When it comes to any business, whether it being a simple mom and pop shop to a Fortune 500 company
, you need every advantage possible to compete with your competitors. One thing that I have noticed is that more and more businesses are beginning to use different technology tools to help give them an advantage. Some businesses are still afraid of technology but in reality it can be your businesses best friend. Technology can not only help increase productivity but also help your business run better. When it comes to deciding which types technology to use for your business you need to figure out your goals of what you want to accomplish, what is your budget and figuring out a time frame to get this all set up. When deciding on different tools you can use, here are some that I recommend you check out to see if they would be the right fit for you and your business.
For businesses one of the biggest buzz words out there is social media. You need to interact with your customers and they are all on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Problem is you don't have the time to go to every social network as there seems to be a new one popping up each week and you need something that can help you monitor conversations for mentions of your business. Well if you're looking for something to try out I recommend either Tweetdeck or HootSuite which will allow you to aggregate all your accounts into one and easily be able to see what's going on. Another piece of software that can help your business through the development process is called One Desk . This software has a lot of different features from social media monitoring to customer feedback management. In simple terms it helps connect employers, partners and customers build a better product by having all of the feedback and ideas in one spot.
Another tools you should consider if your business is in sales is a good CRM solution. This will allow you to easily store important info on your customers that you can easily get to. One of the top CRM companies is Salesforce who charges a reasonable monthly fee per user. Another piece of software to consider if you deal with a lot of different clients is some sort of project management software or enterprise social network that will help your business easily collaborate on different project. Some you can check out our Yammer, Asana and Basecamehq which all provide simple solutions that can help your employees work together more easily.
When it comes to running your business you need every advantage you can get and using web apps and different forms of technology can help your business increase productivity and sales.