To run a successful business you have to spin a lot of plates, ranging from creating high-quality visuals to designing a user-friendly website to writing engaging blog copy. In the past, keeping all these tasks in-house was challenging, especially for smaller businesses, leading to a reliance on third-party service providers.
While outsourcing has its benefits, there are also downsides. For one thing, you lose some creative control over the final output. Freelancers and agencies can also be expensive. Luckily, there is now a host of business innovations to speed up processes and allow SMEs to perform essential tasks in-house. Keep reading to learn about these technologies, and how you can implement them to keep key operations affordable yet retain a high-quality output.
Graphic Design Tools
In years past, smaller businesses without the capacity to hire a massive team of designers had no option but to work with third-party graphic designers, whether in the form of freelancers or an agency. This is no longer the case: there are now plenty of tools that make it easy for companies to produce high-quality visuals in-house.
What’s more, these tools are growing more specialised and user-friendly. For example, if you need a new logo or just want ideas on how to improve your existing design, simply use the Adobe Express logo maker for the simplest, easiest approach. With customisable templates, you can tweak and perfect the design until it’s exactly how you want it. You can also use the design app to create video advertisements, social media posts and online shop banners. This ease of accessibility for both budget-restricted companies and individuals without huge graphic art experience means a business working with a limited budget or team can thrive with a single design software.
Generative Artificial Intelligence
Generative AI has come leaps and bounds in recent years. Not too long ago, written content produced by even advanced models like ChatGPT sounded incredibly stilted, and it was obvious it had been written by a machine. Today, however, more advanced versions like GPT-4o can mimic human writing with great accuracy. There are also other AI models on the market like Claude and Bard, both with unique strengths and weaknesses, depending on your industry.
AI has greatly reduced the need to work with content production agencies and third-party writers thanks to its ability to speed up in-house writers’ processes. However, this doesn’t mean it can replace them entirely.
Artificial intelligence models, no matter how advanced, are still prone to making factual errors. AI also isn’t capable of fully mimicking human writing or storytelling skills. This issue is especially prominent in SEO. Among the factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites and web pages are experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness, which can ultimately only be provided by humans. AI can help with ideation and content structuring, but a skilled workforce is still critical to re-write or at least edit AI-made content to make it sound more human, relevant and engaging.
Customer Relationship Management Platforms
A massive part of successful digital marketing is customer relationship management (CRM). While strategies like PPC marketing and SEO are great for lead generation and customer acquisition, CRM’s role is to maximise the customer lifetime value of existing buyers by encouraging them to make repeat purchases.
CRM is a full-time job. Simply running regular email marketing campaigns takes constant work: businesses typically need to send quite a few per week. When you throw in SMS marketing and push notification marketing, it’s not hard to see why many businesses turn to marketing agencies for help. However, it’s now easier than ever for businesses to keep CRM in-house, even without massive marketing teams. Tools like Mailchimp and MoEngage not only allow users to easily create emails, text messages and push notifications but also to build automated flows, and track the success of campaigns, as well as send timed follow-ups.
While CRM platforms are designed to be intuitive, in-house marketers still need to be familiar with these tools to make the most out of them. A business can enhance the effectiveness of its CRM campaigns by investing in digital marketing training programs specifically tailored to the platforms it uses. By combining skilled employees with high-tech platforms, companies can leverage CRM to build customer loyalty and boost purchases without spending a fortune.
Accounting Software
Businesses throughout the years have relied on external accountants to help with tasks like internal bookkeeping and paying taxes. While working with third-party professionals will always be necessary for most businesses for compliance reasons, accounting software can help with tasks traditionally provided by external accountants, such as drafting balance sheets and income statements, tracking expenses and creating client invoices.
Another task which accounting software can take over from external accounts is payroll processing. Typically, managing employees’ payrolls involves computing withholding taxes, releasing benefits, adding overtime pay and other tasks. This is extremely time-consuming and only becomes more so as a business grows.
Today, software like Xero and Easy Payslip can automate these tasks. By using these software, businesses can improve the efficiency and accuracy of their in-house accounting and lessen the need for the expensive services of outside accountants.
Boost the Productivity of your SME with these Key Business Technologies
Running a business takes a significant amount of work. Small businesses especially struggle to cope with the workload, and as a result, delegate many important tasks to freelancers, agencies, consultants and other third-party service providers. The alternative is foregoing them altogether, which can cause more problems beyond financial setbacks.
However, there are plenty of technologies that have been developed in recent years which allow smaller businesses to thrive while performing most work in-house. Acquire these tools for your own SME to speed up your internal operations and cut down on the costs and uncertainties of working with outside service providers.
