When used strategically, technology can improve the way businesses operate, helping them overcome hurdles and solve problems.

Vitally every industry has been profoundly changed by technology. The advent of the internet, in particular, seismically shifted everything from newspapers to education to commerce. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos saw how important technology was in 1994 when he stumbled on the statistic that web usage was growing by 2,300 percent a month. He took this clue and ran with it, recognizing that online sales and internet business were likely to be the golden ticket of the future. And he was right: in one year, his brand-new company boasted more than $15.7 million in sales.

The takeaway? When used correctly, technology can send a company to the moon in terms of profits—but on a more macro level, it can also be the boost it needs to solve complex and individualized problems and function efficiently. And in today’s competitive business world, such an advantage can make all the difference. Here are some common challenges businesses face and how innovation has stepped up to bridge the gap.

Inefficiency

A lot of tasks are repetitive and tedious but important for the successful operation of the business. If they’re bogging down your team’s productivity, consider robotic process automation (RPA), which utilizes bots to perform activities such as logging into applications and systems, entering data, and running routine reports. By automating this work, you can remove its burden from your employees and redirect them to more fulfilling and higher-level tasks that make better use of their skills. As a bonus, many also consider RPA to be more reliably accurate and better at compliance. Project management software is another essential tool to help keep everyone on the same page with milestones and tasks, especially since personal time management and organization can be variable. At the same time, there is enough flexibility and available customization in these programs to make them suitable for multiple work styles. RPA projects can also benefit from using project management software to help oversee the implementation of these automated tasks.

Clunky workflows

Business process management (BPM) is a practice that seeks to analyze, model, and improve end-to-end business processes to optimize efficiency and effectiveness, and there is plenty of software that can help put these new processes into practice. To begin, work on understanding the steps and tasks in each of your internal processes. With this information, you can streamline workflows, reduce errors, and remove obstacles that are causing unnecessary bottlenecks. After you have put your updated plan in motion, monitor and analyze KPIs and other metrics to assess if it’s still working or if tasks need to be reassigned.

Communication barriers

Businesses can’t run well without clear communication and collaboration. Especially with the prevalence of remote working, team members need ways to stay connected in real time. Platforms that offer instant messaging and collaboration tools enable quick and efficient discussion and make finalizing time-sensitive decisions feasible.

Videoconferencing technology allows for geographically dispersed employees to have face-to-face communication, which can be useful for people who feel more connected when they can read body language and other visual signals. Some platforms have additional tools to foster collaboration, like meeting notes and a recording button, which provide everyone a way to reference the discussion afterward.

Project management software is also a piece of the communication puzzle. Besides optimizing workflows, it allows team members to share documents, map out projects, and work simultaneously on shared tasks. By using these technologies, businesses can reduce communication gaps and nurture

Customer engagement and targeting

Given how easy it is to leave public reviews and feedback on multiple platforms, companies should take advantage of any opportunity to connect positively with customers, whether through social media, email, live chat, or direct messaging. This is another area where RPA can come in handy: it can enable you to let chatbots field and resolve common complaints and issues or to collect important data that can help a human representative provide detailed follow-up support. Using RPA in this way can reduce costs, improve customer experience, and ease the labor and lead time of agents.

Technology can also be used to collect and analyze customer data so you can be more strategic with your marketing and advertising dollars. Personalized marketing allows you to pull back the curtain on your customers’ preferences and then launch targeted campaigns with higher conversion rates.

Cybersecurity

As innovation accelerates in the world of tech, so does the threat to security. But technology can also be used to neutralize that threat. For instance, a blockchain is a great tool for handling secure information because it stores data in blocks linked in a chain coupled with cryptography. Blockchains are considered immutable, meaning they can’t be altered, and therefore all parties can feel secure knowing any recorded transaction is safe from tampering.

Firewalls are another layer of protection you should install for your peace of mind. They act as a barrier between incoming and outgoing network traffic, filtering what can pass through and what is blocked based on what you’ve authorized. As a complementary technology, consider also getting an intrusion detection system (IDS), which does not provide tangible protection but rather monitors network activities and alerts your IT staff to potentially threatening circumstances. Multiple layers and approaches to cybersecurity will provide the best overall protection.

It’s easy for businesses to fall into old habits when it comes to innovation. Fear of failure, lack of resources, and resistance to change are common excuses for why a company may not be pursuing new strategies.

In an article for Forbes, Hod Fleishman, vice president and partner at Boston Consulting Group, cautions that as technology continues on its swift, upward trajectory, employees will need to level up along with it or risk not understanding how to make it work for the company. He recommends asking yourself four questions about technology: What advancements are available? What can it do? What issues does your business have? And can this technology solve those issues? The answers can offer guidance and direction for making important choices for your business.

As businesses traverse a complex digital landscape, technology can be an indispensable companion. From optimizing workflows to facilitating communication to expediting lead conversions, it will enable you to drive innovation at your company, ultimately leading to greater success.

TAKE ACTION:
Ask yourself what technological advancements could help your business today.