Top Tech Trends For Small Businesses
In our time, so many things are different. Technology has made businesses more competitive and better equipped to operate. You don’t have to be the one developing the technologies, but you sure can use them to further the gains of your business. In the last few years, there have been lots of tech trends for small businesses. I will explain.
We are not here to discuss the importance of technology to small businesses. I believe we know that already. We just want to know what trends are in the market and how they will impact our businesses.
Related: 10 Major reasons small businesses fail in Nigeria
You can look at the ease with which marketing is done, sales are pushed and startups are incubated. That has to mean something. That has to show you that tech trends for small businesses have been quite impacting.
We will understand where we are coming from when we look at the list of top tech trends for small businesses and how they impact small business failure and success.
List of Top Tech Trends For Small Businesses
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Software unification
It is no longer news that everybody is becoming attuned with technology generally and software particularly in the conduct of their businesses. You can think of so many things you can do with the various software available. We will look at instances.
Slack has been helpful in the conduct of meetings. I have so many meetings on Slack and they were amazing. Teams are connected using this platform. If you want to send critical and important documents, you did probably look at Outlook. When you want to manage customers, you will depend on Salesforce.
That’s not all if you want to store information, it is a common knowledge that Google Drive will come in handy and Basecamp helps you plan your projects.
If you notice our list of software up there, you will find out that they all have unique functions. You did have to use different software to perform different functions. But imagine the possibility of carrying out multiple functions by connecting different software using an integration platform. That’s what software unification aims to achieve.
It won’t be long before there is a platform that integrates different software and allows you to connect them using a single platform.
There is been lots of cyber crime and cyber attack against businesses of various scales for cybersecurity to be listed as part of the top tech trends for small businesses. We cannot possibly list all the cyber attacks that have happened in the last few years because they are just too many.
Resultantly, businesses, especially the small businesses must begin to look at cybersecurity from a new perspective. It has to become a part and parcel of the business setup and this year marks the beginning of a new trend that counters the effects of cybercrime. It will be a movement that will involve a lot of technologies.
According to Jim Lippie, there will be a change in perception of cybersecurity. He said “small businesses will finally take security measures to heart. SMBs, like their large enterprise counterparts, will lock down on a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution to keep protected, and also form new standardized blocking and tackling game plans to keep the business even safer.”
A few years ago, nobody knew about influencer marketing. It was practically unknown that people could be paid to handle certain aspects of business publicity but it is what it is today. Almost every small business knows what it is. It has become a viable way of connecting the products with customers and showing the products to the customers.
You can still work with print advertising but it is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It is the time of working with influencers and expecting better output.
Related: Importance of influencer marketing to small businesses
Alex Shvarts explains the reason for online influencers. He said that “consumers want more authenticity in their advertisements, often in the form of a recommendation from someone they trust, like an influencer. 2019 will see more businesses using local and micro influencers, such as restaurants and gyms, as opposed to the makeup and fashion brands currently dominating the influencer scene.”
It is not every influencer that is for you. You will need to work to determine the influencer that suits your target and your industry. That way, you will be able to make the right decisions on who connects your customers to your business.
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5G
We have seen great growth in cellular capability. I remember when it was 1G and when we had small China phones. It always takes forever to load any page or conduct anything on the internet. We have seen 2G come and it was an upgrade to the analog cellular we had. From 2G we went to 3G.
More recently, we have had 4G LTE which has a latency of 50 milliseconds. Latency refers to the delay in data transfer. 5G promises to be the next best thing. It will have a latency of about 1 millisecond.
With this tech development, you can have a greater increase in the efficiency and effectiveness of running your business on the internet. It will help in connecting other devices faster. Internet of things will also be enhanced. It is not yet out there but most telecommunication companies have announced their progress in developing 5G.
This is no news. It has been around for some time now. When you consider the top tech trends for small businesses, you will definitely find social media advertising as one of them. It was useful last year and it is still useful this year and it will remain useful next year.
Small businesses that are not adopting social media advertising do that at their detriment. It is something you must have to invest either time or resources or both in if you will enjoy it. It is not the same as using influencer marketing. It is more encompassing. Influencer marketing is an aspect of social media marketing.
According to Matt Rosenberg, “As more businesses start micro, social advertising will continue to grow as a cost-effective and efficient way to target specific audiences. The ability to create unique and differentiating content that engages customers through social media channels is paramount in today’s growing digital landscape.”
Hope you got that?
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Artificial Intelligence
I don’t know about you but I would want to venture into artificial intelligence. It has been very hot for some years now and it is still red hot. Maybe it is even hotter today. It is believed that by the end of 2019, many small business owners will be using and interacting with artificial intelligence.
According to Schmidt, “while artificial intelligence may sound like something that only enterprise company’s use, in 2019 we’ll see it make big inroads into small businesses. AI will help small businesses offer more personalized experiences to their customers by maximizing their time and automating manual tasks.”
