In both new or established businesses, productivity is always a hot topic. Leaders and team alike strive to always be performing better, faster and more efficiently. Technology is being constantly developed to help accomplish these goals.
It is particularly important with the rise of remote work and the challenges that brings to managing a team sometimes spread all across the globe. Here are 5 ways that technology is helping to increase staff productivity.
1. Time management
There is no question that time and money are directly correlated. A waste of time is a waste of money. Here are some apps that can help you and your team save and manage your time better:
Amy and Andrew are the new voice assistants from x.ai, similar to a Siri or Alexa for business. One of the key features they offer is the ability to check the schedules of an entire team to schedule meetings or conferences at a time that most suits the entire team. This feature is particularly invaluable to remote teams that may be spread across multiple time zones.
Moment is a screen time tracker that can help you determine where, when and how you spend most of your time online to help you and your team manage their time better.
2. Automation
By now, we’re all familiar with automation in the world of bill paying. You set up a payment to be debited from your account every month and you no longer have to worry about your bills being paid on time. What started with finances is finding a whole new world of applications in the business world. Here are some great automation tools for your business.
MailChimp is an automated e-mail program that can help you generate newsletters, welcome e-mails or promotions. You can pair it with your website and social media pages to gather e-mail addresses and automatically send out newsletters and promotions.
IFTTT stands for “if this then that.” With IFTTT you can create automated cause and effect “recipes” that help streamline your business processes. For instance, if someone enters an e-mail address, you can have it added to a spread sheet, have a welcome e-mail sent and have the address forwarded to your sales department for contact. The best part about IFTTT is that it connects with more than 240 third-party apps to pull information from one for use with others.
3. Analytics
There is no question that knowledge is power, but there is a difference between knowledge and information. Thanks to the internet, there is no shortage of information about your clients and consumers. Taking that overwhelming mountain of information and translating it into actionable intelligence, however, is an almost insurmountable task. That’s where advanced analytics comes in. Here are some powerful analytics tools to help you take information and turn it into intelligence.
Tableau is an open source data analytics platform that can help you get a pulse on what is happening outside of your own business. Tableau can help you do a gut check to determine if what you feel is happening in your business is aligning with what is happening in the bigger picture world around your business.
It should be no surprise that Google would create one of the most powerful analytics tools available. What started out as Google Analytics has grown and morphed into an entire toolbox of power tools to help you understand how best to market your service or product.
With the Google Marketing Platform, you can deep dive into the habits and patterns of your shoppers and visitors to help you tailor your products and services just for them. The better you understand your customers and their needs, the more tools you give your sales team to meet those needs. Sales is about understanding a need and finding a way to meet it. Analytics are what help you do just that.
As the challenge of managing teams increases thanks to the rise in remote workers, ever more powerful tools are being developed to help businesses and team leaders meet those demands. Technology is helping remote teams scattered around the globe stay on the same page and pursue the same mission. What’s more, technology is allowing them to do it faster and more efficiently than ever before.
