Tag: IT
Why IT is the guardian angel of businesses during a recession?
- Introduction
- Advantages of cutting-edge IT solutions
- 9 practical examples of how IT solutions recession-proof your business
- Use the present crisis as an unprecedented opportunity to lead
Introduction
Decreased revenue churn and the uncertainty in the global economy is making it difficult for many businesses to keep their financial wheels turning during the COVID-19 slouch. They are forced to revisit their strategies w.r.t. how they manage and operate their business, and vital to this is re-visiting their use of technology.
IT solutions lead to new ways of innovation and this can help organizations make lasting improvements to recession-proof their business. IT solutions allow leaders to redesign processes from the ground up. IT automates processes, with data captured at the right moment to deliver insights on processes and how to streamline them. IT innovative solutions rewire organizations to perform better through a fundamental reboot of how work gets done.
This article presents
- How businesses are adopting IT solutions to improve productivity and cut costs, while they recession-proof their business.
- 9 practical examples of IT solutions.
Advantages of cutting-edge IT solutions
– Improve productivity
Lack of technology has been one of the reasons why employees are unable to reach their productivity targets. According to a recent Workers’ Experience Survey, 85% of employees said they would prefer their organizations to provide them with the entire IT ecosystem (including tested and supported devices, accessories, and so on) that will help them to be more productive in their work.
– Cut costs
Most businesses are understandably reluctant to loosen the strings of their purse in the current situation of uncertainty. However, done in the right way, IT innovative solutions can be self-sustaining, and each of the incremental improvements will pay for the next leg of the journey. Take cloud computing for example. Cloud computing allows you to get rid of the hardware cost. Instead of purchasing your own equipment, the provider can offer you all that you need to keep your business running. Since it works on a per-per-use pricing model, it saves you from paying for any unused software/ hardware. 47% of IT executives report that their IT costs have dropped by 30-50% after they started using cloud infrastructure and apps.
– Recession-proof business
Technology will help you ensure that your business not only survives the imminent recession but also thrives. Among the many things, IT solutions will help you gauge customer engagement in real-time, keep your data clean to maximize new business growth potential, free up more time for employees to sell, and manage client experience.
Read more: Recession-proof Your Business with Digital Alternatives, Go Paperless!
9 practical examples of how IT solutions recession-proof your business
1. Cybersecurity
Data privacy continues to be a major cause of concern as incidents of phishing and other threats are on the rise. Businesses must rely on new and innovative IT technologies to help them differentiate and ensure growth in the evolving marketplace. Businesses that lack effective security measures face the ever-looming risk of exposing themselves to data theft that would result in breaking the trust of their stakeholders, customers, and the marketplace. Now is the time for a new take on protecting your organization.
Read more: Safeguarding IT Infrastructure From Cyber Attacks – Best Practices
2. Contactless shopping
The COVID-19 led safety norms such as social distancing have pushed businesses to use technology to lower interaction between people, products, and infrastructure. Contactless shopping allows your customers to conduct entire transactions on their mobile devices without touching anything else. For those who prefer stepping out to shop, technology solutions can be integrated and implemented for contactless shopping.
Read more: How Retailers Can Revive Sales While Adhering To Social Distancing Norms
3. Omnichannel for retailers
Innovative technology ensures that retailers have an omnichannel presence across all touchpoints. This means that they can go beyond brick-and-mortar locations to mobile browsing, social media, online marketplaces, and every online channel where the customer is inclined to browse. It helps retailers manage their tasks effortlessly while allowing customer engagement through a common quality service across various sales channels.
Read more: 6 Hot Technologies that Handhold Businesses Amid COVID-19 Impact
4. E-commerce
E-commerce solutions enable centralized management of all the orders as well as the inventory of both the digital and brick-and-mortar stores. This technology can direct the order placed online to the nearest store for faster delivery providing enhanced customer satisfaction. Automatic updates of the inventory ensure better stock management across all the stores. It further assists in automatic stock replenishment.
View Infographic: The Truth About E-Commerce, 2017-2020
5. Self-checkout systems
Secure cash handling machines and automated self-service checkouts are a huge success for retailers. Though initially it was used to reduce cost and for security reasons, now it has proved helpful in limiting staff contact with cash that is touched by other people, an essential technology in the current scenario.
6. Digital payments
For businesses that do not have access to expensive, automated machines, contact with cash can be limited by digital payments for in-store transactions. Low-value payments can be made contactless with just a ‘tap.’
Read more: Trends Shaping Mobile Payments Market Worldwide
7. Virtual trial rooms
Retailers can use several options available for customers who would like to see and experience the product before they make a purchase. Magic Mirror is one of those trends. it helps customers see what they would look like in different clothing styles by responding to their hand gestures and voice commands.
8. Chatbots
Based on machine learning, chatbots copy human conversations and react to written or spoken requests to deliver a service. Chatbots provide extensive customer assistance while your customers are shopping online. It allows you to provide customer support 24/7 leading to greater customer satisfaction. It keeps your customers engaged with interactive communication. Chatbots ensure that the buyer’s journey continues uninterrupted in the right direction. Since they are automated IT solutions, they allow your organization to handle several customers at the same time.
Read more: Capitalizing on AI Chatbots Will Redefine Your Business: Here’s How
9. Robotics in logistics
Use of Robotics in your logistics will ensure that you accomplish the same amount of work with improved efficiency and less cost. Businesses need workforce capability while they adapt to changing environments. COVID-19 has forced a large number of the world’s working population to go on extended periods of sick leave which has resulted in an increased need for workers. However, robotics could eliminate such concerns as these technologies become more widely used, becoming increasingly affordable and available. It has the potential to create a limitless workforce that does not claim retirement benefits, paid time-off, and other additional aspects of costs associated with human workers.
International Finance Corporation reports that logistics companies (including 3PL players) have increasingly turned towards robotics and automation for surviving the coronavirus crisis.
Read more: How Robotics in Logistics Helps Improve Supply Chain Efficiency
Use the present crisis as an unprecedented opportunity to lead
As the world is increasingly moving toward newer technologies, the expectations of consumers are also rapidly changing. The present scenario with the pandemic is further accelerating existing trends that push products and services towards emerging technologies. Organizations must be led by this change in behavior and meet their customers where they are. The current pandemic is a serious wake-up call for all businesses to recession-proof their business and mitigate the risk from such adverse conditions. Pick the right technology to propel your business growth. Partner with us top custom software development company and allow us to get you there!
They say the only thing that is constant in this world is change. It applies to every single aspect of our lives, including the health and well being. Thinking from an industrial perspective, the healthcare landscape is constantly evolving from one level to the next and it only increases the need for IT systems to be more scalable, flexible, adaptable and secure. But technology too is an ever changing concept, needing regular and constant updates to remain fresh and competitive, not to mention the ever-changing regulatory requirements as well. So as you can see, it is a continuously changing scenario, which makes it all the more important for organizations to make sure they have the most leading edge software to keep pace with the environment.
Organizations need to build technologies that have the ability to adapt and change, while sticking to compliance regulations. As mentioned before, their focus should be on flexibility and scalability of their IT platforms. In other words, they need to develop future ready IT systems that are safe and secure.
Dr. Andrew Litt, Chief Medical Officer at Dell Healthcare and Life Sciences says, “ The only way hospitals will thrive is if there’s useful, timely and relevant information that is securely delivered along the care continuum.”
Thankfully, the IT field is making its improved contributions as well for the healthcare sector and now it is up to the organizations to narrow down and adopt the most appropriate one. To help them in this regard and to enable them to get the most out of their systems, here are 5 pointers to look for while choosing a future ready healthcare platform:
- Scalability and adaptability – This is one of the most important factors to consider to make your systems future-proof. The market for healthcare applications is one which is very volatile, with regulation coming in quite frequently and with little notice. In such a scenario, it is important to have systems that are flexible and can adapt to changes easily. For example, when the new office takes charge with the 2016 presidential elections in the U.S, there may be new regulations to comply with, or when an organization launches a new product or a new healthcare plan, there might be a need for the existing healthcare applications to scale out or adapt to new norms. To support all these kinds of dynamics, organizations need to look for open architecture systems that enable quick and easy integration of new additions in business as well as simplified processes of upgrades.
- Ease of adoption – For all the reasons that the business environment is dynamic, it also means an existing healthcare application system has to be adaptable. At the same time, it might also need additional integrations or deployment of specific components. Organizations need solutions that can make way for these and enable such additions in a streamlined and seamless manner. In situations where an existing system is being replaced by an organization, the new solution has to be smoothly deployed, without wasting time on installation, training and the like. For this purpose, cloud integrated solutions may be leveraged as they support fast and easy enforcement with no need for onsite installation and are also highly scalable.
- Automation – As organizations are striving to keep up with the growing demand for improved quality of care, they also need to keep a check on the costs. As a matter of fact, they are faced with the challenge of reducing the costs without compromising on the quality of care. For this purpose, healthcare applications must support full-fledged automation of most if not all important functions, so as to eliminate manual processes that take up a lot of time and effort. It can also make sure that there are no compliance issues. Organizations can do completely away with the error-prone, time-intensive and inefficient manual data entry processes. Moreover, with the automation of the financial systems as well, processes like billing, collection of cash and the like can also be simplified.
- Interactivity – Most healthcare, as well as banking organizations, are starting to embrace retail-centric models of technology to manage their affairs. This means that users of the system, that is, the consumers in case of retail solutions and patients in case of healthcare solutions, can interact with the system empowering them to take care of their own issues. This is quite a huge deal for healthcare, as member portals like these give patients the freedom and accessibility to view their own health records, or health plan benefits and the like. It also lets them perform self-service transactions and open enrollment activities on their own online. It also lets them interact with doctors and providers regarding personal healthcare. Organizations need to look for solutions that have the capability to connect with such member portals and make their users self-sufficient.
- Real-time information – This is an extension of the previous point on member portals. People nowadays need speed and transparency more than anything, and it is only going to become even more so in future. Patients need real-time information at their fingertips about their appointments like billing, coverage, and details of the doctor through a secure online portal. Hence, at any cost, a healthcare application needs to be in the direction of real-time. The most appropriate way to ensure this is by tightening the connectivity between the administrative system of an organization and its member portals. Such kind of connectivity again calls for an open architecture of all platforms involved. Such integration also gives patients an overview of their billing, payment and other details in real time.
All of these point towards an age where people can proactively manage their healthcare by themselves as well by their providers. As an organization gears up for this phenomenon, it might be useful to keep the above points in mind and make their healthcare platforms future proof, so as to gain maximum efficiency.