Last Updated on January 9, 2019 by Jessica Adams

Technology and its effect on business operations are so very important. No matter how big or small, your business, technology offers incredible benefits that will take your business to a level that hasn’t even been built yet! It all depends on the many ways that your business benefits from its relationship with technology.

There are so many uses for technology in your business, it’s difficult to even know where to start. First off, technology makes businesses faster and more efficient by keeping track of what they spend and helping them save more efficiently.

The benefits of technology will help your business make money, operate at a faster on a more efficient level, and produce the kinds of results that your customers want. From the floor of a drawing room to using technology to fuel business growth, there’s no end to the number of ways that business benefits from technology.

Let’s take a look at this ‘odd couple’ of both the business and technology world. You know how they say ‘it’s all about relationships’? Well, here it’s all about how your business benefits from its relationship with technology.

 

5 Ways That Business Benefits

From Its Relationship

With Technology

 

 

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Collaboration & Learning

Working together is now one of the easiest things in the world. Your business partner is away for a few months? No problem. Here are some of the ways that technology can help you overcome that distance:

• Conference calls using platforms like Google Hangouts, Skype, and Zoom.
• Webinars to teach or to learn. These are great as you can record them once and then share as long as the content is relevant.
• Cloud storage has revolutionized the ability to send work around the globe in seconds.

Digital Nomad Working

The buzz term ‘digital nomad’ became more than just words, it grew into a lifestyle. Something that people lusted after. And, true to form, technology made significant strides to accommodate those new working trends.

You can create a complete mobile office. Using one tablet, or laptop and have it loaded up with the apps that you use most often like WordPress to monitor your site and publish blog posts, Gmail and Dropbox for cloud integration and communication, programs for writing and designing, and you can manage a project from anywhere effectively.

If you have a home computer with all of your files on, or your central computer is in a safe office space, you could use a remote desktop application to access data when you need it.

Going paperless is not only good for the environment, but it is good for you too. Using accountancy apps on your phone to keep track of expenses and income mean you don’t have to travel around with a million receipts. Instead, you can take a quick photo and then you’re done. Same goes for paper files.

 

Marketing

Marketing has never been so accessible to everyone that it is now, and who knows where that will go in the future. Either way, marketing is an exciting field to be in, albeit directly or as a novice user for your online business.

Here are a few ways that you can apply the technology software and applications to your marketing efforts. Make use of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest and more. Pick a couple that fit with what you do, and works with them. Promote your services, products and keep your tone authentic to you.

Launch a blog and create content often. Let clients and consumers in on what you do, provide them with great information and content that they will want to share. You can start a blog on WordPress, and have content live in a matter of minutes.

Use your blog and/or social media to create an email marketing list with software like ConvertKit or MailChimp. Easy to use, and they both have a walk through wizards and different pricing options.

Get smart with video making apps on your mobile or on your computer and put them on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook LIVE, then catch the attention of the scrolling masses.

Cash

When it comes to managing your money, everything is pretty much online or available in a mobile phone application. As mentioned above you can fix your accounts pretty easily with mobile apps, but what else can you do in terms of managing your money?

If you are still using a word or pages invoice, it might be time to swap to an online invoicing service that can keep track of payments for you. Wave and Coconut are highly recommended although there are other alternatives.

An online budget tracker is great to help you manage your expenses and show you where you could be reducing costs. Implement an instant payment option on your website. This is especially good if you have digital products, like eBooks or webinars.

Use online accountancy software to manage your taxes in a more streamlined manner. That way when it comes to tax time, you just upload a form, and you’re done. If you aren’t confident in using accountancy software you can share simple expenses and income form digitally with your bookkeeper or accountant.

 

Productivity

When you run your own business of any kind, you’re likely to have lulls in your work ethic. It happens to everyone, and it’s nice to know that when you’re working, you can get more done when employing the technology available to you.  

There are a number of very good time tracking options. Great for when you are using an hourly system. Caato Time Tracker, TSheets, Core Time and Billing, and Dovico Timesheet are all great options, so be sure to find one that works best for you.

Applications like Trello and Asana allow you to set something up for a whole team to use, or just to keep yourself focused on the specific steps towards an end goal. 

Parkinson’s Law – means you will stretch a project until forever if you don’t have a timer on it. You’ll expand the work to meet the final deadline. To avoid this, you should think about using the Pomodoro method.

This method gives you lots of time in which you work and provides you with a space for a break in between each block. Making larger projects much smoother, and avoiding you wasting time.

Technology isn’t just for the big companies out there. It can help smaller companies, and freelancers make the most of the time they have available and make things, like taxes a lot easier to manage in the long run.

 

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Edited by Jessica Rose Adams