Starting a digital revolution for small businesses

The digital revolution might be happening in your office but it’s not happening everywhere it seems.

These are to manage information, communicate, make payments, solve problems and create content online.

The stark reality is that is small and medium businesses do not have these skills in 2015 then they will struggle to be around in 2020.

Managing information: The internet can be a minefield of information and a lot of it can be very confusing - especially for small businesses who are venturing out into the wide world of the web. Google Analytics is, for some, the first port of call as you can extract long-term data to reveal trends and other good information to allow you to make decisions about which direction your business should move in. Having a content management system (CMS) in place for your company will help you publish, organise, delete edit and modify any content you publish on your website, in short it’s an essential tool for any small business. As your business grows it might be an idea to invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system which manages a company’s interaction with current and future customers.

Chasing payments: Having a website which accepts payments takes the stress off chasing clients for those all-important bills. An e-commerce site for small and medium-sized business is now becoming a necessity rather than the norm as payment processing technology has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years. Accepting credit-card payments requires businesses to have, at minimum, a merchant account with a payment gateway. Although payment processing may not seem directly related to information management, a great deal of sensitive information is captured, transmitted and stored by payment gateways so it’s paramount to have a secure system in place to ensure data privacy. The advent of Apple Pay has also seen businesses latch on to new ways of accepting payment.