When a business is starting out, there are a wide range of decisions that need to be made. Beyond the most obvious first steps, defining your products/services and creating a business plan, you need to be thinking about how your business will run and what its systems are going to look like. Every business is only as efficient as the technology, processes and systems that keep it humming, and being able to make the right choices is crucial.
There’s one thing that can make those choices even more difficult. The tech and systems that your company runs on need to be as future-proof as possible. It’s a big investment, and you want your setup to be as stable as possible for as long as possible.
Here’s some of the areas you’ll need to make key decisions in:
CRM
An effective CRM allows and enables your business to find and sell to new clients and maintain a solid, long term relationship with your existing clients. CRMs are an amazing tool to help your business grow and to provide a stable income. Choosing a CRM is one of the first steps a new business should take, because trying to integrate one down the track isn’t always easy.
You’ll need a system that integrates with all your apps, processes and software that you and your staff can access no matter what device you’re using. And you’ll want to be sure that you’re jumping on board with a platform that is both reliable and stable.
Check out:
Insightly
Zoho
Salesforce
Hubspot
Email Deployment
Your company’s email addresses are something that you can’t just set and forget. When you’re choosing a provider and deploying your emails, you need to find an option that will make it easy to add new addresses and manage your existing ones well into the future.
Running your emails off your own server is both costly and time consuming, with the added drawback that it’s difficult to set up and maintain. The good news? You can pick from a growing number of excellent cloud solutions that will let you get your company’s emails online in just a few clicks.
Check out:
Office 365
Google Apps for Work
Amazon Emails
Accounting Software
With the right accounting software on board, running the financial side of your business becomes a lot easier. You can plug right into your bank accounts, track transactions, handle bookkeeping and invoicing and constantly measure your financial health in real time.
Most of the best apps to choose from can now run efficiently and smoothly in just a browser window – or even on your smartphone. There’s a lot of room for monthly subscription payments instead of outright purchases, and you’ll find that once everything is set up, you’ll save a crazy amount of time by having a simple and powerful accounting platform.
Check out:
Xero
Zoho
Quickbooks Online
Reckon
POS (Point Of Sale System)
If your business is offering service based contracting (includes trades based businesses) or selling products or food, you’ll need a way to process transactions effectively and with accompanying data. For mobile employees, this can be as simple as a card reader that works with their smartphone and an app, enabling them to generate invoices and receive payments on the job! When you’ve got a good CRM to back you up, syncing data straight from their device to your other systems is a powerful way to maintain records.
For a store front business, the days of clunky cash registers are over. You can run highly effective POS systems using just an iPad or even a tablet specifically designed for sales. It frees your staff from being stuck manning a counter and it captures brilliant data while also allowing fast customer service!
Check out:
At Charltons, we have extensive experience in helping businesses make these tough decisions about technology and software. We can offer expert advice around what systems and packages to choose and how to set them up to future proof your business and empower your team for long term success and growth!
