Small Business Challenges and their Mobile Solution
Since the beginning of the era of modern technology, mobile phones have proven itself to be an indispensable piece, as it has brought tremendous ease to every walk of human existence. The huge effect it has on businesses, and small-medium sized enterprises can never be neglected.
While making an endeavor to understand how mobile phone technology is a viable solution, it is imperative to know the problems that the advent of this smart technology has resolved efficiently for business personnel.
Challenges and their Solutions
Stale communication systems
Small scale business often finds themselves depending on older and outdated versions of technological and IT solutions, such as traditional phone lines. As a result, many of them suffer from age-old challenges like missed calls from clients, longer hold time, inability to conduct business conversations away from the office, amid several other glitch-ridden internal communication systems.
Solution
Modern-day business owners are now adopting business phone services like Nextiva to beat the inadequacies of traditional phone lines. These types of phone services run on the latest IT tech in the industry, known as VoIP. Now, with the VoIP tech, you don’t have to be in the office to take a client’s call. Perhaps you’re not the right person to attend to the inquiries of a client; you can easily route them to the right desk in a matter of seconds. With the VoIP phone system, your business CRM system just got better because you now have the option of multi-conferencing, video-conferencing, instant messaging, and even call routing.
Never-ending global expansions
The modern world turning into an internet village poses a challenge to small-scale businesses. Organizations in today’s time that lack smart devices like phones, tablets, laptops, and business-friendly applications face serious limitations. By lacking these, on one side, they not only have to carry out their routine task on old technologies, but they are also causing a great deal of reduction in the competence and efficiency level of their employees.
Solution:
To compete effectively in today’s market, mobile plays a pivotal role. Modern-day successful businesses are the ones who have happily accepted and efficiently incorporated mobile technology into their workplace and have to make it in harmony with their issues of daily operations and not avoiding it as other unsuccessful businesses have done.
Less Productivity
Human productivity is directly proportional to the level of comfort and ease provided to workers in an effective workplace. But, unfortunately, small businesses not spending much amount of money equipping themselves with modern IT and mobile solutions reduces the productivity and effective work hours which a normal employee can provide.
Solution:
Effective use of mobile technology like scheduling apps, productivity tools, and project management software help workers produce at a level beyond what physical capability. It has given an added competitive advantage to business as tasks which were very time consuming and require more time for their completion can now be completed within a matter of second by clicks and finger touch on smartphones. A survey has revealed that the use of mobile phones in businesses can lead to saving of up to 8 work hours per week, per employee.
Rising Operational Costs and Reduced Revenues
The inflation rise has led to a drastic effect on the overall growth of businesses. Consequently, reduction in optimism due to low productivity and profits has become a genuine concern.
Solution:
Money and time saving is a vibrant duo. The usage of mobile technology in businesses has shown a similar effect on both entities. It has led to the completion of lengthy paperwork and hectic procedures in less time, thereby reducing operational costs and ultimately raising revenues. The use of mobile phones and communication devices automatically decreases the cost-effectiveness which the company has to spend in the procurement of old static legacy technologies, which may include desktop PCs, landline services, etc. Mobile phones and communication devices reduce the need for expensive and static legacy technology, such as landline carrier services.
Intra-and-Inter-organizational relationship
Strange as it may sound, some B2B businesses still travel miles to strike deals with partnering organizations. Even more alarming is the fact that some of them still require employees leaving their desks to pass information, move files, and share necessary documents with one another.
This leads to a waste of quality resources, as well as time.
Solution
Thanks to the advent of cloud technologies (most of which can be accessed via mobile tech devices), small scale businesses no longer have to waste time and money partnering with other businesses.
If they need to share important data or documents with partnering businesses, they can now do so over the cloud. Furthermore, employees can also share and access vital files from their desks without having to leave their desks to do so.
Feature Image by Photo by Andrew Neel from Pexels
Uday Tank is a serial entrepreneur and content marketing leader who serves the international community at Rankwisely. He enjoys writing, including marketing, productivity, business, health, diversity, and management.