Change Your Utilities Provider

Small businesses often settle for exploitative or unnecessary utilities plans that drain money for the company purse at an alarming rate. Cutting down on utilities bills can save a business heaps of cash – especially in manufacturing, where utilities are factored into the cost of unit production. Choosing a new utilities provider with a company like Utility Bidder can cut down overheads and make your business more profitable with the absolute minimum amount of effort or employee time spent. Make sure to save what you can on water, electricity, gas, and internet connectivity.

Utilize Vehicles For Advertising

Physical advertising is a great expense and is beyond the grasp of many small businesses. Advertising on vehicles, however, is far less expensive. Company vehicles should be used as moving billboards transmitting your message wherever they travel. Plenty of small businesses utilize their own logistics chains, which can be completely modified for advertising purposes and seen on every road in the country.

Make Employees Into Brand Advocates

The greatest advocates for your company brand are your existing employees. Simply creating a supportive and exciting atmosphere amongst your employees can help spread the word about your business without involving any extra spending at all.

Replace On-Site Data Centers With Cloud Storage

As any business owner that has ever had to budged for one knows, on-site data centers are a huge expense. Servers are hot, maintenance-heavy, and never particularly affordable. On the other hand, cloud storage solutions involve no setup and are usually priced on a pay-as-you-go basis. They also benefit from being available anywhere there is an internet connection, which helps to facilitate meaningful remote working solutions. In 2020, expenditure on cloud computing finally outstripped expenditure on traditional data centers as more and more companies realized the money saving, empowering potential of the cloud.

Get Rid Of The Office

We might be witnessing the end of the office as we know it. Driven in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, many small businesses have embraced remote working. All sorts of industries have embraced home working, and some commentators have sensed that the end of the office as we know it is at hand. Remote working platforms like Slack and Zoom have enabled businesses to do away with offices entirely. Office space is, of course, a huge expense for any company that is trying to find its feet. An evolution from remote working to hybrid working once funds are stable is a sound strategy if you are sure that some kind of office arrangement will eventually be necessary for your business.

Also Read: How To Buy A Used Vehicle From A Private Seller

The post Money Saving Tips For Small Businesses appeared first on Trends Tech Blog.

It can be challenging for a startup to gain traction within the first year of operation. No wonder studies have shown that 95% of small businesses fail during the first year of the operation. If you have a small business and you want to scale that business to a height where you desire, you have got to use some technology tools to free up time to do other important things.

As a business owner, you may be wondering what tools to use so that your productivity and efficiency can improve. You are not alone in this. So many business owners out there also want to scale their businesses. Thankfully, in this article, we have put together the top 7 best important tools for small businesses.

Eager to learn about these tools? Then read on!

7 Best Tools To Use As A Small Business Owner

While there are several tools for business owners, we have taken time to research the market and we present to you these 7 tools that can improve and scale your business processes. If you are able to add these tools in your business arsenal, you’d be one step away from gaining traction and giving your competitors a run for their money.

Let’s take a look at the tools

1. G-Suite

G-suite is the acronym for Google Suite. Google has made life easy for businesses in today’s ever-busy and ever-dynamic economy. G-suite is like a family name for several sub-tools that businesses can take advantage of. G-suite relies heavily on cloud computing. They are primarily designed to enhance team collaboration and productivity. The chances are that as an individual you are probably using these tools to run your day-to-day activities. Here are the tools:

Gmail
Drive
Docs
Sheets
Slides
Calendars

If you can import these tools to run your business, the likelihood of scaling your business is very high. Plus, you will be able to manage your business information from any location. If you have employees, you can easily collaborate with them remotely.

The good thing about using G-suite is the centralization and security it provides. It also treats users to a great internal search engine and document backup to the cloud. What’s more? There is also email and file all in one place and backed up in the cloud.

2. Trello

Trello is another important technology tool every business should adopt. At its core, Trello is a great project management tool created by Atlassian. In terms of flexibility, no tool is as flexible as Trello. Business owners can use Trello to collaborate with their employees, manage their projects remotely, and notify employees where there is a need to take action.

Trello can be used in different ways, from Agile methodology, Connectwise Payments, to bulletin boards, and everything in between. Whether you want to notify your team that they should finish a task at a particular time or you want to remind them of a pending assignment, Trello has got you covered. It is an important project management tool that every entrepreneur should include in his/her productivity arsenal.

3. Slack

Slack is a powerful communication tool. It works like an alternative to social media platforms like Google Hangouts and Facebook. This tool gives you and your team custom channels so that you can network and share ideas on how to move your business forward. Slack is integrated with apps like GitHub and Google Drive; thus, every business using this app will enjoy endless value.

Additionally, one good thing about Slack is that it lets your team interact with other teams in a community setting. This feature doesn’t exist in other communication tools on the market. It is really unique to Slack alone. On top of that, you can download the Slack app on your iOS, Windows, and Android phone and devices. The downloaded version is so that you don’t miss out on any conversation.

4. Toggl

Toggl is great for productivity management and time tracking. It is important to always measure your team’s performance and set KPIs for them on a regular basis. You can then use Toggl to track their performance in real-time. Regardless of the KPI you set for your team, Toggl will help you track it with ease. Since you run a small business, you don’t have to spend money hiring HR professionals to track the performance of your team.

With Toggl, you can track your team’s performance, whether remotely or they work hybrid. Additionally, if you pay your employees by the hour, Toggl is a nice time tracking tool. You don’t need to overpay or underpay any of your employees as soon as you use this tool.

5. MailChimp

If you have an email marketing business, very few tools give business owners in this niche freedom and flexibility like Mailchimp. Mailchimp is an automation email marketing tool that helps you send newsletter or mails to your customers. However, your team still needs to create the content and email list while Mailchimp does the rest on auto-pilot.

You can use Mailchimp to run a lead generation campaign. As soon as you start the campaign, before you know it, potential clients will convert to paying clients. One great feature of Mailchimp is that it has customizable templates that you can use to suit your preferences and business requirements. It also connects to popular e-commerce apps like Woocommerce and Shopify.

6. Canva

Content plays a huge role in businesses in today’s fast-paced and ever-dynamic business environment. Canva is a technology tool that you can use to create original and stunning images that will attract potential clients to become paying customers. Regardless of the content you have in mind, Canva gives you the freedom to choose from a range of lovely templates built into the tool. So, if you cannot afford to hire an in-house designer, you can leverage Canva to create stunning and presentable images that will wow your clients.

7. Streak

Streak is a tool that small businesses can use to manage emails, employees pipelines, and internal information. It works like Salesforce but a great tool that small businesses should include in their productivity arsenal. The good thing about using Streak is that the company offers a free version. You can use the free version to understand how the tool works before upgrading to the paid version. And that would be it for today’s article. If you have any questions you can reach out to us in the comment section.

Also Read: What Is PAM In Identity And Access Management

The post 7 Best Important Tools For Small Businesses appeared first on Trends Tech Blog.

The Problem At Hand

With the rising number of cases worldwide, organizations must focus on reducing impacts directly on customers and employees. The retail sector, having already faced consumer loss due to online models, are particularly being affected due to uncertain supply chains. And given the spread of the virus, it is unlikely that life would go back to normal for retailers.

As global and Indian retail markets came crashing down, a number of businesses and start-ups in India applied for business loans in India. This would seem like a good way of side-lining short-term threats, but the need of the hour is to develop long term strategies that work towards business continuity with an eye out for immediate disaster management.

Retailers need to respond to these challenges by adapting to their decisions and processes every day. As the demand across categories keeps on varying, the decision-making process has to be agile and beyond the ordinary.

As such, retail businesses post Covid-19 would find it necessary to transform their business processes into making the right progressive choices, failure in doing so may well cause them to go out of business.

The Solution

Here are some focus points for retailers to look into post Covid-19:

• Increased Focus On Crisis Management
  Almost all businesses have prioritized critical activities and strategize for disruptions in their day-to-day operations. This may serve well but formulating a crisis management plan for these times and also for any such event in the future would ensure business continuity in the long run.
  As the scenario changes everyday, retailers need to make the right choice for store management, logistics, pricing, etc. To look beyond business continuity and focus on long-term crisis management, retail businesses should have a single point of decision making that has a trickle down effect on the entire organization.
• Optimize Operations
  As the demand drops due to the impact of the virus, retail businesses will have to manage short-term expenses, optimize decision-making, and most importantly, give buyers a reason to buy from them.
  In time most retailers would identify which product/service of theirs is most at risk and so the pricing, marketing, and logistics should be adjusted accordingly.
  In the worst-case scenario, the demand could drop considerably that retail owners can only focus on the day-to-day working of their business. Of course, this may be a little far-off, but it is not improbable! Planning for worst-case-scenario situations can help you deal with crisis situations with a trained staff. If you think about any such possibility may arise soon, you can consider shoring up your cash reserves, or apply for business loans in India.
  Planning for survival on bare minimum can give you precious time to deal with similar emergencies more comfortably.
• Planning For The Long-Haul
  The retail business post Covid-19 has been hit hard! As such, retail businesses need to manage their finances not just in the short run, but also on the long haul. One should not look to cut costs today at the expense of a thriving business tomorrow!
  All ongoing initiatives should be re-evaluated and new ones which focus on the long-term growth of the business should be considered strategically.
  In other words, retailers have to tread in between short-term survival and long-term success. This can only be achieved through efficient forecasting and effective strategic planning for business growth.
• Tap Into Opportunities
  So, what if a retail business shuffles up every policy and it still doesn’t bear any fruits?
  If the demand does come to you, it is better to shift yourself where demand already is! Shifting your focus to new technologies or integrating a new software in your business process can give the boost your business may need. Identify new demands in the market for a trendy product or process and see if they can do you any good.
• Create Brand Visibility And Image
  Retail businesses post Covid-19 have to focus on creating a value addition to the society as a whole. In this time of fear and anxiety over what happens next, businesses can go a step ahead and create brand visibility through positive enforcement of strategies like charity or donations to the medical sector to help them contain the situation.
  This may sure seem as an addition to an already burdened finances of a retail business, but a positive brand image, regardless of the times we live in, will always be a huge motivator to the consumer to buy from your business.
  If you’re short on funds and your predictive analysis of the near future seems optimistic, you may consider applying for business loans in India.
  Business loans in India can be availed from Banks, NBFCs or private lenders.
• Personalized Customer Relations
  During these uncertain times, it is important to serve the customers with a personalized approach rather than a generic one.
  Buyers like to feel special, which gives them a moral reason to buy from you again and again. While tapping into new markets can be advantageous, it is equally important to retain customers.

Retail Business Post Covid-19: It Is Also An Opportunity

Retail businesses that have survived the period and are currently in stabilization mode definitely have a competitive advantage in the market.

If you have worked towards greater brand value, retaining your staff, and catered to the benefit of society as a whole during this period, your business has a boost unlike any of your competitors.

And with the right strategies in place for such contingencies and the short and long-term growth, your business is likely to bloom in the next coming years.

Also Read: Earning Tips From xCoins

The post What Should Retail Business Focus On After Covid-19 appeared first on Trends Tech Blog.