The Essential Tech Tools and Resources Your Business Should Be Investing In

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April 23, 2021 Business

Running a business in a competitive landscape can be a challenging task at any time, but even more so when you have countless competitors around you online. Luckily, there are also several great tools and resources available to help make your online brand as high performing as possible. Read on to find out more about what you should be investing your money in to get the best results.

A good cyber security package

Cyber security is one of the most important things to consider when you’re running a business, whether it’s purely internet-based or if you have both a physical presence and an online space. As vast amounts of information are now stored or accessed via the internet, making sure that this is also managed in a safe and secure way is integral to protecting both your business and your customers.

Cybersecurity breaches can be costly, and potentially fatal mistakes for a business. They can impact you in many ways, depending on the type of attack. An accidental release of confidential customer information, or a deliberate breach when this information is stolen and released, can have a devastating impact on customers, by leaving them vulnerable. Any kind of inappropriately shared information may put them at risk of financial or personal harm, and if this has happened as a result of your business practices, it will inevitably damage confidence in your brand, as well as affecting its long-term reputation.

There are also other kinds of cybersecurity threats to consider, such as targeted attacks designed to limit a business’s activities, by taking a website offline and cutting them off from its audience, or fraudulent activities where a criminal may impersonate your site to steal financial information or other data. Investing in a robust security package and making sure that it is regularly updated can be an effective way of minimizing the risk your business is exposed to.

Communication tools and resources

Communication is essential for a successful team, whether you’re all working in the same place, or are spread out all across the world. While businesses might have relied on calls or emails in the past, the development of technology has seen a huge evolution in how we communicate with each other, and there are now many different tools available to choose from.

Emails and calls can still be a useful way to communicate, of course, particularly when you need to share important information or address something verbally. However, these forms can get messy when you are trying to navigate communication across several people, and messaging platforms such as this slack competitor are often a useful alternative.

These platforms can allow you to designate different teams and members, organize the tasks or projects that need to be completed, and assess their progress easily, at a glance. As individuals can share and exchange information and see who is involved in which task, this can be much more straightforward than having to rely on making several calls or emailing many people in order to find the right person.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is another development that has changed the way we manage information and data. While in the past, businesses could expect to have either substantial files of physical printouts, documentation, and other material stored in person, this has moved on to digital formatting for the most part. However, for a long time, this meant that businesses then had to deal with the responsibility of storing vast amounts of digital information on computers, hard drives, and other archives, as well as making sure that they were appropriately backed up, to prevent any loss through corruption or loss of files.

Instead of relying upon having an ample supply of physical hard drives to store everything on, cloud computing instead allows a business to upload everything to a remote server online. This has the advantage of enabling anyone who needs to access something to be able to do so, wherever they are. It also makes it much easier for a business to work remotely, as they no longer need to depend on being in any single place in order to work effectively.

Online documentation management software

If your business requires sending out many forms, contracts, or other documentation that needs to be verified, signed, or checked on a regular basis, you may have relied on using physical copies in the past. It’s hard, after all, to securely sign a word-processed form and return it online while maintaining the security of a confidential document or verify that the correct person has signed it off.

Online documentation management can be a great way of resolving this issue, and allow you to share and send out documents to the relevant party instantly. There are many different providers that allow you to add a digital signature, ensure that it has gone to the correct person, and store it away so that it can be accessed at a later date if and when this is needed.

Digital analytics

Having insight into who your customers are and what they are doing can be a useful way of finding out how to meet their needs in the best way. Analytic data can give you a detailed and comprehensive view of behavior, such as web traffic information that can show how users interact with your website, e-commerce analysis that can reveal trends in online shopping, not to mention basket abandonment and other useful issues, and all the other kinds of searches that might highlight your business to people.

Analytics can also help you get insight into what other businesses, especially your competitors, are doing. By reviewing their actions and the steps that they take to win customers, you can develop more effective marketing strategies, helping your business to perform at a higher level. You can often find many analytic packages that can be integrated with your website, e-commerce site, and other aspects, such as your emails and social media channels.