feeds, schedule your post, engaging interact, and see data analytics at all from a central location.
Human Resources Management Software
When a small business is just getting started, it’s likely there won’t be a full human resources team.
That’s where HR management software can help. It can do everything from scheduling employees shifts to sending out company announcements to collect bank information for direct deposit.
There are a number of small details that new business owners could easily overlook that would expose the business to lawsuits and other issues.
HR management platforms store employee personal information, manage time tracking, scheduling, and payroll, manage benefits administration, and manage an organization’s legal employment and regulatory requirements.
Some HR management platforms also include recruiting, applicant tracking, performance management, and accounting features. Many even make it possible for employees to take care of changes and updates themselves with a self-service option.
Some of the most popular HR management systems are Namely, Zenefits, and BambooHR.
Using digital technology to handle these tasks ensures any HR staff members will be able to spend more of their time on value-added tasks instead of manually addressing everything related to recruiting, hiring, and employment.
Accounting Software
For many small business owners, accounting is a daunting task that can easily be overlooked.
Neglecting it too much, however, could easily mean acing an IRS audit, or failing to account for your monthly payroll cost in your cash flow analysis.
Using online accounting software like QuickBooks or Xero can take the place of an accountant and bookkeeper by tracking expenses, profit, reconciling your debts, sending invoices, creating expense reports, and doing nearly anything else that you should keep track of on your tax returns.
Procurement Software
Of course, even if your business doesn’t manufacture their own goods, you’re paying for goods and services to keep things up and running.
From subscription fees for digital software to office and break room supplies, you need a place to keep track of all your purchases, invoices, and payments.
Bringing your procurement into the digital world is easy, too. Planergy integrates with Quickbooks Online and Xero to help make things easier for your accounting team.
In a digital transformation, a key component is replacing legacy tools and infrastructure with modern technology.
By moving to cloud-based options, you rely on provider data centers and managed services, rather than your own IT equipment and staff – making it more cost-effective to operate your company.
In addition to updating technology, it’s crucial to focus efforts on incorporating technology into new and existing products because customers expect products to be connected (think Internet of Things, or IoT) and improved with new functionality.
Beyond this, customers expect an integrated and frictionless experience regardless of the channel they use to communicate with you – supporting self-service options online and off.
As you choose the tools that will work for your business, read white papers and case studies specific to your industry to help you see what your best options are.
