Having a workforce that is as productive as it is efficient is a constant battle in business. You need to keep staff motivated, and you need to keep staff working tirelessly without them blaming the business for their lack of life outside of work hours! And this is doubly so when you are running a startup with the bare minimum of staff, finances, and everything else! So, how can you find ways around this? Technology is the place to start. There are so many systems and software that you can use that helps make staff feel a lot less pressure and can help get the more menial tasks done with the minimum of fuss, but also there are many other systems to get the business working in a better state than ever before. Intrigued? Here are some tools many businesses use to help keep everything ticking over.
Landing Page Tools
A problem that small businesses can have is not having enough of the right specialists on board. Having a landing page on your website is something that we can all try to create, but it would usually require the skills and finesse of an IT guru. If you are in a rush to get a website launched, using landing page tools will take the stress out of the process. A lot of these items of software have their own special tools you can take advantage of, such as in-built forms, image editing facilities and ways to test the page out before you launch it so you can see how user-friendly it actually is. In addition to this, there are many templates for you to choose from, so if you are really in a rush to get a website up, you can use this as a stopgap while you get the funds together for a website design expert.
HR Software
There are many items of hr system software that can help speed up the business process. For example, if you need to manage your payroll more effectively, there are HR software packages that have information on tax regulations and other important financial details. This is a life saver for the small business as it can save you money on hiring an accountant with specialist knowledge. Having the right HR software will help you to be a lot more efficient with your employees if you need to manage absences, check the progress of a new staff member, and all in one centralized system.
EDI
This is short for Electronic Data Interchange, and it is a tool widely used in businesses where information needs to be transferred much quicker than is normally required. Sending data from one company to another used to be a timely process, especially if the company was based on the other side of the world, but now with EDI it is instant. EDI does require a specialist to help you integrate it into your own work systems because data transference of this kind uses its own EDI “language,” but you can hire a service provider to do this for you, or you can invest in some EDI software that does the translating for you.
CRM
This is short for Customer Relationship Management. It is software that is used to make the back-office functions a lot more efficient. Finding the right CRM for your business is a task in itself, but once the right one has been located, you will wonder what you ever did without it before! As one of, if not the most important relationship in business is the one you share with your customers, having the right software to remind you to contact them or to chase up a lead, is very important. In essence, CRM is another method of workflow management. But its addition to a business is an essential one. It can help maintain customer relationships, manage workflow and also automate many additional functions, like tech, HR, and services. As a system like this can take the thinking out of the admin tasks, it leaves your staff free to work on other aspects of the business. So if you need to outsource your staff for other more pressing matters, having CRM in place will bring some much-needed peace of mind.
Scheduling Software
Need to be constantly reminded? Using a tool such as CoSchedule is a great way to keep yourself up to date on the things that need doing in business. If you are very efficient with blogs, and you need to be churning them out every couple of days, or you need to stick to a stringent marketing schedule, this type of software can really help.
