July 16, 2024
According to a recent study, 64% of companies plan to increase their tech budget in the new year.
This is hardly surprising when you consider the many benefits associated with this investment. For example, technology can become your biggest defence against burnout by reducing your employee’s daily workload without needing to turn away paying customers.
However, if your budget is already on the smaller side, it can be hard to determine where you should (and should not) spend your money. With that in mind, here are some of the ways in which you can use technology to propel your business toward success.
One of the best ways to ensure that you are spending your tech budget wisely is by investing in automation technology. This is because by automating low-value tasks that would otherwise take up a considerable amount of time in your employee’s schedule, you’re ensuring that time is on their side. This way, they can focus on the tasks that you actually hired them to complete - making it that much easier to meet your business goals.
For example, it's estimated that right now, employees spend 23% of their time responding to emails, many of which are rather generic and do not result in an increase in custom. As such, finding a way to automate responses to general inquiries can be a game-changer.
As referenced above, this can go a long way toward combating burnout within your team, as their to-do list is much shorter as a result. This, in turn, can help to improve employee satisfaction rates, which means they work more productively as a consequence. As such, this is a clear example of a way in which technological investments can improve your bottom line.
Another way in which you can use technology to propel your business toward success in 2025 is by working to ‘clean up’ your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. After all, this will provide you with an opportunity to purge or remove bad data that would otherwise skew your perspective of your customers, their wants, and their needs. Conversely, clean data will provide you with invaluable insights into your target audience that you can use to make smart business decisions moving forward.
You should also make sure that some of your tech budget is being allocated toward cybersecurity systems. While you may feel that the size of your business means that you are not at risk of an attack, studies have shown that hackers target smaller businesses more often than larger ones, often because it's assumed that they do not have the necessary infrastructure in place to protect themselves.
As such, now is the perfect time to invest in the latest cybersecurity software and technology so that you can protect your business from the damages caused by a data leak or attack. However, you should also ensure that you develop a robust cybersecurity policy of your own, such as by encouraging your employees to change their passwords on a regular basis.
Right now, over 80% of businesses are experimenting with AI tools and tech. This is hardly surprising when you consider the potential benefits of these tools. However, it's important that you do not go overboard in this regard. For example, if you rely too heavily on AI as a tool for connecting with your customers, this could harm your relationship with them in the long run, as it means that your communication lacks that ‘human’ touch that brings companies and customers together.
As such, while it is okay to use AI as a support tool, you should make sure that you continue to prioritise human connection moving forward, especially when you consider the fact that 64% of consumers would prefer for AI to play no part in customer service roles.
It is clear that there are many ways in which technology can be used to propel your business toward success in 2025 (and beyond). However, you should explore your options carefully in order to ensure that you are spending money wisely and purchasing the tools or tech that will help you reach business-specific goals and targets.
As such, you should be sure to carry out plenty of research before committing to a purchase so that you feel as confident as possible in your decision. You should also ask your team for feedback so that everybody is on board with the changes you will initiate when buying and implementing new technology.
