People before the 1970s watched and read several science fiction movies and books for entertainment and believed that modern technology will always remain in the books and never come to life. However, this phenomenon changed, and over the years, technology has changed the world and day to day life for the better.
We aren’t exaggerating if we are saying that both people and business are dominated by technologies, and especially for business, technology has become the priority. The modern technology supplies and trends of computers, smartphones, and laptops have widely changed business processes and activities. Here are few technological trends for small business that are responsible for forming these changes in the small business sector.
Resource Planning Alleviating Small Business Processes
When talking about enterprise resource planning, we mean a process that gathers and organizes business data through an integrated software suite. Precisely, for small business enterprises, these processes are gaining high popularity. Today, in this pandemic times, managing customer relationship, human resources, and accounting simultaneously are quite difficult, and these enterprise resource planning systems helps in automating and generalizing business management with just a small software. There are multiple ERP systems developed recently, including NetSuite ERP, Scoro, Microsoft Dynamic, SAGE, SAP, and many others. These software provide solutions for free. So, if you are a small business owner, then you should definitely try one.
Blockchain Implementation
While doing any transaction, businesses always look for privacy and security. These rapports are the primary requirement of every business, whether small, medium, or large. Blockchain is the new technology in buisness offering high-end privacy and security with transparency. The implementation of blockchain helps small businesses in many ways, including:
- Increasing the number of secure payment modes
- Eliminating middleman
- Fostering online anonymity
- Improving customer data security
- Facilitating tailoring of Ad campaigns to attract the target audience
Keeping Mobile Ads over Television Ads
Today, mobile devices have outnumbered televisions by three times, making them more user-friendly and customer’s first choice. Therefore, it is another opportunity for small businesses to attract potential customers through mobile advertisement. Such type of Ads is represented as banners that are displayed through different mobile websites, downloaded apps, and games. There are different ways in which small businesses can use Mobile Ads to drive their revenue.
- By conquesting the competitors
- Targeting the audience mainly through college campuses
- Finding employees through targeted mobile Ads.
Implementation of Digital Marketing as Small Business Technology Trend
Taking at a high level, digital marketing is advertising through digital channels, including emails, social media, mobile applications, and other online media channels. Today, digital marketing has been evolved into its own dynamic industry, which has prompted wholesale changes in the digital marketing interplanetary, with companies improving their websites to pull in higher search engine rankings. Implementation of digital marketing technology saves cost and spike up the reach and growth of small businesses in a short stretch of time.
Online Payment Method as a Safe Technology
The earlier barter system changed to the exchange of currency, and people thought this would never get forged and counterfeited. However, with the enormous and rapid alteration in technology, every phenomenon becomes vague. In recent times, the introduction of electronic money transfer and payment methods has received a lot of appreciation and admiration. Everyone today is carrying a Visa and Master card along with NFC enabled phones. Notably, these modes of payments are highly accepted by small businesses, which is a reason customers can make easy payments without any cash in hand. If you are still not accepting payments through these technologies, then you should upgrade yourself with the latest tech payment methods to keep up with the world.
AI as Automation
Processing a large amount of data in this technological world is now a cakewalk. Many successful companies are using AI to process large data sets and perform redundant tasks to reduce and improve human efforts and work. The introduction of autonomous interfaces like Chatbots have become self-righteous at the moment and are predicted to become a cost-reduction technique in the near future.
Video Marketing as a Technological Trend
For every businessman, it is necessary to give your business a manifestation of the internet to connect with consumer’s business channels and build a strong network. One of the most demanded marketing and communication channel is video marketing. A decade ago, radio, television, and newspapers were the only advertisement options available to businesses. However, today, modern technology has changed everything and now the internet and social media channels are in the limelight. People now surf on the web and do little to considerable research before making a purchase. Therefore, marketing your business through different media channels will help you reach your target audience. The social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the most used platforms for marketing and adopting video marketing is the best choice to advertise your products and services.
Intensification of Application Programming Interface
The application programming interface is a software intermediary allowing two applications and online connected services to talk to each other. There are many online services for business solutions that are available in the world of the internet. Such an amount of services might seem quite a lot when it comes to working in synchronization. Opportunely, APIs allow businesses to utilize all the power for every online service by forming interoperability between different online service platforms.
5G: The Next Generation of Communication
The 3G and 4G technologies have allowed us to browse the internet, increased bandwidth for streaming different websites and applications, and enabled us to use data-driven services at high speed. However, the 5G technologies are expected to revolutionize our lives at a higher speed by enabling the services that rely on advanced technologies such as AR and VR, together with cloud-based gaming services like Google Stadia and NVidia GeForce Now. Also, just about every telecom company like Verizon, T-Mobile, Apple, Nokia Corp, Qualcomm are now working on creating 5G applications to make the world work with more speed.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
Virtual reality and augmented reality uses technology to create more immersive digital experiences bringing science concepts to life. VR immerses the user in an environment, whereas AR enhances their environment. In 2021, it is expected that AR and VR technologies will have enormous potential in training, entertainment, education, marketing, and even rehabilitation after an injury apart from being used in gaming.
As being a high-end technology, both technology needs, trends, and solutions differ from time to time. If you really want to boost your business profit and customer reach, you should consider these cutting-edge trends and implement them in your processes and activities.