If you are not in the tech business yourself, dealing with technology in the workplace can sometimes feel overwhelming. You may feel as though you don’t know what to purchase or what your staff needs to know. This can slow your productivity, hurt morale, and even put your company at risk. The solutions below can help even the most tech timid business owners avoid mistakes.
Assemble a Good IT Team
You don’t have to know all the ins and outs of tech, but you need people who do. Of course, this can create an additional problem: how do you know how to hire the best people if this isn’t your field? Your networking skills and word of mouth come in handy here. Talk to other business people you know about who’s good. Are you a one-person show with no staff? You still need someone to design your website and do similar tasks, and the same advice applies.
Stay on Top of Necessary Tech Tools
It’s hard to be sure about what you need when the landscape is unfamiliar, but knowing what others in your industry are using can help. In some areas, this will be crucial, such as fleet management, where compliance is critical. Fleet telematics goes beyond GPS tracking and provides your team with a good vehicle management solution. Its automation cuts down on the workload for both drivers and managers, which is a factor to emphasize when introducing it to potentially reluctant staff. Telematics can also provide data on such driver behavior as idling, braking and acceleration as well as transmitting real-time engine diagnostics.
Tech is useful in other departments as well. Human resources software can help staff track benefits and other metrics. There are also increasingly powerful tools that can gather data and help you better understand customer behavior and preferences. Frugality in your business is a virtue, but it is a mistake to let it prevent you from buying the tech you need to substantially enhance performance.
Don’t Ignore Social Media
Ignore the role of social media at your peril. There may be a few industries left where social media isn’t a big player, but the number is shrinking. It’s best to be proactive in establishing yourself there rather than waiting until an unhappy customer decides to air their grievances for thousands of followers. Social media is also an excellent tool for marketing. If you aren’t comfortable with it, you may want to hire someone to manage this aspect of your business.
Think Security
Security lapses can be devastating to a business, with consequences ranging from compromised customer data to having your online presence hacked and shut down to the loss of intellectual property. When your IT people talk security, listen to them. Create a security-conscious culture throughout your company. If you have remote workers and they are dealing with sensitive data, you’ll need to figure out a solution for protecting it. In addition, plan ahead for what you will do if security breaches do occur.
Train Sufficiently
Training your employees is one element of good security, but investing time and money into training everyone on the software that they are supposed to use is also important. It’s really not enough to simply have another employee show someone the ropes on the day they are hired. While it may cost money in the short run, over the long run, having a well-trained staff is a wise investment.
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