Small business owners always seek for technology tools, including software, to increase the efficiency and productivity of their businesses. As of now, the market has countless simple tools free and at low costs that can help businesses grow and remain competitive. In today’s connected and globalized world, the ability to work remotely and in teams is a critical requirement. Therefore, when organizations are looking to use software to increase productivity, they must achieve business process alignment that includes remote workflows and telecommuting practices that allow the building and management of teams from anywhere in the world.
Employees tend to spend a lot of time looking for documents, files, contact lists, appointment information, calls logs, and other pending affairs. The time invested in searching or finding missing elements is notable in the loss of productivity that will influence the development of activities of the organization. As a productivity countermeasure in general software readily available, the Microsoft Windows operating system includes many features and applications that can assist users with efficiency. However, these features or unknown to the user or underutilized. With proper training, businesses could improve productivity. Therefore, the issue may stem from a lack of understanding or a lack of training. If we do not use popular operating systems such as Windows to the full extent, other business applications that organizations implement to increase efficiency may also wind up misused or underutilized.
Effective software tools are not always the most powerful, expensive, or complete solutions available in the marketplace. Simple tools can produce higher effectiveness in organizations that better align to implement the tools. Although the reasons may vary, business process alignment, user acceptance, and low learning curves impact how people use the software. Complex tools that become difficult for employees to learn have a higher probability of being either misused or not used. Therefore, to improve productivity, software tools must either be adapted to the needs of the organization or fit such needs out of the box. Even tools such as video conferencing packages must align with organizational strategy. For example, if a business implementing remote teams does not have procedures set in place to create, manage, and secure online meetings, the tool will not make sense. For security reasons, some organizations may have policies against using such technology. Therefore, a misalignment occurs. To use the tool in the proper manner, the business must evaluate the packages and align with corporate strategy.
For software to be successful, the tool must possess certain characteristics. As noted above, companies must align well with the technology. What this means is that the organization’s vision, mission, goals, and strategy need to be compatible with the technological strategy. To develop a proper technological strategy, the business needs to visualize how their organizational infrastructure will converge with technology and how such technology will support the organization’s strategy. Even specialized and specific software packages such as diesel truck repair shop software have the capability of improving the overall performance of an organization, including profitability, by coordinating business activities with the automation process that the software package provides.
The software that can provide the highest value for an organization in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity is not always the most extensive or expensive option. Instead, the characteristics that will help an organization implement with success include flexible, scalable, reliable, readily-available, and well-performing options. Furthermore, the software tool must be very effective and efficient. Efficiency refers to the throughput, availability, speed, and accuracy of a system. Effectiveness, however, refers to the system’s usability and how the resource impacts the business process that the system automates or covers. For success, both aspects must be high. What good is software that performs all aspects needed and includes any type of information if the platform takes too long to load? Also, how useful is a system that is fast to load, but does not have the needed features or data?
A company’s use of software systems to achieve high levels of productivity gets its influence from how the business itself operates. This is independent of a system’s available features or the cost of the software itself. Businesses need to understand how their internal processes operate and tie these processes with the features available to achieve a high level of effectiveness. After achieving effectiveness, businesses can review efficiency and look for tools that perform at a high level. Whether a business is looking to create an e-commerce presence to sell or buy research chemicals online or implement remote teams for telecommuting, the organizational strategy must align with the technology that will support the strategy.
