We’ve all been there before – you’re trying to find a piece of information or data among your many spreadsheets and systems, and you just can’t place it.
You know it exists, but somehow among your internal systems, emails and desktop files, it’s disappeared into the ether.
These sorts of inefficiencies are exactly what can hinder the progress of a business. Through wasting time on menial tasks that should be easy, your team ends up time-poor and frustrated.
So that your employees can get on with the job and spend their time and resources more efficiently and productively, we’ve summarised 3 ways web development can help tackle these inefficiencies:
The cost of maintaining existing systems can be staggering. In 2019, the US Federal government spent 80% of the IT budget on operations and maintenance.
Older systems can also result in your organisation failing to comply with security, integration and compliance requirements – as well as lost business opportunities. While it’s obviously important to ensure that your organisation’s data remains intact, your company needs to be aware of the risks associated with maintaining legacy software, and how to deal with them.
Another important factor to remember is that knowledge of your business’ legacy systems may only be possessed by a small number of your employees. A new system ensures transparency, consistency of procedures and that multiple members of your team can access important data and information.
Legacy software modernisation doesn’t mean you have to replace absolutely everything on your system with a brand new one either – the key is a strong product roadmap.
Start with incrementally replacing the most critical applications, to see the biggest impact whilst keeping business disruption to an absolute minimum. Subsets of your system can then be replaced, so that it can interface with new technology. Data can even be synchronised, so that it appears on new systems as well as your existing systems, giving you peace of mind that your organisation’s data will not be lost.
Updating your legacy software is one of the most important ways you can improve the efficiency of your company.
A recent survey from SnapLogic showed that 90% of employees reported doing boring, repetitive tasks in their jobs.
An unfulfilled workforce means that there’s every possibility they’ll leave you for a competitor. Through developing your database and passing these menial tasks onto AI and automated systems, your workforce can concentrate their efforts on more important things.
But it’s not just about job satisfaction – database development can help you analyse data in new, insightful ways, turning information that may not originally have seemed relevant into a valuable resource.
A few more examples of how you could use your database include:
Audience definition and targeting
Customer research
Data science
Retention and loyalty
Technology architecture
Demand generation
Acquisition
Through improved quality and consistency of information, you can better analyse your business performance, check how profitable your company is and monitor customer behaviour to continuously tailor your products and services to better fulfill their needs.
Through comprehensive planning, analysis, design, development, testing, implementation and maintenance, you can even integrate your old database with a new one, ensuring you’re benefiting from new technology without losing critical data.
From increasing productivity to saving time and money, improving your database can help your organisation achieve a myriad of goals.
We live in a world that’s becoming more self-sufficient and increasingly online.
Data from Capterra states that 75% of customers want to solve product or service problems on their own, without relying on agents or customer service representatives through phone or email.
By providing a quality customer portal, you’re fulfilling what customers want quickly, appealing to a new generation of consumers, and all this whilst boosting your internal efficiency.
A customer portal can help your organisation meet the needs of your valued clients 24/7, as well as providing a revenue stream at all times of the day. While a customer can manage their account, find quick solutions to their problems, and buy further products all through their customised portal, your support staff are freed up to focus on other tasks that move your business forward.
Given the ‘instant’ world we work in, customer satisfaction is immediately met if they can fulfil their objectives straightaway. A great customer portal will bring information, documents and answers immediately to a customer’s fingertips in just a few clicks (or taps). With customers accessing this at any point, the efficiency of your business to meet customer objectives is improved rapidly.
The damage of not having a customer portal is staggering. According to Microsoft, 90% of consumers expect a business to have a customer portal. If you cannot satisfy customer demands, they’re likely to leave your business for a competitor.
Technology and web development can be used in a multitude of different ways to tackle the inefficiencies of your business – we’ve barely scratched the surface in this article. Through migrating, integrating or replacing your software system and databases, as well as harnessing the power of customer portals, your organisation can vastly improve the productivity and profitability of your company.
6B has a no-nonsense, jargon-free approach to help you utilise the power of tech in improving your business efficiency.
If you want to use tech to streamline your business operations and improve the performance of your website, 6B are the developers you need.
