“The world is becoming increasingly data-driven, and digital platforms are now accessible and affordable enough to be utilized by organizations of all sizes and types.”– Leo Sigal
Gone are those days when the only way for small businesses to reach out to the heterogeneous audience was through signposts and flyers. The mass media was too expensive and enormous for small businesses to venture into while computers were just for the big businesses.
All these have become history.
One can just sit at the corner of his room or space now and reach thousands of audience if not million through mobile phone like I am doing with this article.
What has changed? Digital transformation.
Digital transformation can simply be seen as the use of modern or emerging technology to carry out tasks. Before the advent of digital technology, there have been some revolutionary movements from industrial through mechanical to technological age which brought about the advent of computer – a digital device.
No time has the transformation been more democratized than this age because small businesses can now have access to a lot of tools at their disposal. The internet, computer, laptop, mobile devices among others are jointly more accessible and affordable for personal and business purposes.
SMALL BUSINESSES STEPPING FORWARD
SMALL businesses can adopt digital tools in carrying out tasks to fast track development, enable smooth workflow, fasten and standardize processes.
Though, old ways of doing things could be tempting and fascinating. However, resisting change in the digital sphere will only make the business exist in the past and memory.
Therefore, embracing digital trends is a way forward for small businesses to:
Remain competitive in the industry and market-space
Encourage innovation and creative outputs from team members
Increase productivity in works
Standout among competitors as an early adopter of digital trend
Build a stronger brand image for the business
Foster a better relationship with customers and team members
Reduce cost and increase profits
Having listed the benefits of adopting digital technologies for small businesses, they can simply adopt digital transformation through:
Welcoming digital trends in business development and marketing such as digital marketing, artificial intelligence, data analysis tools among others
Using digital tools and devices to carry out daily activities such as spreadsheet, word processor, presentation packages which will make work productive
Creating rooms for convenient and effective digital transaction or payment system like the use of POS, Internet Banking etc
Performing financial analysis and documentation with the use of accounting tools like Peachtree, Zoho etc
For data collection, analysis and processing, small businesses can train their team on using Google analytics, Excel, Inzights.
As marketing and brand communication are concerned, small business can adopt digital platforms such as social media, internet web, blog and others to achieve its goals
Project management and task manager tools such as Trello, Zoho project, Click-Up among others can also be used to foster team productivity and task scheduling
Cloud storage and data management is another way to adopt digital technology in business development
For commercial activities i.e. E-commerce making use of Woo-commerce or Shopify is a way to go. For social media Instagram Business Account or Facebook Page can help upload products and service offers of a business.
Embracing Artificial intelligence through chatbots, machine learning or deep learning will also help small business to be more productive and reduce cost
With these tools listed and numerous ones you can find online, your small business can soar high through effective and efficient use of these digital technologies.
You want to add more to how you can adopt digital transformation for your small business.
David Alonge is a certified digital marketing expert and strategist who build blueprints for businesses and SMEs through content, social media, digital ads; and branding. He consults for organizations and helps them to build and develop strategic frameworks and programs for maximum productivity in business through the application of digital tools and techniques.He is currently the Chief Operating Officer and Strategist at Harlong Digitech
