Small Business Savvy

For centuries, businesses and technology have been intertwined in innumerable ways: businesses attempt to protect their patented technologies, businesses seek to gain an edge through commercial technology, businesses birth themselves from a new technology, and the list goes on. And while big, well-known companies tend to take the spotlight, small business are becoming more and more tech-savvy, implementing technology in more frequent and newer ways to improve not only operations but also employee flexibility; however, rise in tech-savvy graph comes with a suite of concerns as well.

Generally, small businesses have been looking to increase employment, and they have been using technology to do so. How? According to CNBC, small businesses attempt to attract new talent by implementing technology which will shorten work hours and create opportunities to work at home. For example, productivity services such as Microsoft’s Teams allow employees to communicate with each other remotely and receive live updates, while customer relationship management software like Zoho and Salesforce helps “future-proof” small businesses, making tasks easier to complete as employees spend more time with the software. Small business owners can also grow their businesses not only independently but also while working at home or at other jobs, hiring employees who can then do the same. This work-life balance that has arisen from small business integration of technology is alluring to potential employees. Contrary to the common concern that technology will replace human labor, small businesses are implementing technology to create more attractive places to work in hopes that they can actually increase employee count.

 

However, a more pressing concern for small business owners is balancing the incorporation of newer technology with rising costs and larger time commitments. Of course, small business owners look to technology to ultimately save time and money in the long run, but nonetheless small businesses still need to initially pay for increasingly expensive technology. Likewise, it takes time to implement new business processes involving the new technology and for employees to learn said new business processes. Even small businesses born from technology platforms find technology mastery challenging. Although owners may inevitably find themselves hesitant to implement new technology because of cost and time concerns, they generally understand that new technology is beneficial in the long run. Increasing employment in conjunction with increased productivity is a long-term benefit too good to ignore. As such, the increasing trend of becoming tech-savvy small business is predicted to continue.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/small-businesses-using-big-technology-attract-more-hirees.html