As your business grows, its needs change. It becomes more demanding and, often, harder to manage. But, investing in the right tools, systems, and office technology solutions along the way should make the process go much smoother. This guide is here to help, looking at essential office technology solutions for growing companies.
The Importance of Embracing Advanced Technology as Your Business Grows
Before looking at some of the key office technology solutions no growing company should be without, it’s important to cover why this is so important.
Many business owners simply fail to understand or acknowledge the value of upgrading their tech stack as their companies expand. They hope and expect everything to stay the same, for operations to keep flowing smoothly with the same old systems and technologies they’ve always used.
In reality, it rarely pans out that way. When a business gets bigger, with more work to handle, a greater range of responsibilities, more customers, more data, and a larger workforce, it has to also invest in more tech to manage and support all that change.
If not, the company risks being unable to cope, buckling beneath the weight of its own growth and expansion. It may find that processes slow down, productivity drops, morale suffers, and deadlines pass by without being met.
6 Essential Office Technology Solutions to Support Growth and Development
As you can see, if you don’t have the right office technology solutions on your side, your company can suffer in more ways than one. With that in mind, here’s a look at six super solutions to start considering as your business broadens.
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation, in a nutshell, is just what it sounds like – using digital tech to transform the way your business works. It involves finding and setting up digital tools and services that can replace and streamline any non-digital practices or processes you’ve been using up to that point.
It’s a broad concept, and there are many examples of how you can implement digital transformation. You could, for instance, switch from in-person training of new hires to online e-learning. Or you can ease the load on your support staff by investing in digital tutorials, self-support guides, and AI chatbots.
Document Management
As your business grows, you’ll inevitably find that you have many more documents to manage, store, and handle. Document management can help. As the name indicates, this is all about setting up systems, software, and processes to digitize, store, and organize your docs.
With all of your many documents stored in digital space, there’s less chance of them going missing, and individual papers should be faster and easier to find. You could even invest in cloud technology to store your files beyond your computers and other hardware, on safe cloud servers (more on that below).
Managed Print Services
Printing demands also tend to rise as companies grow. You may find, for instance, that you need to print much more often each day. This can lead to issues like wasted ink and paper, more frequent printer faults – like paper jams and breakdowns – and decreases in both productivity and morale.
Managed print services are vital office technology solutions to help you meet your increasing printing needs. These services focus on optimizing and streamlining your printing processes. A provider may, for instance, carry out an audit of your existing printing hardware and recommend alternatives, monitor and optimize printer usage, and provide parts and repairs to resolve printing problems.
Managed IT
As your business grows, you may hire new workers and broaden your existing tech networks with more devices or even more locations and possibly remote workers, too. All of that can be quite tricky to manage, even for businesses with their own in-house IT teams.
A managed IT provider will take some of the load off. Acting effectively as an outsourced IT department, they’ll take on various duties related to your IT. If problems occur, they’ll fix them. If new devices need hooking up to the network, they’ll handle it and more, taking care of many IT issues so you don’t have to.
Scanning and Conversion Services
Here’s another key tech solution connected to all those documents, files, and contracts your growing company may start accumulating over time. Through scanning and conversion services, providers will digitize your documents, creating PDF and DOC copies of your archives that you can find and refer to with ease and convenience.
It’s all part of “digital transformation,” which we covered earlier, and it can make a massive difference. Imagine you only have a single paper copy of a key contract, and it gets lost or damaged. By digitizing it, you won’t have to worry. You’ll be able to make as many copies as you need, store them across different devices, and share them instantly with relevant parties.
Cloud Storage and Backups
For growing firms, the power of the cloud can never be underestimated. It offers limitless storage potential – a safe and secure place where you can store all of your business documents and other important files.
But, to make the most of the cloud, it’s best to work with a trusted, knowledgeable provider. They’ll be able to help you set up secure servers and even create cloud backups of your files. That way, even if you face a worst-case scenario, like a natural disaster that wipes out part of your working space, you’ll still have copies of all your key files, ready to access at a moment’s notice.
Invest in These Tech Solutions to Help Your Business Prosper
Growth is always exciting for businesses, but it has to be managed carefully. As discussed above, if you don’t invest in the areas that matter most – like your office tech – your company’s growth may get stunted, and you’ll fail to reach the heights you hoped for. But, by embracing key office technology solutions, you can support your company’s growth and fuel it, becoming even bigger and better than expected.
For a helping hand, and all the office technology solutions you need in Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, KDI Office Technology is the name to know. Contact our team today to learn more.