Small and medium-sized businesses across the United States are increasingly relying on new technology solutions to strengthen their product development, marketing, and customer engagement activities. Technology adoption is often the best way to drive relative advantage over competitors, even among small businesses. This is especially true with regard to computer and Internet technologies. Your business might be basically “technology enabled” but you may be missing out on new, fast-evolving technologies that could grow your business, regardless of its
[BUTTONS1]
Traditional Methods of Banking
Traditional banking and other means have been in practice for a very long time. There were thousands of records and just a minor change could result to thousands of issues. With time, there has been more work done in the industry to seamlessly integrate technology with finance. If you are conversant with new tech trends, it won’t be difficult to contemplate how this can potentially expand small and big businesses.
[BUTTONS2]Innovative Technology
With the introduction of technology to the finance domain, the scope just became a lot bigger. Through financial technology, things that took hours now take minutes. A simple bank transfer which previously required a person to visit the bank to deliver the check can now be done using a smartphone and within a minute you can transfer the amount to the desired bank account.
The implementation of financial technology is so vast, it has become a part of our everyday lives, and people have started taking it for granted. The use of credit card and the permission to pay your bills online is only possible due to financial technology that has changed the way the industry works. You can pay online through your credit cards and get the amount deducted from your account directly. If you had been told before now that this could be possible in future, the thought of all technology makes possible would have surely seemed like another fluke, but the technology has made so many parts of the finance industry work together almost effortlessly.
Embrace Social Media and Expand Your Sales
Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most obvious social media vehicles for business. Adopting an effective social media strategy can rapidly enhance a company’s branding and visibility, helping you interact with your audience around a direct message or offer, and drive traffic to your website — as long as its content and design make it worth driving traffic to!
Companies need a social media strategy and focus, not just to supplement current sales efforts but as the primary vehicle for all sales activity. Print advertising is losing ground to the Internet and social media is an effective method of marketing over the Internet at a very low cost.
The first step is to identify the online platforms and communities where your potential customers spend time. The next step is to create a strategy to engage with their interests and offer them useful, compelling content and interaction they can’t get elsewhere.
Take Your Business into the Cloud
The “cloud” — delivering hardware and software services via a network — represents the most significant technology paradigm shift for private companies. The cloud offers incredibly cheap storage and a range of shrink-wrapped solutions that can reduce a small business’s capital investment in technology.
We’re already seeing the benefits, with tablet computers being used to take and fulfill orders, manage automated systems, and so forth.
Spend the Money to Create a Mobile App
It is not an overstatement to say that the world is going mobile. Mobile applications on smartphones do more than download music or provide maps and directions. Your customers are using their cell phones to do business all the time. Well-designed apps can get your name in front of your customer every time they use their cell phone.
A lot of apps are really just low-value “junior websites” that might get used once a year and are poorly suited to the limited real estate of a phone screen. High-value apps are the ones people will use every day. For example, an app that links them to coupons, sales, or help with services you offer, or provides them real-time information valuable to how they run their business. Think special offers for your products and services or just news that they can use.
The security that is experienced due to the technology is hard to ignore. Artificial intelligence is also used to predicting the trends and make sure the company can make products to fit the market demand thus creating a better demand: supply ratio.