Investing in the top technology tools for your industry is one of the most important ways to better your business. If your business is using dated technology, you could quickly find that your competitors are passing you by.

The adoption of business technology tools reached a fever-pitch in 2020 due to the logistical issues brought on by the global pandemic. Now, moving forward, businesses must be even more willing to research and adopt new technologies into their business.

To help you get started, here are some of the best business technologies to use this year.

Cloud-Based Communications

Remote work officially burst onto the scene in 2020, and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

While remote work comes with a plethora of benefits, there are certainly some downsides to working in a less centralized setting. Communication, for example, is definitely going to be negatively affected when working remotely.

Investing in a business class VoIP system will help your company remain connected, no matter where they are working. A VoIP phone allows users to make secure, clear, and technologically advanced phone calls from anywhere to anywhere in the world.

Your business’s communication issues will not be solved solely by a new phone. You must also invest in a modern communication offering. Our Unified Communications Platform gives users the ability to video conference, instant message, screen share, and make phone calls to anyone else with the program. Having the ability to virtually meet with all your employees will help maintain effective business communications.

Innovative Capital Solutions

The pandemic has forced the world to move at breakneck speeds. Industries that used to evolve over decades now are experiencing the same growth in a matter of months. Essentially, the pandemic helped identify areas of opportunity across a variety of industries.

Moving forward, your business will need to move quickly and efficiently on these opportunities if you want to stand out from the competition. The next few years are going to be extremely important in determining which companies come out of the pandemic on top.

Business expansion can be scary and difficult to navigate alone. Thankfully, there are new business capital providers that leverage the power of FinTech to deliver a tailored solution.

Newer online business lenders offer the same loans and other capital solutions that traditional financial partners would, but all online. Online-based business loans can be used to purchase new equipment, buy real estate, cover cash-flow, manage overhead, among other things.

The evolution of lending technology has made it so that these new lenders can provide tailor-made capital solutions for your business. This will prevent you from taking out a loan that is too big for your business.

Powerful eCommerce Additions

The popularity of brick and mortar retail stores has been waning over the last ten years or so. The advancements within online shopping have made it as accessible, if not more, than in-person shopping.

There is no better time than now to invest in improving the experience of using your business’s online store. If you don’t, your competitors will.

Expanding the eCommerce experience that your business offers will help you build momentum as we move out of the pandemic.

Using a powerful eCommerce platform will allow you to create an outstanding online storefront, without needing to be an expert coder or website builder. Platforms, such as Shopify, allow users to create customizable online storefronts, all using drag and drop widgets and insertable assets.

Most of these platforms will integrate with your existing marketing channels, which will allow you to leverage your new online storefront across multiple platforms.

Online shopping is already immensely popular, making an effort to capitalize on this trend will help push your business to the next level.

Productivity Resources

Just because you can jump on a video conference using the UC-One platform does not mean that your new remote team is going to be as productive as before.

Issues will arise when assigning tasks, delegating work, marking work complete, and working simultaneously on a project, as communication is still not seamless.

If you are worried about how your team is going to manage productivity in the new business world, you may want to look into teammate collaboration software. Teammate collaboration software will allow all employees to:

● Build out project frameworks
● Access project dashboards from any device
● Assign tasks
● Communicate within the project team
● Work across multiple platforms to ensure project completion

Collaboration software provides a clear visualization of how a specific project is going. If the project is waiting on one person, it is easy to see that and take care of the issue.

These platforms will help your business be more productive moving forward, saving your business time and money in the long run.

Robust Security Tools

The shift towards a more online world comes with mostly positives, but there are definitely some drawbacks of being so reliant on technology.

One of the biggest risks of moving to a completely digital setting is that you open yourself up to newer cyber-risks that did not exist before. Hackers will be targeting small businesses that do not have the resources to protect themselves from these new tech-focused attacks.

While there is no perfect way to stop a hacker, there are steps you can take to mitigate the possibility of an attack. At the end of the day, hackers will be looking for the most vulnerable businesses, so even integrating a few of these tips will help. Some easy ways to improve your cybersecurity are:

●  Use a Business Class VPN
● Set up a password management program
● Back up sensitive data
● Educate employees

Low-hanging tasks, such as setting up a password management program should be taken care of right away. Further educating employees about best internet security practices should be an immediate priority as well.

Hackers are gearing up to attack small businesses. Taking the time to put up a few firewalls should be enough to prevent most attacks. 

Now is the time to move your business to the next level! Leveraging the top tech-tools available to your business will help advance your business.