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A new survey by global Human Resource (HR) firm, ADP, found that more than three in five Australians are experiencing stress at work. Especially for employees working from home during the ongoing pandemic, the stress buildup can lower their work performance and slow down overall business operations. More than ever, managers need to take a fresh look at their core activities during business process modeling and proactively explore ways to support their employees.
One such way is by choosing the right business tools to automate repetitive tasks and free up valuable time. In fact, these tools can accelerate some of the most time-consuming work processes including accounting and content creation.
Wondering what are the common business tools to consider first for your organisation? From social media scheduling to task management, continue reading to learn why business tools are important and how to use them to your advantage to stay competitive.
A great way to start is by first facilitating team collaboration via tools like Skype, Zoom and Slack. The ability to easily get on a call, rather than schedule a face-to-face meeting or draft up an email, can simplify internal communication significantly.
The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has also led to an increase in the usage of team collaboration tools. In fact, a 2021 study found that more than half of the Australian businesses surveyed have plans to increase spending on collaboration, communication and productivity technology. Especially with employees working in different locations, these online collaboration tools can perfect communication within the team and ensure everyone is on the same page every time.
If you are managing a growing team, it is crucial to have a proper task management system to organise projects. This ensures that all deadlines are met with task delegation and submissions are completed in one place. Software like Basecamp and Asana offer a user-friendly platform for your employees to start creating tasks, supporting team collaboration in the long run.
With 4.48 billion people using social media around the world, businesses can benefit by sharing meaningful content regularly to reach out to their target audience. However, what if it slips your mind to publish content?
That is where social media scheduling tools like Buffer, SproutSocial and Hootsuite can come in handy to plan for posts to be uploaded at a specific time of the day.
Most would also allow you to manage different social media accounts, so you can easily prepare a month’s worth of content and schedule them in advance. The best is, you are able to monitor the engagement behind each post for analysis. Here, you can get an insight into what’s working and what’s not for your business. The right tool will enable your team to better curate relevant branding-related content that catches your target market’s attention. In this way, you can optimise your social media strategy – to ultimately increase sales.
That being said, you may also find other business reporting tools helpful to access different types of data. For example, HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics and Dashboard software provides performance metrics for not only social media but blogs, landing pages, emails and more as well. If you are a business process manager, consider implementing these tools to make it easier for your team to track leads effortlessly.
Finally, when it comes to mapping out your business finances, any organisation – small or large – can make full use of accounting tools like Xero and Quickbooks. These are extremely useful in processes such as budgeting and forecasting to plan ahead for your business. Your accountant can easily sync your accounts to the software and gain access to financial information quicker moving forward.
Equipped with the above tools, you can overcome barriers to growth and set your business up for success. Alongside DHL Express, you can also work towards maintaining high customer satisfaction while empowering your team with the best tools available. Sign up for a business account to discover how we can strengthen your business further.