THINK BIG: LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY IN SMALL BUSINESS (May 21, 2019)

The business media is overflowing with stories about A.I, Big Data and disruptive technologies. These developments might seem like a looming threat to a business leader’s core business – future technology that’s poised to steal customers with superior scale and unmatchable pricing. 

However, many of the big data tools are cloud-based and completely scalable, which means they’re accessible medium, large and even small businesses. These tools include Salesforce for CRM, Shopify for e-commerce, HubSpot for inbound marketing and Xero for accounting.

New Zealanders as consumers are known to be early adopters of new technology—we readily embrace options such as online shopping, ride-sharing and self-service checkouts.

So as business leaders, shouldn’t we be exploiting the same benefits of ‘Big Tech’ wherever possible?

Almost every business has a website, but by using readily available A.I driven ‘Chatbot’ software, you can increase user engagement and generate more results from your website.

If your company provides a support team, why not apply machine learning tools such as MonkeyLearn, to automatically tag the incoming query and route it to the right person?  Xero even provides an app marketplace, with a range of software plugins that help you analyse, audit and visualise your financial data.

By adopting the same mindset as a corporate organisation, New Zealand businesses can put in place data-driven processes and tools that share information and provide greater insight into customer interactions. It’s time to think big and leverage your data to increase sales.