It’s no secret that technology is driving innovation and improvements across global industries. Although disruptive at first, modern technological solutions are quite beneficial for companies of all sizes. As a matter of fact, technology can help businesses remain relevant and competitive in their respective markets.
What’s more, it can greatly improve efficiencies, business productivity, and overall performance for teams. But no matter how good the technology you’ve implemented is at driving business goals, it’s still meaningless without the people to use it effectively in the first place.
Implementing the right technological solution shouldn’t be solely focused on driving revenue — it should also support your employees to become more productive and efficient to increase your margins. Make no mistake that employees aren’t going to become motivated or engaged unless you encourage them to do so. With that said, here are a few ways technology can help you increase business productivity:
1. Streamline communications
Consistent communication company-wide is crucial for not just a company’s success but for employee productivity as well. Without clear and effective lines of communication, your company will lose money and your employees will waste their precious time. As a matter of fact, it’s estimated that small businesses with around 100 employees lose $420,000 annually due to miscommunications.
With that in mind, leveraging technology to streamline communications should be a top priority. The best way you can achieve this is to analyze your current communication methods and identify opportunities for improvements. For example, if you use email, instant messaging, video conferencing and VoIP, there are many opportunities for vital information to fall through the cracks.
Nowadays, there are various tools and software specifically designed for improving communication across the entire company, that you can use in your endeavor. Using tools like Slack to keep conversations organized and a transcription service to turn audio from meetings into written conversations can help to keep all conversations accounted for.
In addition, preventing siloing of information is vital for ensuring that employees have the necessary data required to effectively perform their everyday tasks. Ensuring good communication not only between employees themselves but between employees and management is essential for optimal performance and business productivity.
Provide reliable devices
Employees in many ways rely on technology to perform their duties. Today, you cannot imagine an office without computers, cloud storage or productivity suites. If you want your employees to be efficient and productive, you must ensure they have the right technology at their disposal.
In other words, make sure your employees don’t work on obsolete technology that prevents them from achieving optimal levels of productivity. As an example, providing employees with computers that have an SSD (Solid State Drive) is one of the steps you can take to speed up workflow.
SSD drives are becoming more popular and widely used due to them being more reliable and faster than HDD (Hard Disk Drives). There are various manufacturers on the market, with Samsung SSD models being some of the best in price/quality range. Faster and more reliable devices that can handle multiple applications at once means employees won’t experience unnecessary delays or inconveniences, which will ultimately hurt their productivity.
Enhance collaboration
Collaboration is crucial for employee productivity and for an effective flow of business operations. Without collaboration, your employees cannot work on projects efficiently and they cannot share ideas or vital information with their colleagues or other teams working on the same project. When it comes to improving collaboration, technology can be of great assistance. Many companies improve collaboration company-wide by implementing collaboration tools or project management software.
In addition, you can implement an intranet solution for your company, in order to streamline entire processes and ensure cooperation, as well as effective communication between all members of your organization. Moreover, if your company leverages remote work, it’s essential that your remote employees have access to up to date sales collateral, branding requirements and ad-hoc templates. After all, even though remote employees may not be physically present in the office, they’re still valuable members of your team and they shouldn’t be isolated.
Consider automation
Automation is one of the key technologies you can implement to increase business productivity. Automation can not only improve a company’s performance but also help employees with their daily mundane and repetitive tasks. It can be implemented in various business operations today, which can free up time for your employees and allow them to be more productive.
For instance, you can automate time tracking to determine how your employees spend their time on work and measure their productivity. You can also update website performance reporting with Google Analytics and tag management updates. Moreover, automation can streamline various tasks, such as email responses, social media posting and many others that would normally require manual, time-intensive labor.
The best part, using tools such as Zapier, you can orchestrate multiple automated processes in a row to streamline entire workflows. That way, you’ll ensure that not only your employees can become more productive and efficient at their jobs but also ensure that your company can maintain its competitive edge by improving product development costs and time to market efforts.
Conclusion
Technology is well-known for driving changes in companies of all sizes, which means it’s also known for being quite disruptive towards industries that are unfamiliar with rapid changes. There’s no denying the fact that upgrading technology can bring innovation and improvements to the painstaking process. With the right strategy and the right approach, your company can vastly boost business productivity with help from modern businesses solutions.
