The Best Tools to Make Your Business Grow

The biggest disruptors to traditional companies of technologically-enabled enterprises that are using their skills to break into, and improve, age-old markets with innovations and technological advances.

Companies that fit into this mold are now some of the world’s biggest, and most significant-including Amazon, Netflix, Airbnb, Apple, Google, and Facebook. With the emergence of these new companies, we have seen their competitors fall away due to their failure to adapt and transform.

Surveys, such as the 2016 Watermark Board Diversity Index highlight how technology skills are severely underrepresented in CEO- and board-level executives. While 53.6% of board-level executives have accounting, finance, and legal backgrounds, only 4% have the skills needed to leverage technology for company growth.

Not only was this a finding in this specific survey. Similar studies also found this severe deficit in the number of CEOs and board with sufficient technological prowess to keep up with the growth in technological advances.

How tech can help businesses thrive

New technology can help CEOs in multiple aspects of their roles, including driving sales, increasing profitability, streamlining, processes, and steering their organizations towards an innovative future of revenue and capital growth.

Which tools have the highest probability of promoting corporate growth and transformation? CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems, marketing automation, and web analytics.
 

Here’s what each can do for the CEO:

• CRM: The Principal of Altimeter Group, Brian Solis, stated that "Companies are at a disadvantage if they implement technology without thinking about the interactions of customers with that technology and with the company." CRMs such as Hubspot and Salesforce let you track every single interaction your business has with your prospects and customers. By centralizing all the data in one system, your CRM enables you to successfully manage contacts and customer data to create strategies and interactions that have your clients at the core.
• Marketing automation: Using marketing automation, you can send personalized messages to a vast client database and track the results. It equips your marketing teams to qualify better leads to send on to sales, streamlines processes (because your teams spend less time on repetitive tasks for an array of marketing actions, and increases ROI.
• Web analytics: Using the treasure trove of data coming from your website with web analytics, you can use all that web data to identify and measure what matters to your company, and in turn, use your insights to create high-performance campaigns that drive sales.

A CEO who understands technological advances can take advantage of using these tools in their firm’s day-to-day operations to make sure the company reaches its full potential. By comprehending and implementing the right technology in your company, you can improve your productivity, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. These tools will undoubtedly enhance your customer experience too, which will drive sales upward and turn customers into loyal ambassadors for your brand.

For CEOs to thrive in the new digital age, and for transformation and growth to foster in their organizations, it is imperative that they master technological advances. Using the right technology will lead to a positive impact on your corporate strategy, policies, revenue, operations, and of course, the customer experience. And above all, it will help your business continue to flourish.