How does technology make the most profit for a business?

Posted 28th Feb 2016

Following on from last week: There is still that final ingredient which both people and processes need to help make a successful business – and that’s technology…

Gordon:  We talked about processes and people, now let’s consider technology and how it can help a business.  This is, of course, a huge subject as technology has affected and continues to affect us as individuals at both work and play.  As we mentioned before, technology is developing technology and therefore continues to improve at an exponential rate.

Julia: So how can technology be applied to a business to improve its performance?

Gordon: I think the first area to consider, having looked at your business processes, is not to fall in the trap of simply replacing a process with a piece of technology.  For example, if you have a method of work that contains, say, five processes, it doesn’t make sense to replace one of the processes with a piece of technology without considering all of the processes and whether all are needed.  All that will happen is that you will probably speed up an ineffective set of processes.

Julia: OK, so streamline your processes and then apply technology?

Gordon: Yes.  The next step is to understand what you want from technology and what technology can give you.  One of the key elements to business is being flexible and responding quickly to customer needs.  Take the company Golf Breaks for example.  Having chosen a golf package, where the place, hotel, golf courses and transport have been picked, Golf Breaks ability to change anyone of the factors is at a push of a button and a new package sent out to a customer in minutes.

Effective communication is also important to business.  Whether this is between businesses or individuals, the ability to respond electronically through email, mobile phones in anyplace and anywhere will ensure that customer needs are met.  Using the right product, to the right customer, at the right price, at the right time, through the right channel to satisfy the customer’s need will undoubtedly lead to customer retention.   I think a great example here is the use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM).  Capturing customer information through point-of-contact devices particularly and acting on such by promoting new products and offers based on historical data has the potential to vastly improve sales.  This also suggests that making better use of information is key and making a difference to those companies that use effective communication.

Finally, of course, technology can improve efficiency.  I think that we are coming full circle now as I’m going to mention people!  Businesses need engaged and highly productive people achieving the goals of the organisation and the effective use of business productivity software (BPS) enables this.

Julia: What do you mean, “business productivity software”?

Gordon: BPS is a revolutionary new approach for integrating systems, people, and business processes.  The prime focus of BPS is to allow people to work better – both individually and collaboratively.  It supports and integrates both data and processes for nearly every aspect of business – sales, marketing, human resources, customer service, executive management and more.  What BPS really does is allow the sharing of information in a company to its employees – information about the company, its customers, on-going company projects; in essence, preventing the re-invention of the wheel.

Julia: Another subject to talk about!  See you next week.

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