As we enter a new year, many mid-market businesses will be looking at the effectiveness of their IT strategy. It’s a good time to get thinking about your technology investments, and conduct a strategic IT review to enable your business to be the best it can be.

Here are the ways investing in the right technology can drive SME growth:

Helping businesses work smarter

Many businesses in the UK have already moved entire workloads over to the cloud and are seeing the benefits of a targeted more productive workforce. A cloud-based solution can offer a high level of flexibility, security and scalability to businesses with in-house and remote teams. Data storage is almost unlimited – allowing you to instantly scale up depending on your needs.

Automating business processes

As businesses grow, processes become more complex – putting robust systems in place is essential at the earliest stage to ensure success. Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP integrates multiple business functions into one process. Applications can seamlessly talk to one another and keep up with vital information such as costs, inventory and invoicing.

Automated processes like ERP can transform a business – reducing costs, minimising duplication, saving time and decrease the risk of delays or errors caused by misinformation. Most importantly, a well-designed system can easily grow along with the business it serves.

Better communication

One of the many challenges businesses face today is managing remote teams. With the continued growth of home and flexible working, employers need to find new ways to get staff to build good working relationships with colleagues and embrace company vision in order to have a positive impact on overall business productivity.

Technology is key to better communication and there are some great products on the market now that enable collaborative working. Applications like Microsoft Teams or Slack have video, file sharing and chat functionality for everyone to use. Remote workers can get involved with important projects and collaborate with the team in the office. A more collaborative working culture will lead to increased productivity, development and growth.

Improve the customer experience

Thanks to new technologies the way we interact with customers has changed significantly over the years. Where customers’ expectations are high, it’s important to take advantage of technology where possible to make the customer experience special.

For SME’s technology can be approached with caution, as budgets are often tight, but even the smallest changes can make a big difference in retaining and attracting customers. Integrating chatbots or personalisation through artificial intelligence are ways to make the customer experience better and increase the chance of their return.

Securing data

According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FBS), small businesses in the UK are collectively subjected to almost 10,000 cyber-attacks a day – the best thing you can do as a small business is invest in technology that is constantly up to date and monitored.

Anti-virus, Anti-malware and multi-factor authentication are just some of the effective prevention methods you should be using to tackle the growing threat. A managed IT solution uses technology to provide 24/7 monitoring to detect suspicious behaviour and remain up to date with the latest methods used by hackers.

Cloud solutions such as Microsoft Teams are built to reduce the chance of sensitive data leaks. For SME’s the cloud can accommodate for a large increase in a remote workforce without additional cost and reduce the risk of your data being compromised. This gives you more time to concentrate on growth knowing your data is secure and your business is working more efficiently.

It is clear that technology can open so many doors for SME’s and help them take that extra step in their growth plans. At Aura Technology we can help your business with its digital transformation, beginning with a thorough strategic IT review to assess your business’ current and future technology needs. Contact us for more information.