Technology and business have always gone hand in hand. From the development of cattle farming in the 19th century to Henry Ford’s assembly line in 1913, the current use of artificial intelligence, and everything in between, a country’s economic might has been measured by its available technology ever since the Industrial Evolution hit England in the 1760s.
Today, the more of it you have, the better the chances of success your firm will create and the wider the gap there will be between you and the competition.
But how about small and medium-sized firms? Can they compete? While the answers to these and other questions require a lot of research and analysis, there are still ways all companies can maximize their chances of prosperity by leveraging the technology they have.
Let us look at some examples of them.
Managing Systems and Maintenance
Whether you are working in a giant, multi-national corporation with branches in all corners of the globe or the owner of a small mom-and-pop enterprise, few things are more important than managing and maintaining the systems in which your business operates. After all, without them, it will be impossible for your firm to do even the simplest of tasks. Examples include the tracking and safekeeping of sales records, human resource management software, and corporate expenses.
But where does one begin, especially in a large organization where information technology is at the heart of most, if not all, processes? For starters, you can look into central SQL server tuning services. As time goes by, and they begin to decay, things can quickly escalate, affecting the responsiveness of your applications, system performance, and user productivity. Others are computer hardware, peripherals, and networking components.
Customer Relationship Management
In the 21st century, any self-respecting company will have a customer relationship management platform or CRM. Whether you work in industries as varied as food, civil engineering, real estate, or general retail, you need a system to allow you to manage existing customers and make the process of finding new ones more efficient and affordable.
For those of us unfamiliar with this acronym, a CRM is simply a tool or set of tools designed to help organizations administer their interactions with clients and analyze large amounts of information. In Layman’s terms, it is a malleable, transformative database with different levels of functionality and optional features based on specific corporate needs.
As with most things, when it comes to CRMs, there are plenty to choose from depending on what you want and how much you are willing to spend.
Employee Training and Development
Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, and IBM Global Technology Services are three of the best IT consulting firms in the world. If you find yourself in trouble or require technical or managerial advice and you have the financial resources, chances are at least two of them will be able to help you. And if you have the right educational background or relevant experience, they are also a few of the highest-paid enterprises you can join.
Aside from a world-known name and an excellent reputation of high-quality service and reliability, what sets these and other firms apart from the competition is the quality of their employees. It is the people who hold the true value of these corporations as they are responsible for developing, creating, and deploying technology-based solutions for their clientele.
Of course, not all of us are the CEOs of major global organizations, and many of our businesses have little to nothing to do with IT. Still, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t train our staff and provide them with essential IT knowledge to succeed.
Data Privacy and Protection
In the past few years, there have been dozens of cases of data breaches in some of the biggest companies and government institutions around the world. There are several reasons for this.
First, some businesses and state-owned entities don’t have the necessary technology to protect themselves from cybercriminals. Second, hackers themselves are oftentimes much more intelligent and well versed in technology than the people and agencies in charge of stopping them. Finally, even those with adequate safety mechanisms and protection protocols lack the education to use them at their most optimal levels.
While it is true that escalation is unstoppable and the more protection there is available, the smarter hackers will become, there are still ways to protect your business from attacks and save yourself millions of dollars in preventable damages.
Four areas where technology plays a vital role in business are systems management and maintenance, the advent of CRMs, employee training and development, and issues with data protection and security. In this day and age, they continue to define how business is done, regardless of industry or market position.
