Technology is one of the major drivers of change in the world of business, and this means that it is important that entrepreneurs keep up with the latest innovations within technology and how they could be beneficial to them. If you are an entrepreneur with the mind to set up a business in the future, there are many ways that technology, such as an online MBA, could help you within the first years of your start-up. Here is a round-up of the many different ways that technology can become integral to your company’s success.
1) Get an Education While Running Your Business
Although anyone can set up a business, getting an education like an online MBA can set you up for life, giving you insight into the world that you will be carving your career within and ensuring that you know the latest changes within this. An online MBA can also be advantageous by ensuring that you know how to overcome many of the major business challenges, that you are aware of how to manage a business effectively, and that you have the professional connections that you need to give yourself a head-start. Online MBA qualifications use technology to help you to get an education by allowing you to access resources and to complete assessments across the internet, and this can be helpful to entrepreneurs as it allows them to study for their online MBA at the same time as they are opening their business. This allows them to apply what they have learned from their online MBA directly to a real-world situation. You can find the best online MBA to benefit you, with routes including management and executive leadership.
2) Ease of Setting Up a Business
The internet, and technology, has allowed for an increase in the number of entrepreneurs and the rate of people setting up their own business. This is because entrepreneurs can now set up an online store within seconds rather than having to raise the funds for a brick-and-mortar store. They can also sell on third party websites and use storefronts such as Big Cartel to get their company up and running. All they need to do this is an effective website builder, web hosting service, and payment processing software, as well as a good security application. By using these devices, entrepreneurs can quickly and effectively do business with customers all around the world without having to gain certain amounts of experience or qualifications to do so, even though an online MBA can help you to manage your business more effectively.
3) Work From Anywhere
Entrepreneurs can sometimes struggle to keep up with their workloads, and this can leave them failing to meet deadlines and to provide their clients with the highest quality service possible. However, technology can help business owners to stay on top of their to-do list by allowing them to work from anywhere they choose. For instance, mobile phones have revolutionized the way that people work, allowing managers to contact their employees and clients even when they are not at the office, and to finish work on their daily commute.
4) Saving Money
Everyone knows that starting up a business is expensive, and many companies fail in their first few months because they are having cash flow issues. Many entrepreneurs do not end up opening a business at all because they believe that they simply cannot afford it. However, technology can help to save you money by reducing the amount of money that is spent on menial tasks, as well as helping you to reduce the costs that you would normally spend on the use of office space or the employees that you might need to carry out tasks manually.
Tech can also help you to be in a financially better position, with crowd-funding and fundraisers online allowing you to get the capital that you need to kick-start your venture without ready cash.
5) Can Overcome Challenges Easier
Technology can also help you to overcome the challenges of a business easier by allowing you to be more flexible as an entrepreneur. This has been proved by the coronavirus pandemic, with many of the businesses that used tech within their operations being able to continue to thrive, while businesses with more traditional models have suffered. For instance, technology has allowed employers to make staff work from home, as communication software and file-sharing software have allowed teams to stay in contact and continue to work on projects together even while offices have been closed. Not only this, but technology has allowed businesses to continue to trade when stores have been made to shut, as they have been able to take orders and work on projects across the internet, such as through an online store.
6) Fewer Employees
Although it is important to have a good number of loyal and skilled employees within your company, from a cost-saving perspective, the fewer employees, the better. Technology can reduce your need for employees by allowing you to outsource certain tasks, such as IT and digital marketing. Not only this, but robotics and AI are starting to have an impact on the future of the workforce, especially in the wake of coronavirus, with companies such as Amazon using robots to fulfill orders within their warehouse. This can help you to streamline your workforce and to ensure that employees are only used to carry out creative tasks which cannot be solved by a machine.
7) Better Organization and Management
Technology has also allowed businesses to improve their organization by using project management apps and calendar software. These can help entrepreneurs to keep track of their meetings and deadlines, and to review the progress of certain tasks, as well as the productivity of their workforce. By doing this, they can jump to the top of the business world and be well-respected by employees and clients alike.
Technology has benefitted entrepreneurs’ management skills in a similar way. As businesses grow, they become more difficult to control. However, technology can help entrepreneurs to keep every aspect of their business in hand. For instance, inventory tracking apps can help leaders to be aware of their stock levels, while CRM software can allow entrepreneurs to boost their customer service, assess what needs to be improved, and maintain relationships with their customers, all from a single platform. This can then make it easier to be an entrepreneur and to drive your business to success, even without the appropriate managerial skills that you need if you have a large team of employees working for you.
8) Targeted Marketing Schemes
Traditional marketing methods can only go so far, especially now in the digital age, when more and more people are starting to set up shops online. Technology can help you to create current and persuasive marketing campaigns through the use of targeted marketing. This allows you to break your audience down into segments and personalize your branding toward what appeals to them. They can also analyze your target audience and your current marketing schemes to improve them. If you struggle to do this, there are many digital marketing software and specialists out there to help you develop effective schemes for your company that connect with the potential customers that are most likely to invest in your products or services.
9) Networking
Networking can be a huge hurdle for entrepreneurs who do not have a lot of confidence or who are natural introverts, and networking effectively can be even harder. However, technology can help to make networking much easier, especially now in the days of the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person events cannot happen. Technology can do this by giving entrepreneurs the chance to attend digital networking events and join forums where they can connect with other professionals and potential new clients. This could lead to the opportunity to gain business partners or even mentors. You can also network using technology by setting up an account for yourself on business-orientated social media platforms such as LinkedIn. These allow you to visit the profiles of a variety of professionals within the industry and even strike up a conversation with them.
10) Completion of Market Research
Market research is one of the first tasks that entrepreneurs need to perform before they set up a business, and this can be made marginally easier with the use of technology. For instance, social media can allow business leaders to get an idea of the latest trends and the marketing campaigns that other companies are staging, as well as enabling them to get a better insight into their customer’s wants and needs. Entrepreneurs can also create short digital surveys and distribute these through social media or by email. This allows them to get a direct response from their audience to the most important business questions that they need to ask themselves during the conception of a business idea.
11) Keep Up With Competitors
As an entrepreneur running a business on your own, keeping up with the competition can be a big challenge. However, using technology within your business can help you to stay ahead by bringing your customers an improved experience and by ensuring that you can be more efficient and higher quality products than your competition. Not only this but as your competition starts to invest in more tech, you need to do so to make sure that you do not fall behind the larger companies that can afford to splash out on flashy gadgets and equipment. This can also allow you to take up growth opportunities from every angle, with many of these now being based online or through the use of certain new technologies that have big benefits for your company. This can also help you check that your business stays on-trend and that your customers still desire your products. Many more traditional businesses find that a failure to innovate spells the end of their business success and their ability to keep up with the times.
12) Increased Efficiency
Efficiency is one of the most important factors of a business, and entrepreneurs are continually trying to improve this. Tech can provide them with many benefits in terms of efficiency as it can allow them to streamline workflows and adapt these toward their workforce and their company. It can also help you to reduce human error and other problems whose solutions could consume a large part of the workday. This can also allow you to contact employees whenever you need to and ensure that your targets are easily conveyed to them, which can help employees to stay on track.
13) Improved Work/Life Balance
Although entrepreneurs are known for devoting their entire lives to their business, this does not mean that they should spend every single minute of the day chained to their desk. However, the demands of the 21st-century can often make entrepreneurs feel this way. This can quickly lead to workplace stress and burnout, as well as a lack of a good work/life balance. However, technology can help entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams while also allowing them to spend time doing what they enjoy. This is because technology can allow tasks to be completed quicker than if they were to be completed manually, and many of these can now be automated through the use of AI. This then allows entrepreneurs to complete their to-do list by the end of office hours, and can prevent them from having to work later than they should. Not only this, but entrepreneurs can now use virtual assistants to ensure that administrative tasks are fulfilled by professionals across the globe, without them having to complete these themselves.
Being an entrepreneur comes with a lot of responsibility, and technology is there to help you to be the best business person that you can be. From taking an online MBA to achieving miracles in terms of your organization and productivity, there is an endless amount of tech available to entrepreneurs that can make their lives easier and ensure that their businesses can thrive both as small start-ups, and as they grow into large corporations.
