Contents
Almost every aspect of running a business needs IT in alignment – not only to benefit operations but to become more competitive and to win and retain customers. It is a grave mistake to believe that the way you use IT isn’t critical to success and here are some good reasons why.
From high street shops, to sales floors to high rise offices, IT is an essential driver of business success. IT enables you to:
Expand communications
Today, traditional telephones are ‘not the only fruit’ in sales and comms. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) means you can get your telephony needs met at a fraction of the cost of the usual copper wire telephony and as a bonus, it can also give you video phone, conference call and call recording capabilities. IT also provides channels like social media, instant messaging and email for you to engage with – and react to – customers.
Manage your customers
Even if you have just a handful of customers, keeping on top of and being able to analyse interaction, service levels and sales with those customers will allow you to be responsive to your company’s client accounts.
A good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system will mean that you can refer to customers in a way that helps you effortlessly understand their relationship with your brand. It means a level of automation can come into sales and marketing. For example, you could really impress customers with what is known as ‘delight factors’ – e.g. a birthday message or a great personalised offer.
Become an efficient specialist
Give your staff the right tools to do their job well in the form of software designed specifically for your sector, such as Sage for accounts or CAD software for design. Each vertical has a range of software that will make work tasks easier and more productive. Identifying or building the right software for your company will mean more efficient operations and improved business performance.
Beyond software, there is plenty of IT hardware that can also improve your business, such as barcode readers for retail services, PDAs or smart devices for accessing information when on the move or security devices.
Back up of your company data
Very few businesses now rely on hardcopy documentation or even hard drive storage when it comes to company data. With cloud storage capabilities now easy to access and readily available, companies – even micro-businesses – can enjoy the benefits of Enterprise level security by storing their business details, data and confidential information in remote, ultra-secure, nuclear-bomb proof (we’re not even kidding!) data centres.
Rely on automated processes
By making procedures automatic with IT there are great time efficiencies to be made. This can be anything from automatic call dial-up on a sales floor or scheduling tasks such as marketing to send out. IT takes the labour out of many operations and can help to accelerate your productivity.
Master business strategies
There are many software solutions that can link into your business directly to provide insights that you would not otherwise be able to glean. For instance, there is a range of Business Intelligence software to analyse company generated data, or analytical software like Google Analytics which can track interactions on your website, so you know what’s working and what needs changing. With the right IT, you can understand intimately how your business works, how it performs, and what your customers’ needs are- and so it will arm you with information to make informed decisions.
If you need help finding the right IT solutions for your business, drop us a line at Netitude, so we can empower your company by improving its performance.
