Technology as your business ally

We all got used to use technology in our daily lives. Despite that, many entrepreneurs still struggle to take full advantage of it for effectively managing their business. Common causes include misconceptions on which businesses should use technology – check our next post in a couple of weeks – and unawareness of the tools available in the market that are suitable for your type of business.

Even in areas that most business already utilise such as public profile (social media, website, etc) and payment systems, there are many features that can be leveraged to make day-to-day operations smoother and to create more insights to business owners.

At I.V. Capital we believe that technology can be used for businesses of any size to drive sales, increase profitability and professionalize its daily operations.

1️⃣ Customer interaction: online marketing and promotion is used by almost all businesses nowadays: Instagram posts and reels and websites with description of products/services are usually in place when a new venture is born. However, many other tools are available to learn more and engage with its existing clients and prospective customers. In hospitality, for example, new tools were widely spread during covid pandemic related to table service activities (menus, ordering and payment). Many operators decided to continue utilising despite the easiness of restrictions. Not surprisingly since these tools help not only eliminate paper usage but more interestingly also creates a new way to build its customer database (or sometimes called CRM). Customer databases are extremely helpful in different settings to access insights into sales profile easily and interact with its clients through mailing lists and customized purchase offers.

2️⃣ Operations: the old way to control staff shifts and payments, inventory of goods and assets and invoicing and payments were paper based. The emergence of widespread of notebooks in late 20th century saw the emergence of spreadsheets However, with the advent of smartphones and the cloud storage systems, more and more tools at the touch of your mobile phone became a more efficient way to have information easily accessible to all. Nowadays, there are many options that integrate personnel shift scheduling with payroll and associated taxes consolidation, which is a great tool for business that operate in longer hours or with significant number of workers such as construction or healthcare. Inventory management is a great tool for anything related to perishable goods such as food retail services and catering. Invoicing and payment systems makes procurement orders and clients sales more efficient while integrating well with financial management tools.

3️⃣ Financial management: finally, all businesses in the UK today are required to fill their accounts. Many businesses rely on external chartered accountants that charge per hour and utilise financial information sometimes spread over a wide range of spreadsheets and documentation. Financial management solutions are critical not only to reduce the costs associated with your final accounts consolidation but also help business owners to learn and compare the financial situation of their business on monthly or even daily or weekly basis. For start-up companies, many challenger business banks today already include free of charge a basic accounting system embedded into their bank statement and analytical information on the touch of your fingers.

At I.V. Capital, we are committed to help you integrate technology solutions, identifying your current pain points and offering solutions adequate to your specific needs and constraints. Implementing technology doesn’t need to be complicated: simple tools are available to SMEs and some more tailored made to several industries.

We invite you to reach out to our team today to discover how we can support you to identify, test and use these business tools that can create value to your business sustainably and instantly.

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