How Tech Is Changing Business Operations

The increasing popularity of consumer electronics shows a surge of interest in international technological innovation. In fact, Emmanuel Macron, the new French President, has attended four events -- two CES (News - Alert) Unveiled Paris shows and two at CES Las Vegas. This fascination by some of the best technology companies and some world leaders with consumer electronics is part of a bigger picture—technology is changing the way businesses are run. Those who don’t keep their finger on the pulse of change won't be able to keep pace with the technologically sophisticated businesses of tomorrow.

Here are some business software options that you can use to improve the growth of your business today:

1. Supply Chain Technology

Supply chain management (SCM) software is the conceptual tools or modules deployed in a variety of processes. It gives users the ability to administer supplier relationships, makes it easier to carry out supply chain transactions and directs numerous related business processes. Interestingly enough, SCM once used to be a chain of basic, integrated apps. Now, all that has changed. It’s currently more accurate to speak of the SCM tech stack as complicated and internationally scalable. Although individual APIs like Vendor Managed Inventory, Sales & Operations Planning and Supply Chain Optimization, work well alone, they work even better when integrated into a tech stack.

2. Human Resource Management Systems

Human resources is a challenging field, but it's made much easier through the use of human resource management systems. These can be divided into three main groups: HRMS, HCM and HRIS. Each is slightly different from the others, and trying to decide which one to use depends on your organization's needs.

Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) does have features that can be seen in HCM and HRIS. Adding to the confusion, are variations between different HRMS vendors. As a solution, HRMS offers features for time and labor management, managing payroll, planning and assessment tools, organizing employee information and scheduling functions.

Human Capital Management (HCM) offers a variety of features, many of which can also be found in HRIS systems. A HCM may offer features like talent management, language translation, currency conversion, goal setting, salary planning, budgeting and succession planning. There may also be analytics and performance review capabilities.

Finally, Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) is particularly useful for organizations that want to set policies and implement procedures that guide employee behavior. Designed to keep employee information organized and easy to access, HRIS has features to help recruit and track candidates, train employees and offer open enrollment and benefits management. It's also a good software for compensation management, human resource reports and workflow reports.

3. Money Management Systems

Every organization must keep careful track of its money, as few rely on ledgers and spreadsheets anymore. Instead, it’s far quicker and more effective to use accounting software. A computerized process of keeping track of the money coming in and flowing out of an organization saves time, improves accuracy and offers flexible ways of recording and organizing the large variety of business transactions every business has to process. As with most business software in any category, no two accounting software are the same. They may be similar, but each offers a slightly different approach to accounting. Built around foundational accounting principles, each software will have an accounts payable and receivable sector, a trial balance, a general ledger and so on. Moreover, it’s possible to get one with the general elements you want before getting specialized add-on features.

4. Sales Management Systems

A sales team gathers a lot of data about its customers and interactions with them. In the past, these were kept in reports and folders, but now it's much easier to use software to manage a large lead database with current and past customer names and their contact information. This software is versatile enough to keep careful notes about customer communication via email and to organize task lists. Besides managing all customer-related data, it can also provide a salesperson with insights on their sales performance.

In closing, it’s important to remember that if you’re struggling with any business process, it might be because you’re using manual methods to organize your information. The right software makes it easy to control the business process so that it runs smoothly.