You’re in the Tech Biz Now

To keep operations running smoothly and improve your competitive edge, it is more and more necessary to use technology to your best advantage. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in – unless you’re a retiree who does handyman jobs around the neighborhood for some extra cash. The focus of today’s companies is not just on selling goods and services. In order to do business, you must also master various types of digital tools – and have top-notch IT Support to keep it all running.

The areas of prime importance include software, payment systems, computers, Wi-Fi networks, mobile devices, VoIP phone systems, and more. You also need to protect your devices and network. If that technology isn’t working, it can impact business significantly.

Pingdom calculates the cost of one hour of IT downtime, with small businesses averaging between a low of $8,220 per hour to a high of $25,620 per hour. Large companies pay much more: generally, more than $1,000,000 per hour. Pingdom cites these well-known and costly cases:

In March 2015, Apple lost approximately $25 million over an outage lasting 12 hours.
In August 2016, Delta lost almost $150 million during five hours of downtime.
In March 2019, Facebook had a 14-hour downtime costing them nearly $90 million.

Relying so much on technology means that out of sheer necessity every company is now a technology company. It doesn’t matter what products you sell or services you provide, you need to have your ‘tech hat' on. In today’s world, this is the new normal.

Technology is the Backbone of Any Business

Many things are important to your business, and arguments can easily be made for factors such as customers, sales, customer service, etc., but if your tech fails, you cannot take good care of any of them. This is especially true these days, when many companies have a largely remote workforce or a hybrid work model.

Technology Is a Critical Part of Business

Enterprises once thought to be ‘low-tech’ are technology dependent now. Even ranchers and farmers use tech to check commodity prices, sell livestock, and keep their books. Most companies couldn’t operate without their software or without databases filled with vital information.

This is the very reason why IT downtime is so devastating. Remember the breaches that impacted global meat producer JBS and the Colonial pipeline a few years ago? Those companies had to halt operations because of ransomware attacks, and in the case of Colonial, the stoppage made finding open gas stations on the East Coast difficult, which was disruptive for business there.

Both companies paid the ransom so they could begin operating again. If the technology that’s become a normal part of our day went down, a lot of companies would close.

Customers Expect an Excellent Digital Experience

The quality of the customer experience ranked first in a survey of top business priorities for the next 5 years. Nearly 46% of respondents said it was at the top of their list.

Customers can seriously think about picking up and going elsewhere after just one bad experience with your company. Two bad experiences and they are extremely likely to drop you. In our digital world, those experiences are often:

Navigating your website

Checkout experience

Appointment scheduling ease

Shipping notifications

Helpfulness of online chat

Response time from customer support

Ability to contact your company via social media

If you want to keep up with (and ahead of) consumer expectations in 2024 and beyond, you need to use technology. From your website to your payment experience, people expect a smooth digital flow.

Take a personal story about Uber. About 18 months ago, the app would not let me book a ride – it kept circling around and repeatedly asking for credit/debit card info (which it already had). After putting in my payment info a few times, I switched to Lyft and never went back.

Employee Productivity is Driven By Devices

How can you expect your employees to work productively without the use of a computer, tablet, or mobile device? These devices keep staff connected to each other and your customer data. Devices enable communication and are how much of the work in offices gets done. If they don’t run well, business productivity suffers. This is a job for your internal IT support or outsourced Managed Services Provider (MSP).

Use AI & Automation to Stay Competitive

Business moves much faster with AI and automation. AI can perform rote tasks and personalize a consumer shopping experience. Automation can help sales teams close 30% more deals and improve conversions by over 200%.

It is of paramount importance that companies integrate technology tools with AI and automation capabilities just to stay competitive in an unforgiving marketplace, so this means they need to know the best ways to use these tools and integrate them well with existing solutions.

Data Generation is at a Rapid Pace

The pace at which today’s companies generate data of all kinds is dizzying. A pace like this would be untenable if we were back in the days of paper files. You would need a separate building just for all the filing cabinets.

Now, data of all types - files, documents, and customer records - are primarily digital. Keeping track of all that information and making it easily searchable requires technology skills.

Everyone is Foregoing Legacy Systems

Could you interact with the vendors you use for your business offline only? Spin the old Rolodex and dial your rotary landline phone? No email, no digital documents? Everything by phone with a pad and pen for notes? If that’s your business ‘modus operandi,’ the marketplace is already leaving you in the dust, but in most cases, the answer to those questions is ‘No’ – and the same goes for your vendors and clients.

Your vendors and business clients are now technology companies in the same way yours is. Most have already left behind the inconvenience and slowness of legacy systems like fax machines and paper documents. Thus, you need to use digital means to interact with them – and to be effective, you have to be good at it.

No Innovative Tech? No Growth

We are all human and have have limitations in terms of how much we can mentally and physically do in a day. Not so for computers and technology, which have exponentially improved on human frailty by doing a lot of the processing and manual work. This leaves you time for higher effectiveness in the most important components of your work.

At ITFIRM.COM, we routinely incorporate AI and automation into our infrastructure to perform a host of menial tasks for our clients, freeing up our IT HelpDesk crew to handle more sophisticated issues.

The cloud goes far to create a level playing field for small businesses. It allows smaller companies to affordably leverage technology to do things faster and more effectively.

Without the smart use of digital tools, it’s difficult to continue growing your business – it’s like being Sisyphus, grunting and groaning while you roll the same boulder uphill in perpetuity. Review your technology infrastructure and looking at innovations on the horizon. The rule of thumb for business is: ‘Modernize or Die.’

Think of it this way: When was the last time you saw a horse and buggy on the freeway?

Effective Business Continuity Depends on Technology

Business continuity is about keeping your company running despite any crisis, whether natural or man-made. One natural disaster could severely impact a building and everything in it. But, if you are storing your data in the cloud and using cloud software, your business can still operate.

Businesses without a comprehensive Backup & Disaster Recovery Plan are at significant risk. Tech solutions create the ability to continue operating from anywhere, increasing business resiliency.