Running a startup and turning it into a successful business takes a lot of time, dedication, and money. It requires long hours of hard work and careful planning. Most importantly startups need to run efficiently. There’s no time to waste on anything that’s not going to contribute to the business’s success, and there’s no wiggle room for financial mistakes.
In 2020 with the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns around the world it’s more important than ever that startups are flexible and can operate effectively from anywhere.
We take a look at why tech is essential for startups in that want to succeed:
Why is tech essential for startups in 2020?
With limited resources and a fair amount of risk involved, a startup business needs to operate as efficiently as possible right from the beginning.
There are so many different ways tech can benefit startups — it’ll help to improve productivity, increase output, and ensure projects, employees, and finances are properly tracked and recorded. And widespread upheaval caused by Coronavirus has meant many startups need to rely on tech to run their business away from the office.
Startups use tech to automate processes
In any business, there are plenty of repetitive tasks that can take up valuable time. While more established businesses might be able to hire staff to handle these, startups need to use tech to optimize their workloads and automate tasks wherever possible.
One of the key areas for automation in a startup is marketing. Effective online marketing is key to growing a startup business. Startups can use social media scheduling tools to ensure regular posts on all of their social media channels without taking the time to manually post each time. And marketing tools such as Marketo can be used to manage and automate email marketing, mobile marketing, and ad campaigns.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is another essential piece of tech for startups to manage their communications with customers and potential customers. By tracking interactions, and sending out automated messages these tools can help move leads through the sales funnel to making a purchase.
Tracking progress in startups
Tech is really useful for startups trying to closely monitor how a business is running.
It’s important to know that everyone is working efficiently – time tracking tools can display exactly what hours have been spent on different projects, clients, and tasks. This kind of insight is invaluable in making sure a startup is staying within budgets and meeting deadlines. And it’s particularly important when your employees are working from home to ensure they are still productive.
Startups can use tech to track their outgoings as well — a key area that can be overlooked is fuel and expenses. Fuel cards not only save money but can make it easy to track the amount being spent on fuel. Employees use the fuel card to pay at petrol stations across the country and there’s no need for paper receipts or time spent processing expenses.
It’s easy to see all fuel costs in one place and keep an eye on just how much fuel is being used and the cost to the business. iCompario compares different fuel cards, making it simple to find the most suitable one for startups.
Better project management for startups
Poor project management is often a big problem for many startups. As the business starts to take off there’s likely a small team with a huge workload. It’s essential for startups to use tech to keep track of all projects, break them down into smaller tasks, and assign them to different teams so that they are working efficiently.
Tools like Asana, help track and manage projects, and ensure that they are complete on time. This kind of tech enables successful collaboration on projects and is essential for startups that need to improve productivity.
Tech allows startups to be flexible
Tech gives startup businesses the flexibility to work from anywhere at any time. It means a startup doesn’t necessarily even need one central office space, and employees can be based anywhere in the world.
Communications tools are a key form of tech that provides startups with the flexibility to work remotely. Instant messaging platforms such as Slack, provide a reliable, secure way to talk with colleagues.
And by using cloud storage tech, anyone can access files, documents, and everything else they need to work from anywhere. Files can be shared quickly and easily across the business, making collaboration and project coordination simple.
These are just a few examples of the different tech that can help out startup businesses. To run an efficient, productive, and successful startup it’s essential to utilize all the different tech that’s available.