How Business Technology Shapes Your Workplace Efficiency
Technology is constantly evolving and introducing new features that can aid various businesses. Nowadays, technology plays a more crucial role in business development and business operations than it did a decade ago. In the past, only large enterprises could afford to utilize both hardware and software to improve their work efficiency, but today that technology is available to small businesses and startups alike.
Technology is a vital aspect of every modern business, because it doesn’t just help improve company-wide collaboration, productivity, and overall effectiveness, but it also shapes the workplace efficiency. Here are a few ways today’s technology is helping out businesses no matter their size.
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Virtual remote communication
Modern technology has enabled businesses to hire employees from all around the globe without actually having to bring them into the office. Improved broadband connections and fast internet speed allowed business to expand their search for talented workers from their vicinity to the global market and create a team of employees that don’t need to be at the same place in order to collaborate efficiently or complete their daily tasks.
Remote communication, let alone remote work, wouldn’t be possible without technological improvements. As a matter of fact, less than two decades ago the fastest commercial internet speed was 20-56 kbit/s that leveraged the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) to connect to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) over dial-up modems. Today, the average internet speed used by various businesses is 400 Mbit/s over broadband connections. Many startups these days only have six people in their core team, while they remotely outsource the rest of their employee workforce.
Cloud infrastructure – cloud-based storage and software solutions
One of the latest technological advancements and innovations is cloud-based computing. Cloud computing allows businesses to store, process and manage data on remote servers that are hosted on the internet, instead of using local servers or PCs. In addition, businesses can utilize hosted hardware and software, without having to implement a costly in-house infrastructure. There are three main services offered by cloud-computing, aside from acting as an online storage: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS).
IaaS allows businesses to leverage hosted hardware and infrastructure components for their business operations. Also, PaaS delivers necessary hardware and software to businesses that want to develop their in-house software or apps. Lastly, SaaS is a software distribution model where various software solutions are hosted and made available to businesses. Simply put, every business can easily have their own IT-cloud solution, without having to invest heavily into in-house IT infrastructure or spend too much on obtaining software licenses.
Process organization and automation
Without technological improvements and innovations, businesses today simply wouldn’t be able to produce as much output as they do. For instance, various project management tools allow business to organize their employees to improve their collaboration and productivity. That way, various business goals can be divided into smaller milestones, so that the teams working on the project can successfully complete their tasks on time and reach those milestones with relative ease. This technology-aided project management leads to accomplishing business goals much faster and much more efficiently.
Furthermore, businesses don’t have to waste too much time on repetitive tasks. Instead, they can automate most of the processes, while they focus on other relevant business aspects. For example, lead nurturing via email newsletters and promotions is essential for conversion rate. Instead of sending or responding to each email manually, businesses can customize and automate the process. The same goes for social media posts and replies. Most of the posts or answers can be automated, but if more important questions come up, the process will alert the person to provide a more delicate response.
Performance monitoring and analysis
Many businesses nowadays utilize technology to gain insight into the performance of their operations, ranging from employee productivity and engagement to their marketing efforts and customer engagement. Technology allows businesses to collect raw data about any business-related activities and convert that data into valuable insights. Later, those insights are used to improve a business as a whole. For example, engaged employees are vital to any business. By collecting data about employee productivity, motivation, and engagement, businesses can analyze that data in order to improve both the work environment and work conditions for their workers and help them become more productive.
Also, monitoring marketing efforts are crucial for business success. Businesses use monitoring to evaluate their marketing campaigns, promotions and sales in order to determine the success ratio of their efforts. Data collected from monitoring gives deeper insight into the target audience and their reaction to campaigns or promotions. Every bit of information collected can be used to improve the results and maximize efforts for future campaigns.
It’s safe to say that technology has become an essential aspect of every modern business. Technology has in a lot of ways shaped the workplace efficiency. So much in fact that without technology, businesses today would have a lot more difficulties in organizing their operations while managing to meet the demands and expectations of their customers.
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Co-Authored With
Oscar Waterworth – a digital nomad, writer and senior editor at BizzmarkBlog. By working with product development teams for nearly a decade now, he has gained a great deal of insight on remote team management and project operations in the startup sphere.