Still don’t have your
business online? Don’t worry. Get to know the basics of how to continue business
activities and avoid business disruptions due to impact of Corona virus and
Lockdowns
Corona virus and Lockdowns have impacted most of the
businesses globally. Organizations have to rethink and redefine way to run their
business even in such hard times and unavoidable circumstances. Old traditional
ways of carrying out your business will no longer be sufficient enough and
getting your business online will not just be a norm but will become very necessary
for survival of your business in this changing and difficult times.
If your business still doesn’t have an online presence and
an online working platform to carry on your routine tasks, it is high time to
start thinking about it and take the very first step in this direction. We are fortunate
that we are already living in an Internet connected world and there are already
a lot of technologies and softwares which can take care of most of your routine
business processes. Even if you don’t know anything about how to take your
business online, there are IT consultants whom you can hire on contractual basis
to get the job done.
Some of the most important steps and most commonly used software
solutions that can be used for any business in order to take it online are
listed below.
1.
Business
Website – A dedicated business website is the first and foremost thing
that your business should have while aiming to take your business online. If
you have a business of selling products directly to customers then you can also
have your own Ecommerce Store developed along with your business website.
2.
Online Marketing
– Marketing strategy should be focused to use various online mediums such as
Emails, Mobile SMS, PPC Ads and Social Media. If budget is not a constraint for
your business advertising then you can even hire a Digital Marketing agency or
consultant who will take care of your online marketing.
3. Customer Relationship Management – Customer
Relationship Management or CRM in short is a software that contains all
important information about your leads/customers, orders and payments. Zoho and Zendesk are famous Cloud based CRM softwares that are used by many
businesses. If you have a very custom requirement for your business CRM then
you can also get you CRM developed from a Software Development agency
4. Customer Support – Customer Support
software can be used to take care of your customer care activities. You can
also use a simple chat Plug-in like Pure
Chat by integrating it in your website through which customers can easily
talk with your customer support team and give their feedback, resolve queries or
send complaints.
5. Remote Work Setup – All the above
points are related with the software solutions that you can plan to have for
your online business but softwares run on hardware machines and it is highly recommended
that the hardware systems (desktops, laptops, servers, routers, etc.) and their
arrangements or configurations are made in such a way that it is possible to
work online not just from your office premises but also from a remote location.
6. Work From Home Facility – I am sure that in recent times you must also have heard
the term “Work From Home” , which is a facility given by a Firm wherein an Employee can carry their routine professional tasks from their home. Having a Work From Home (WFH) facility
for your employees not only helps in making sure that your employees continue
to work and your business goes on but it also has some other benefits for your
business. WFH provides a flexible working environment, time is not wasted
while commuting to & fro home to office and if you can have some permanent WFH working employees then it can also
save the rent/cost of your office space.
Depending upon your business requirements you can choose a
combination of any or all of the above points to take your business online and
make sure that you have business continuity platform and plan for tough times.
The above listed points are mentioned in general for any common business. If
your business requirements and processes are very different and complex then
you can approach a seasoned IT Consultant who will be the right person to tell
you on what best actions you can take to take your business online and keep
going.
About Author
Karan
Kuniyal is an IT Consultant and has been in the IT Industry since 2008. His
passion for helping people in all aspects of digital business solutions reflects in his
writings. In addition to writing blogs, Karan also provides software development
and digital marketing services for businesses of all sizes. You can reach him
here: developer.karan@gmail.com