An alarming number of small businesses fail every year, with owners blaming large corporations for their demise. While it’s true that many leading players can keep their costs down to benefit the consumer, there are ways in which to keep your head above water and in with the competition. You merely have to be willing to adapt and do your research. Here are four innovations that are changing the way small businesses compete. You never know, some of these might be of benefit to you as a business owner.
Management Systems
Integrated workplace management software (IWMS), such as freight management software, for example, can transform your small business and save you a significant sum of money. Imagine if you could cancel over half of your current software subscriptions for both financial and productivity gains? That’s the reality with IWMS.
With freight management software, you’re able to incorporate every component of the shipping and freighting industry into one easy-to-use program. You don’t even need to open up separate trackers for knowing where your consignments are or negotiating carrier rates. Everything you need to know about your shipping business or any industry is within one entirely cloud-based platform. The financial savings can be astronomical.
Virtual Staff & Locations
As a small business, you can find yourself faced with high staffing and overhead costs, but small income streams. Meanwhile, large franchises and chains, for example, pay the same staffing costs but make much more money. You can get the competitive edge by taking advantage of virtual staffing and location.
You can outsource work to experienced people all around the world without having to worry about holiday pay, health insurance, and similar costs. What’s more, if you take advantage of virtual offices by having a business address and phone number with phone and mail forwarding, you can work from the comfort of your home. You can eliminate all those high costs by taking advantage of the internet.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has been gaining traction for many years, but not every small business has caught onto the benefits that could come their way by integrating it. Cloud computing is an on-demand network that enables you to access all your computing resources– services, apps, storage, systems, servers, and more – from one place. It can save you a considerable amount of money on IT services, is entirely scalable, and is inexpensive for small and medium-sized enterprises too. You can even move all your phone and messaging systems onto a cloud-based unified communications system.What’s more, you can access cloud computing on a subscription-based model, only paying for what you use.
Social Media
There are close to 2.8 billion social media users in the world, many of which will have news feeds they actively scroll through. If you want to be competitive against larger firms, then you need to be in amongst the action. Appeal to your share of those 2.8 billion users. Create targeted, refined campaigns to advertise your goods and services and stand out from the crowd.
When it comes to online social media advertising, users do not discriminate between a leading brand and a mom and pop business. As long as you market your wares effectively and make the shopping process effortless, you have equally as much opportunity to make a living from social media sales as a leading corporation.
You may be a small fish in a big pond, but with a few minor changes, you can be as competitive as leading brands and corporations. Work smarter, not harder, and get ahead by capitalizing on new technology. Now’s the time to make your small business stand out.
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