Technology and commerce have always worked hand-in-hand. Even before electricity was discovered, tradesmen used machine tools and bare hands to do business with their consumers. And with the numerous innovations in technology from the nineteenth century until today, there is no denying that technology and business will always work together to help entrepreneurs and corporations to reach their goals.
The rapid development of digital technology is aiding various industries in delivering services and products to consumers. Here are five ways that multiple businesses are maximizing digital technology to improve their processes.
Data integration
Data integration is simply the fusing of information from various sources to provide businesses with a single, unified, and cohesive view of everything from one location. This is undoubtedly a necessary tool in a time of information overload, especially for industries that use data in overwhelming amounts.
Industries like healthcare, retail, finance, marketing, and telecommunications need all the help they can get in consolidating all the information coming to them from all angles. Many of the businesses within these industries consult with data integration specialists to help them with the following:
- Tracking of financial processes and accounting
- Improving customer support and service
- Sending out marketing emails and nurturing leads
- Storing massive amounts of data and user information
- Analyzing consumer behavior
- Data architecture and integration
Thanks to these comprehensive integration solutions, business owners in various industries can focus on their core competencies and tasks. These technical aspects will be left in the hands of qualified specialists who know what they’re doing with the tech.
Robotic process automation
Robotic process automation (RPC) is an advanced technology solution known to many as automated bots. They help businesses carry out repetitive tasks or jobs, and they do it with so much more precision and swifter than their human counterparts. Some examples of repetitive tasks that they can carry out include:
- Supply chain management
- Data gathering
- Data entry
- Email traffic management
- Filing digital documents
- Entering expenses and other financial activities
- Retrieving data from consumers
- Validating agreements and contracts
And these are just the tip of what Autobots can do. Automation can help managers and employees focus on more important and urgent tasks. It can help improve everyone’s productivity, ensures the quality of the work, and saves precious time.
Workflow tools
Another closely related advanced technology is workflow tools, which help enhance the workflow within various organizations. This means streamlining workflows through the digitization of data and downstream it to the right employees at the exact time it’s needed, regardless of which departments the recipients are from.
Cloud-based systems are particularly known for providing the right platforms and channels for helping teams organize their processes and projects. Here are some examples of workflow tools to make things more convenient for teams within an organization:
- Processing of sales orders
- Onboarding new staff and employees
- Purchasing orders
- Processing vacation requests and sick leaves
- Authorizing travel requests
- Generating expense reports and approving expense claims
- Recruiting new talent
- Automating incident reports
Artificial intelligence (AI)
There is a lot of hesitation towards artificial intelligence (AI) and other related technologies like machine learning and automation. Still, the past few years have shown that if we are careful and manage it properly, the good can outweigh the potential bad. Here are some ways businesses and industries have been using AI to boost their operations and processes:
- Managing emails and filtering out spam
- Adding predictive customer service
- Using voice-to-text features
- Automating web design
- Employing smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Now
- Analyzing social semantics and consumer sentiment, values, and behavior
- Automating online customer support
- Categorizing customer segments
- Automating various processes
- Real-time bidding and ad targeting
- Forecasting sales and financial results
- Recognizing language and digesting various unstructured data from consumers and sales prospects
- Using security surveillance
- Applying image and pattern recognition
- Utilizing smart devices and appliances that adjust according to user behavior
- Personalizing consumers’ news feeds
- Automating insights, especially for data-driven industries like eCommerce and financial services
- Creating recommendations and content creation and curation
- Applying smart searches and finding relevant topics and information
- Optimizing dynamic prices
- Using consumer personalization as a service
- Protecting online shoppers through fraud detection and prevention
- Using purchase predictions and product recommendations
No matter how old your business is, you are bound to find a tech tool that can help make your day-to-day processes so much more manageable. And that’s not just for you but also for the entire organization. From appliances to digital tools, consult with specialists for these tech solutions and take your business into the 21st century.
