In today’s world, a lot of marketers and marketing experts alike are stuck in the old-school train of thought that any general technological upgrade will mainly be a new version of an old system. This held true in the late 90’s and the turn of the Century, but not anymore. The sheer rate of technological breakthroughs have accelerated to such an extent that at times, it is almost impossible for the simple human mind to keep up. Sure, some upgrades might be new versions, but they are a lot more than that, giving you the unique opportunity to design a whole new digital enterprise.
Sure, there is little doubt of the fact that whether you like it or not, your company is certainly dependent on technology in every little way. Be it machine learning, predictive analytics and big data, implementing such systems is the real challenge for most business owners out there. Moreover, with the increase in the size of the organisation at large, that, in itself, makes managing the technological changes all the more difficult.
Before one gets into the details of what is salesforce crm and everything else associated with it, there are a few things that you will need to understand first. And that is the fact that there are certain facets of your IT system that you will need to sort out. Knowing what to get right is one thing, but knowing how to get it right by means of proper planning, investing and designing the entire layout, is a whole new ball game. When it comes to keeping a check on excessive strides in technology, you will also have to keep a keen eye out for the expectations of your collective customer base as well.
On that note, let us get into the five ways to protect your business against the sweeping changes in technology:-
- Putting the aspect of customer value first: Even though it may be a bit expensive for you at first, any investment in technology will help you a great deal in the long run since your customers will have a better quality experience with more efficient operations. After a while, you should ideally be able to point out all of the measurable improvements in key metrics such as user experience, customer retention and the like.
- Focus on the training aspect: A great many technological changes go wrong or fail completely because of the aspect of training being rushed. Don’t be too much in a hurry in this regard. Training them and addressing their initial concerns should be done, but ideally, one should take it a step further and ensure good quality training practices so that the implementation process kicks off as smoothly as possible.
- Offering incentives: With new technology, one must look at the vital aspect of making employees care for the company and seeing that it has benefits, not only for the company, but for themselves as well. Of course, such a process cannot be forced in any way, but one can go about it by offering certain key incentives related to the new technology that has been introduced. Be sure to convince them that the new technology is for the benefit of everybody concerned and they will automatically welcome the change.
- Replacing any outdated hardware or software: This is an absolute must in every sense of the word. Not only will it end up consuming more electricity, but there is quite a high chance that your productivity is getting affected without you even realising it. For the upgrade of both your software and business applications, there are many options for you to choose from.
- Use cloud computing: You’ll be surprised how many potential benefits this has to offer to a business, especially a small one. Costs are greatly reduced, processes are much more streamlined and operational flexibility is increased to a considerable degree in every way possible. Nowadays, things have advanced to such an extent that the option of different cloud service models is also there.
- Mobile and search optimisation: Optimise your website for mobile traffic and search engine visibility. That way, you will avoid the chances of any missing sales. Also, the higher you rank in search engines, you will have a better level of visibility. Nowadays, most big companies have already jumped on the search engine optimisation bandwagon, so what are you waiting for?
- Simplifying your IT Architecture: Earlier, since so many coding languages and data structures existed within the IT system resulting in a complex network of technologies that were difficult to integrate and adapt in general. Now, however, this is no longer the case.
All in all, it would be in the best interests of literally everyone out there to go about modernising your company. Sure, getting your hands on all of the latest technologies is one thing, but do bear in mind that implementing and getting the best out of them is a whole different ball game altogether. Having realistic expectations and thoroughly planned targets from the very beginning itself is paramount, just so that you are prepared to face any kinds of deviations from your original expectations.
Talking about deviations, this is all the more apparent when one is in the process of implementing technologies that do not have a sufficient amount of data about them. As a result of this, one is bound to face some issues along the way since one is semi-clueless about the technology concerned.
Contrary to popular belief, a lot of the critical aspects to look out for are not purely technical in nature. They focus on engaging with individuals on a personal level, helping to facilitate constructive change in the service as well as going about learning how to design systems in a more effective manner.
Sarah Williams is a successful business woman who has a great interest in diverse subjects. She has learned a lot at the hands of every experience – good or bad. Her write-ups are a true manifestation of her rich experiences and her eventful life.
This is a Sponsored Post – the author has requested this post be shared on WE magazine for Women and WE were compensated for sharing.
