5 Technologies to Transform Your Small Business

By Chris Strammiello

Technology is an essential ingredient for fueling innovation, and the right technology can help you transform your business. But when was the last time that you not only assessed the tech gear, software, and services you are currently using but also looked to see what new components you should add to your computing infrastructure?

Here are five core technologies to include in that review, each with the ability to potentially transform your business.

1. Cloud computing

The cloud provides a way for small and mid-size businesses to increase business agility and introduce capabilities that would have been cost- or time-prohibitive to deploy on traditional technology, according to SMB market researcher Techaisle.

Cloud computing allows your company to deploy IT infrastructure as a service, typically with a “pay as you go” model that makes it easy to manage costs while adding or dialing down computing resources as needed. It’s designed for fast deployment so your firm can get applications up and running quickly—helping you focus on your business instead of your computing infrastructure.

2. Mobility

Mobile technology is ubiquitous today. Mobility means more devices (smartphones, tablets, and laptops), more locations (working in an office, home, cafe, on the road), and more mobile apps that improve productivity, collaboration, and your overall business.

Mobility is paying off, with 70% of firms saying it's improving customer service, according to a Sage U.S. SMB Survey on Mobile Devices. Creating a mobile-optimized website needs to be on your must-do list, as customers increasingly expect mobile-friendly sites as they research information and conduct e-commerce transactions.

3. Marketing automation

Another area where your company can cash in on technology is in marketing. Digital marketing techniques, such as multichannel campaign management and personalization, are driving more engagement and conversions with customers. A survey by Oracle Eloqua and BtoB magazine found 72% of SMB marketers believe modern marketing that facilitates targeting, engagement, conversions, analysis, and marketing technology will result in better sales. These tools can help you figure out what’s working and what’s not in terms of sales and ROI.

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• 10 Ways to Transform Your Business This Year
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• How Going Mobile Is Crucial to Your Business Success
• 12 Great Digital Tools to Help You Run a Successful Remote Company

4. Collaboration

Effective collaboration is critical to success in marketing programs and elsewhere in your business. PDF (Portable Document Format) is the standard format for business document collaboration. Yet, most business professionals lack adequate tools to enable true productivity and teamwork. PDF software eliminates document format-dependency bottlenecks that hinder your workflow and slow down business. Your teams can scan paper or convert electronic documents into searchable, editable PDF files, allowing markups and comments while retaining secure control over the original.

5. Big data

Fueled by unstructured content (scanned paper documents, video, and social media content) as well as structured information (databases and word processing documents), the volume of data flowing through your business never ceases to grow. Finding the business value locked inside all this information is what big data applications are all about.

The barriers to entry are coming down and small and mid-size businesses need to keep pace with large firms in using analytics tools to drill deeper into their data. These tools can help you analyze your data to determine things such as campaign effectiveness, or explain and predict patterns in sales wins and losses.

Getting started

After reading this list, if you are feeling a little uncertain on next steps, you are not alone. A survey by Brother International and SCORE found 64% of small business owners frequently feel overwhelmed with the number of technologies available to run their business.

To navigate through your tech research and decision process, follow the path of your peers. According to an SMB Group study, when asked what are their three most important information sources, SMBs pointed first to vendor and/or service provider websites (43%), followed by professional advisors and/or consultants (42%), and colleagues in similar businesses (41%).

Start the process now so you budget for the technology you need in the coming year to transform your business.

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