Small businesses experienced a period of uncertainty and distress after the pandemic. A year later, as new patterns develop under a new kind of normalcy, many people are starting to feel better. As small businesses try to regain their footing, the distribution of vaccines has given business people a new sense of optimism.
In order to continue serving their clients in the face of rapidly changing operating conditions, rules, and health safety regulations, offices across all industries were compelled to decentralize, adapt to working remotely, and make these decisions. Adopting new technology was, for many, the obvious way to keep up with the rapidly shifting business environment.
Some things might never go back to how they were prior to the pandemic now that customers and employees have grown accustomed to the changes. These are the small business technology trends to watch out for in 2022 while businesses around the world continue to change how they operate.
Small Business Technology Trends
The following are some of the crucial small business technology trends for 2022 and how each one will help your company:
Decentralized Operations
Even before the pandemic began, many companies realized the advantages of adopting remote operations over maintaining physical offices; lower overhead costs and a more favorable work-life balance for employees. A decentralized operating model had to be adopted by many businesses as pandemic-related closures spread across the nation.
You might choose to have your business resume regular in-person operations once things start to feel more normal. Perhaps you’ll use a combination of on-site and remote workers to partially resume in-person operations. Or maybe you’ll discover that your business would benefit more from having an entirely decentralized office.
Leveraging Work Management Tools
Project managers have a lot on their plates today. Project managers require assistance as they manage many tasks and responsibilities as projects become more complex.
Even the best project managers cannot handle every aspect of a project at once, and even the most expensive project management tools cannot replace an experienced project manager’s leadership and expertise.
Businesses can use work management tools to organize and coordinate their tasks with project management software. With the aid of these practical tools, managers can organize projects and teams more effectively, plan more effectively, track more precisely, and review team and project performance, freeing up more time for the most critical tasks.
Technology Assisted-Client Interactions
The need for technologically advanced client interaction arises with remote work and decentralized operations. Small businesses frequently rely on their high-quality, person-to-person service models to compete, but in order to remain competitive; against enterprise-level firms that were able to make the shift to offering no-contact services much more quickly, they have had to adapt to less personal customer interactions and tech-assisted transactions.
Encourage your service team to host Face-to-Face virtual meetings and take advantage of new video communication technologies.
Facilitating these meetings will help maintain personal connections and open communication with clients because we are all aware of the power of eye contact. A growing number of programs and tools are emerging to make this easier for your service teams.
Utilizing Comprehensive HR Software
Early lockdowns and stay-at-home directives made it extremely challenging for many small businesses to monitor their employees’ whereabouts while still attending to their needs. There weren’t any HR software solutions for remote working for the smaller players.
In 2022, small businesses are starting to understand the advantages of utilizing a complete HR system. Many businesses now rely on employee remote work arrangements to maintain or increase company productivity. They must therefore employ creative solutions that can adapt to their shifting HR requirements.
Automation of Processes
Things become simpler with automation. Business process automation (BPA) technology handles routine, daily tasks that consume a significant amount of your time and effort. A lightweight interface makes BPA software like Kissflow or Zoho ideal for small businesses, while Processmaker or Pipefy automate workflows to meet an organization’s unique requirements.
BPA solutions connect various systems and communications channels to the appropriate people at the appropriate time, making them more complex and capable than other types of automation.
Software Integration
Software integration will be more and more necessary as small businesses adopt new technology tools. Software integration is the process of combining various software systems into a single, cohesive system.
Software integration is the same as having different employees with different skill sets work together. Various applications “talk” and “work” to accomplish a task.
For instance, you want the ten platforms where a customer’s address is stored to automatically update when your service team changes the address on one of the platforms. Be on the lookout for new platform integrations that will speed up and improve accuracy across your company’s departments as the need for a unified software solution grows.
Conclusion
Small business owners can start by automating and optimizing their back office to get ahead of the curve or catch up with technological advancements. The best place to begin implementing the most recent technological tools in your company is with bookkeeping and accounting tasks because they are repetitive, time-consuming, and fraught with the possibility of human error.
Businesses can save money and valuable time by implementing the newest technological trends, which also frees up staff to concentrate on tasks of higher value.