Technology continues to advance at a rapid rate, as we increasingly use smart devices and mobile phones, we also notice our business is changing. The method by which we approach starting businesses, seizing opportunities and optimising our established organisations has drastically shifted over the past 30 years. Almost entirely due to how technology has changed society.
In this post, the team at BSPOKE Software explore exactly what growing technologies have done to today’s organisations. We’ll find out how organisations can use these changes to develop, grow and prosper.
Communication
Successful businesses rely heavily on communication. Whether it’s between team members, suppliers or the organisation and its customers, communication is the foundation for business success. The advent of the current technological era has completely changed how we communicate and in turn, altered business structure and opportunities.
Emails have become a staple of business communication, enabling all but instantaneous transfer of messages and files. This has a huge impact on how modern businesses operate, enabling remote work from anywhere with an internet connection.
After email, instant messaging services specifically designed for business use became popular. Platforms like Slack have seen a surge in popularity over recent years, enabling businesses to work in real-time and avoiding the growing issue of lost emails and cluttered inboxes.
Finally, the latest major technological advancement and widely adopted communication method is video calling. Particularly in light of recent events during the pandemic, video calling has seen a huge rise in use. As face-to-face meetings become redundant, we may see our approach to work completely charge over the next decade, with more remote working businesses.
Data-driven analytics
Alongside the above, the internet has provided a number of other revolutionary changes. In particular, how we can harness data. Analysing user data, audience demographics, product sales is markedly easier than before, making business decisions simpler.
Data-driven decision making is always more reliable and often more successful than instinct-based decision making and by putting this data at everyone’s disposal, technology has allowed new, digitally aware organisations to survive and succeed much more easily.
In some cases, new digital-first organisations have eclipsed their competitors with hundreds of years of history and an established brand reputation, which just shows the power of data.
Marketing
The increased availability of data easily collected by technology, is most commonly used for marketing. Technology has completely changed how businesses market today. Mass marketing used to be done via television, radio, posters and billboard placements, amongst other media.
Whilst this worked for some organisations, it made advertising for new brands extremely challenging and no organisation could efficiently target their specific audience and demographic.
In comparison, today’s marketing is incredibly granular. Businesses can segment and focus their advertising to extremely targeted audiences and demographics, tailoring their messaging and approach. This is entirely possible due to technological advancement and data analytics.
Tools like Google Analytics and SEMRush allow businesses to see exactly how users are coming to their website and what they are buying. This allows for further audience segmentation and targeting.
Before technology, marketing was often about brand advertising and hope. Now, it’s about continued optimisation and increasingly focused targeting that relies on actual data.
Business models, payment services and trading
It’s important to highlight how technology has revolutionised the types of businesses that can be successful. With the internet in place, organisations can develop entire business models focused on digital products or platforms. Whether it’s selling access to specific software or utilising an e-commerce platform to sell clothing online, modern businesses needn’t have live customer contact to provide a service or product.
This simple statement has completely changed the outlook of modern business and the economy. Businesses need to be aware that if they neglect digital power, they run the risk of being left behind. Witness the number of department stores and household brands which have collapsed over recent years, overtaken by online superstores.
As well as increasing the types of businesses which can succeed and grow, technology has made it significantly easier to build a business. The best example of this is dropshipping, a style of business which saw huge popularity throughout the mid and late-2010s.
Dropshipping describes the process of setting up an online store where products to customers are shipped directly to the customer from the manufacturer.
This completely removes the need for holding stock or negotiating postage agreements with suppliers and allows you to run an entire e-commerce business from home. Dropshipping could be done by anyone with a small amount of business acumen and technological awareness.
Productivity optimisation and remote work
After the pandemic, rapid adoption of productivity tools, workplace management systems and remote working software has been profound. Tools like Microsoft Teams, Monday and Asana have seen a huge surge in usage as organisations move to remote working.
Technology has also enabled businesses to streamline operations. In the past, many organisations had to deal with paper records and files. This was particularly time-consuming for companies that took large numbers of orders.
Organisations can streamline their processes and create a dedicated platform tailored to their needs. The major advantage of this approach is its innate versatility.
Businesses can create the perfect solution for their business whether that involves complex data calculations, client relationship management or simple data entry and storage.
BSPOKE Software, are a specialist company who build custom software solutions that are shaped to your exact requirements. We have over a 20 years’ experience working across countless industries. We pride ourselves on the latest technological advancements to future-proof your solution.
For more information about how a bespoke software solution can help you, get in touch with our team today.
