Companies have a lot of things they can invest in. Their employees. Technology. Their customers. Higher salaries for executives. Infrastructure. And more. However, it’s hard to find the right blend of what and how much to invest in.
Virtual office management company, BusinesSuites is the U.S. national winner of the annual Dell/NFIB Small Business Excellence Award.
John Jordan, president of BusinessSuites said that, By using technology to reduce costs, push responsibility out to all levels of the company, improve the client experience, and leverage a smaller infrastructure, we reached a profit level in 2008 which was double what we had originally envisioned.
One of the things I tell business owners is that instead of having a brochure-ware web site, their web site should be an aggressive tool – it can be used for customer service, leads and more.
BusinessSuites uses two key tools:
The development of a Web-based operations management system that generates and electronically distributes invoices and client satisfaction surveys, schedules meeting rooms for clients, tracks prospective clients and more.
It also uses an Internal Wiki to share information, as well as store hardware and software manuals created by the team.? BusinessSuites beat 2,999 other applications due to its strong use of technology and investment in its employees.
Although your business might not win an award, you’ll win the award of saving time, saving money, boosting productivity and boosting customer service by strategically leverage technology as a tool to grow your business.
If you are not considering technology expenditures as investments, but thinking of them as a “cost of doing business” you are missing out on an important opportunity for growing your business.
Ramon Ray is the editor and tech evangelist for Smallbiztechnology.com
