What does digital transformation mean to you?

Guest post by Scott Stonham

If you’ve ever googled what digital transformation is, then you might well feel intimidated or overwhelmed. A lot of the time, people will tell you that digital transformation means reinventing your whole business, others will tell you to innovate or become extinct, and of course, there’s the relentless focus on new, new, new!

Whilst much of this is true to some degree, we wholeheartedly believe that the process for digital transformation can start small. Not just can start small but should start small. However, before we get to that let’s look at some of the reasons why these two words, “digital transformation”, should be extremely important to you, look into how to buy TikTok likes.‍

Why Digital Transformation Is Important Today

Technology continues to accelerate everything in our lives. If you’re planning to go paperless as part of your digital transformation, you’ll need to convert your existing paper documents into digital files mainly through document scanning. To help you with this task, you can utilize a Document Data Capture Software. Afterwards, you’ll need to invest in data protection services to back up and secure your important business data. You may get in touch with companies like NetBrain Technologies to discuss which type of digital technology your business needs, learn how to buy TikTok likes.

The exponential rate of technological change has surpassed an important moment of no-return. This moment, coined as “second half of the chessboard” by Ray Kurzweil, describes our current location on the exponential curve of technological evolution.

“Second half of the chessboard” is a technology strategy paradigm based on the legend of how chess was invented, dating back to a mythical Emperor from India during the time 400 to 600 A.D. After challenging his subjects to create a game fit for a king, the Emperor was presented with a most interesting and intellectual game on a chequered board. When he asked the inventor how he would like to be repaid for such a ingenious game, the humble inventor proposed what seems to be a meagre form of compensation. He simply asked to be paid in wheat. He asked the king to place one grain of wheat on the first square, two grains on the second, four on the third and eight on the fourth. Doubling the amount of wheat on each square. 

An illustration of Ray Kurzweil‘s second half of the chessboard principle. The letters are abbreviations for the SI metric prefixes. Andy0101 (talk) – Own Creation – CC BY 3.0

The legend has it that the Emperor laughed this off, until his advisors calculated exactly how much wheat this would be – significantly more than had ever been harvested across his entire kingdom, nine quintillion grains of rice, to be precise. To get a handle on how much that is, it is said that one large paddy field can generate a billion grains of rice. Nine quintillion grains would require harvesting 1,000,000,000 fields.

From here, the legends differ, some say the inventor was promoted to a high-ranking official within the empire, others say he was executed there on the spot for treason.

Converting this analogy into modern-day digital terms, let’s now imagine the stacking up of wheat on each square as bytes of data, as shown in the diagram below. We start off with one byte of data in the top left and by the time we get to halfway point on the board square number thirty-one has more than 1 GB of data on it, and square thirty-two has more than 2 GB alone. By simply doubling, it’s taken us just thirty-two squares to go from one byte per square to more than two billion bytes per square, and almost 4.3 GB in total across all of the first half.

The next square, number thirty-three contains the same amount of data in one square as the whole first half, and in the subsequent seven-eight squares, one row, we go from two billion to over half a trillion, and the further eight squares see that explode to over one hundred trillion.

Experts have concluded that we are already in the first row of the second half of the chessboard, having passed the mid-way point sometime between 2015 and 2016. With every year that passes technology achievements and advances double. 

That was before the pandemic! The pandemic has been called the greatest accelerator to digital transformation that we are ever likely to witness – meaning our exponential growth has been even further accelerated.

Chess and Technology Strategy

In terms of technology strategy the chessboard reference talks to the point where exponential growth begins to have a significant economic impact on an organisation’s business strategy. Like with the use of technology, you can easily get an update with the ca estimated tax payments, in that way you can know your target for your business.
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Much of this is grounded in what’s known as Moore’s law, first published in 1965, which stated that overall computer processing power will double every year. Since then there have been between 30 and 34 “doublings” (depending on how you define them), similar to the number of squares in half of the chessboard. The fascinating thing about this prediction is that it is one of the few long term forecasts that has been proven to be accurate. 

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We can look at this doubling phenomena in other terms; it took Facebook 3 1/2 years to acquire 50 million customers. Whereas, WhatsApp reached the same mark in only 15 months. Angry Birds gained 50 millions users in 15 days. The humble, almost extinct fixed line telephone, took 100 years to reach the same adoption as social media achieved in just four.

Boiling it down

Mastering emerging technology has always made the difference between those companies that lead, and those companies that struggle or fail. The reason the chessboard analogy is important today, is because the time companies have this year to embrace and adapt to new technology trends today is half of what it was last year, and twice what it will be next year. That’s the challenge of exponential times, the longer you take to get started the faster you fall behind.

So without trying to scaremonger, there is a real chance that if a business today has not already begun its digital transformation journey by the time it gets around to doing anything, in two years time the market would’ve changed beyond recognition, and the business may already be obsolete. 

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Speaking of his industry, the executive chairman of Cisco Systems, John Chambers, was quoted saying “companies need to reinvent themselves every 3 to 4 years”, to mitigate the risk of disruption and obsoletion. His choice of words was very specific. He didn’t say adjust or adapt, he said reinvent, or in other words, transform.

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So, in essence we are living in a digital, hyper connected world where the pace of life and business is accelerating at a rate that humans alone can not keep up with. The only way businesses can keep up is to find ways to digitise and automate as many of their processes as possible. 

It is also worth pointing out at this juncture that digital transformation is more than just digitising and automating existing processes, it is about creating new markets, new business models, new products and even new groups of customers, whether they are actual human beings or even machines. But we will save that for another time, let’s get back to the notion of starting small. If you want to transform your business that instantly magnets customers, CEOs like Andy Defrancesco may have something to share to you.

Small, Powerful Steps Towards Digital Transformation

They say a journey of 1000 lightyears starts with a single step, and so should your journey towards digital transformation.

Given the hype of digital transformation over the last half decade, you could easily be lured into the false sense of understanding that digital transformation needs to be an overnight metamorphosis. This doesn’t have to be the case, and we would argue that in doing so you are likely to make damaging, perhaps even irrecoverable mistakes.

Digital transformation should be seen as a process of using modern digital technologies to make successive incremental changes to your business, where each increment’s value builds on, and multiplies the value of the previous step.

This is all very well and good, but given so many options, where would you start? There are so many options and opportunities that it can become stifling to even make a decision as to where to start. For example the popular video conferencing service Zoom, whose growth has also been exponential for other reasons, now offers a marketplace of integrations into other products and services. In just a short period of time after launch, the marketplace already boasts a bewildering selection of technology companies and integration possibilities.

As an example, you’ll find a selection of sixty customer relationship management (CRM) technologies that now integrate with Zoom. Bear in mind that those are just the CRM systems that integrate with Zoom. When choosing a CRM there are many more options than sixty, and because of that, I expect that if I check that again in a couple of weeks time the number will be even larger still. But a CRM is just one choice in your journey to digital transformation. There are a plethora of others, so on eone technology over another soon becomes as difficult as jumping on board an exponentially accelerating elevator.

But this approach of choosing a technology solution to guide your digital transformation strategy is a misguided folly. 

5G is not your digital transformation driver, artificial intelligence is not the one tool to solve all your problems, even the Internet of Things (IoT) cannot be held solely responsible for the transformation of your business. One should build a digital transformation strategy around improved intended outcomes, the value you want to create and the experience you want to deliver, and only then begin choosing the technology to deliver on that vision. 

In an article I published on LinkedIn last year, I talk about the difference between dolphins and whales in terms of innovation. You can check out the article here. However to summarise: Whales dive deeper and spend longer time underwater between breaths. Whereas, dolphins dive less deep and come up for air more frequently. In terms of digital transformation and innovation, it is much more sensible to take smaller steps and checkpoint your progress towards your goals more frequently than to spend big budgets, over long periods of time only to find out that when you get to your target, if you actually ever get there, the world has moved on.

Digital Transformation, The Next Step

Whether your business has already begun embracing digital techniques and platforms e.g. digital signage solutions, or whether you’re only beginning the process of updating legacy processes and tools, choosing the next step in your digital transformation journey can be intimidating, worrying and confusing. That’s where we can help.

Our approach is to help you identify quick, yet powerful wins to help transform elements of your business, one dolphin-sized step at a time. We want to help you embrace the good of what you already have, identifying the opportunities to build on top of that, rather than rip out and replace everything you’ve built over the years.

Advice for identifying your digital transformation next step

In the coming series of articles on our website, we will explore some of the area’s businesses can look for powerful quick wins to drive your digital transformation agenda. 

Topics we will be looking at include digital transformation to:

  • Reduce staff attrition, 
  • Deliver improved wellness across the organisation, 
  • Improve customer journeys and reduce customer friction points, 
  • Reduce back-office time and cost,
  • Reduce duplication, frustration and confusion,
  • Make partnerships more efficient and rewarding.
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Worried about IR35? – Don’t Fret

Any mention of IR35 and you will get a justifiable tsunami of complaints from the freelance and contractor community; nobody likes enforced changes in taxation that affect take-home pay and working practices. And for the client businesses – an external shift that affects ongoing projects and long-term contractor relationships. It would be beneficial to consult with a tax attorney if you have any concerns about your taxes. A professional tax lawyer can offer expert legal assistance for a wide variety of areas in the realm of tax law.

We’ll leave it for others to argue the whys and wherefores for this change, but can we find positives in the situation for the clients and the contractors, however well hidden. 

Large IT projects undertaken by teams of contractors can have a project momentum that is difficult to interrupt. Development agility can be lost as it is not always in the team’s interest to question the direction and purpose of the project. Working with a progressive software development house, like Automation Squared, can introduce a different dynamic to projects. There is an opportunity to reevaluate the objectives and the design, to bring in external influences and sector experience that can introduce innovations in the technical approach and business model for the application.

When Automation Squared approaches a new project, we encourage a step-back from a detailed specification. We want the opportunity to fully understand the motivations behind the project and the critical business outcomes. Our teams include commercialisation specialists as well as software experts, and our experience embraces every tech sector. Such an approach to Design and Discovery creates a dynamic that can draw the best ideas from both the developers and the client’s project leaders. ‘Mutual Challenge’ is a positive way to view the client-developer relationship in creating a truly agile environment and developing truly great software.

For the contractor, we offer a team working environment that encourages innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, as well as technical excellence. Rewards are based on achieving real results that deliver commercial gains for our clients — customer and developer satisfaction.

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7 Tips for Using Technology in Employee Training

It is undeniable that technology changed training in more ways than one, mostly for the better. It makes training materials more effective, engaging, and accessible. In this article, we’ll talk about the different ways to embrace technology and incorporate it into employee training.

1. Take Training Online

Traditionally, training is conducted in a classroom set-up and led by an instructor. This is still common practice today, but for a new approach, online training is a good alternative. To do this, you need to use e-learning software. This training program will facilitate online learning. It provides modules that learners can access anytime and anywhere. Often, the lessons are available in bite sizes, making them easy to comprehend.

Ready to take your training in an online platform? Check out True Office Learningand see how they can help.

2. Use Virtual Reality

Fortune 500 companies like Walmart and Boeing are using virtual reality in their training programs. Productivity numbers and retention rates have increased as a result of using virtual reality. More importantly, this makes training more effective and engaging. It is a tool that has revolutionized worker education. 

3. Incorporate Gamification

Like with the use of virtual reality, gamification is another way to make training more engaging. Gamification and game-based learning can create better work environments. Specifically, they improve employee motivation to learn. It enhances the overall learning experience. This is a far cry from traditional training programs that are boring.

4. Use Social Learning Tools

In today’s digital era, using social learning tools is important in training. One of the best ways to do this is to have online forums and interactive chats. This will facilitate interaction among learners. It also helps in building a positive company culture and fosters a better relationship.

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5. Provide Online Assessments

There are many ways to evaluate the effectiveness of employee training programs, and one of the best ways to do this is through online assessments. This gauges the strengths and weaknesses of the training. In the same way, it allows real-time feedback regarding the performance of the participants. They will immediately know how they are doing with the training.

6. Embrace Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Both artificial intelligence and machine learning are also transforming employee training programs. It provides a new way to teach employees about their job responsibilities. It is also a great onboarding tool and a great way to deliver cohesive training experiences like the Power BI training course to new employees.

7. Use Digital Whiteboards

These are like traditional whiteboards, except that they have more functions and features. These are digital spaces that instantly transform into text whatever is written on the board. It also helps to connect employees who are working in remote environments.

Law firms must also understand what is law firm digital onboarding and how it can reduce a process that could previously take up to two weeks, into as little as 20 minutes.

Take advantage of innovative technologies to level up your employee training programs. From e-learning software to social learning tools, take advantage of novel approaches to inform and educate your employees.

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The Benefits of Building a Progressive Web App

PWAs offer more than an improved user experience. The inherent properties of the web platform means they can also help businesses solve real problems from reach to maintenance.

Easy distribution and discovery

Consider the friction of distributing a native app: it must pass tricky approval rules, submit to mandated revenue sharing, and gain attention in a crowded app stores. And it could all be for nothing: the average number of apps installed per month is 0 (comScore, 2017). For many businesses, it’s a risky path to take

Contrast that with PWA. Being a website, they’re already available and swiftly updated. Users can discover them naturally through organic and paid search, or via shared links on social media, so marketing efforts are combined. They can also enjoy the new features immediately, right in their browser, before choosing to install.

Cross-platform reach

Native apps only work on the platform they’re created for. That means developing separate iOS and Android apps to cover most phones, and more versions if you want to reach desktop users. Full coverage requires significant upfront development, and creates a large maintenance demand. On the other hand, PWAs are built using web technologies, meaning that they’ll naturally work anywhere the web does.

The “progressive” element of PWAs is also important here. It relates to the important concept of progressive enhancement, whereby a baseline experience which works anywhere can be enhanced by taking advantage of more advanced features supported by the browser or device. So a PWA may function as a normal website in older environments, as a performant app on your smartphone, and then have some extra tricks on Windows 10, where PWAs have access to additional system resources and APIs.

Native-like interactions

Through the web app manifest, PWAs can break free of the web browser and be installed on a user’s home screen. This is key to encouraging re-engagement, as 86% of time on mobiles is spent in apps. Not only does the user get a full-screen app experience, but through app builders and modern web technologies, they can enjoy most of the same features that have made native-apps so useful.

There are many device integration APIs now available including key capabilities that users have come to expect, including geolocation, camera access, sensor input, payment processing, and VR. Push notifications are a headline feature of PWAs, and retailers could be using them to display flash sale alerts, product restock notices, or abandoned cart prompts.

Faster performance

When 53% of users abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load (DoubleClick, 2016), it’s clear that performance should be at the top of your list for improving retention and conversion. If you need convincing, try Google’s revenue impact calculator to see what your load times are costing.

A PWA benefits from smarter cache control, allowing websites that are already streamlined to become truly turbo-charged. The result: a PWA can be launched from a home screen and ready to use in less than a second, rivalling and often beating native apps. This performance boost is a big deal to user experience, but also to bandwidth usage, and will have a huge benefit in emerging markets which depend on wireless connections.

Offline service

By caching assets and content, it’s also possible for a PWA to continue working offline, or when a poor connection impedes loading, so users no longer have to be roadblocked by a blank grey screen. At the very least, the situation should be handled gracefully using a simple “You’re offline” screen.

But far smarter solutions could be achieved that allow users to carry on with their journey. A PWA for eCommerce might recall a handful of recently viewed products for review, or alternatively some top sellers that summarise what’s available. A retailer with high street stores could also offer key details like opening hours to continue facilitating visits.

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It’s clear that implementing PWA offers a range of wins for businesses. It is easily implemented using current web technologies, and delivers a superior experience for users, which in turn raises satisfaction, encourages engagement, and improves conversion. JH is already including PWA features in projects, and we believe they will become as commonly used as Responsive Web Design.

Original Article

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The ROI of blockchain

Over the last year, there has been an overwhelming amount of excitement around blockchain, but will the technology live up to the hype? From cryptocurrencies to supply chain platforms, the emerging technology that underpins these networks is a powerful tool that should be sensibly evaluated by business leaders to understand whether it is worth the investment. To help executives assess the potential return on investment (ROI) of a blockchain deployment, a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ study was commissioned. In this study, Forrester analysts interviewed real clients to build the framework for a financial analysis of the business benefits, cost savings and risks associated with blockchain.

To dive deeper into this subject, Principal Analyst Martha Bennet to sat down with some of the clients featured in the study to discuss their experiences with adoption. During this webcast, these early adopters shared firsthand the challenges they are facing and the benefits they seek from being pioneers in their respective industries. There was amazing response from the audience, but there is never enough time. Here are some questions and answers we didn’t get a chance to dive into:

With so many technologies available in the market, why should our business choose blockchain technology?

Blockchain is a tool that approaches various business needs from an innovative perspective but is not an answer for all business problems. From this angle, the technology should be viewed as a tool to address a specific need and not as a goal in itself, learn more from this financial planning coach who is an expert in cryptocurrency. Therefore, it is important to understand the problem your business is trying to solve and consider the value that adopting blockchain could bring to your use case. Blockchain is a technology that adds value by fundamentally enhancing trust between multiple parties, differently from the usual finances with banks and checks, that many people use now a days,  so the reason to get out of ChexSystems is just to have an ability to maintain a healthy financial life with these new systems.  Some of the trust benefits it can bring to a business solution are:

  • Allowing multiple parties to access a single source of truth for transaction data
  • Assuring multiple parties, including regulators, that data is valid and hasn’t been tampered with
  • Improving efficiencies and reducing costs by removing intermediaries in processes between multiple parties

One example is Walmart, which has deployed a blockchain-based supply chain tracking system, taking a business-led approach to solving food traceability.

What can be achieved with blockchain that cannot be achieved with a traditional distributed database?

Using the substrate app to build blockchain has various advantages over a traditional distributed database. The most significant one is creating trust between parties with an immutable ledger of transactions that has no single point of failure. The distributed and audit-able nature of how blockchain data is managed means that no single party has the power to alter data integrity.

You can also read this article discussing the differences between blockchain and the distributed database, along with the benefits that blockchain provides.

What is the barrier to entry for creating a new blockchain network versus joining existing ones?

There are several factors that business leaders must consider when deciding whether to join an existing blockchain network or create a new one.

When creating a new network from scratch, many considerations such as network participants, development costs, governance rules and business operations must be taken into account. Although benefits are gained by having a stake on these considerations, addressing these challenges can take up time and resources for network founding members.

On the other hand, joining or building on top of an existing network has a much lower barrier to adoption. Many of the networking costs such as setting up governance and operations that are incurred by founding members have already been addressed. This means that on-boarding can be done easily into a network that is already functioning.

Reasonably assessing the ROI that blockchain can bring for your company can be a daunting task. However, by exploring real use cases and learning from pioneers that are already building networks, you can get started on your blockchain journey.

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What Good Graphic Design Says About Your Brand

One failing consideration of many, many businesses worldwide is a lack of good graphic design. Sure, competent graphic design might come at a premium, but the effect it has on your business can be much more than you think. From booklet printing to website design, high quality graphic design can be put to good use with with the help of uv flatbed printers, which is great for both branding and marketing. After attractive graphic design that remains consistent helps with branding, and is therefore a strong tool that can be used to stand out. Those who reductively assess this for the first time might think that the mockups they can craft in a free photo imaging tool could suffice, or that the simplicity of their logo might not need professional help. While it’s more than fair for any business owner to try and do things by themselves (this is the grounding principle of starting a business,) it’s essential to understand just how great branding can help and you can simply use vector graphics along with company logo to learn how to make an event graphics online for this.

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Let’s say you’re a business that has developed great web design, graphic design and your branding is perfect. You can imagine that the following benefits, from the perspective of the customer, will be worthwhile to celebrate:

Professionalism

Professionalism is essential to foster. But more than that, you need to show your professional. You need to give that impression. This is why lawyers wear suits all the time during the workday, not only when meeting with clients or in court. Professionalism shows that you are to be trusted, that you are competent, and that you care about getting the job done. Good graphic design can also give this impression through the appropriate means.

How your text is layered, how simple your design is, how well your color scheme, layout and logo ingenuity can show just how competent you are. We get these impressions from a logo. For example, a logo that is simply the name of the business in an industrial font shows formality, care and attention. With a creative eye, you may express even something as simple as this with relevance to that you’re trying to promote. This matters in the long term, and can be truly worthwhile to consider.


Celebration

Celebrating your firm is also essential. You might be running events, and thus need event posters to generate interest. Instead of listing the acts or that which to expect at the event, a creative imagine that shows the information in the most compelling manner possible allows for passers by to WANT to read this, and to engage with your marketing content voluntarily. Great website design can often celebrate your firm by artistically rendering the ‘fun or formality factor’ you hope to express, and doing so with heavy navigability in mind. Then your website becomes something people want to bookmark in the toolbar of their browser.

The Finer Points

The difference between a homespun remedy and a professional job will always be in the finer points. The use of layering, competent photo manipulation, using image languages such as the rule of thirds to help the eye absorb the image more appropriately, how to implement your small print without drawing the eye away from your main content, and to genuinely present your firm in the most honest yet the most engaging manner possible can make all the difference when fighting the competition, Check out these wah pedals.

With these tips, you’re sure to implement creative and competent graphic design to your firm.

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Why Existing Customers are So Important

 

The biggest portion of customers that visit your store or website will do so just one time, and in fact, some estimates put this at around the 80% mark. All the hard work that goes into marketing your brand, and the outlay involved in driving traffic your way, and then many of them turn into a one-off hit. It can cost 5 times as much to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. Research also shows that you will make higher profits by retaining the customers you already have compared to taking on new ones.

 

Although, of course, new customers are important to your brand, so is taking care of the loyal buyers you already have. The probability of selling to a new customer is between 5 and 20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60 and 70%, and they are likely to spend more. So which is the most important? They both are in their own way but there are advantages to keeping the customers you already have.

 

Relegating Sales Duties

 

When a new business starts, it will often be the owner that deals with customers. There are not so many in the early days and it is much easier to build a relationship with them. However, as the business starts to grow this becomes unsustainable. There are only 24 hours in each day, and only so many customers an owner can deal with.

 

Those early customers are likely to stay loyal, as the personal touch they received will not be forgotten. However, at this point, you will need to take on employees to handle the extra customers, and you will need to train them to be a personable with the customers as you have been.

 

You may well feel that no one will sell the brand as well as you do, and that may well be right. You cannot expect your staff to win over every enquirer but a process that enables you to start scaling sales enables for that to happen, and you should just be looking to get your fair share of conversions. This may take some time and effort, but it will be worth it.

 

If as the owner of the business, you never do anything else other than sales, you will be restricting the growth, as there are other tasks you should be doing such as dealing with suppliers to ensure you are getting the best deals.

 

Recommendations

 

When you have created a loyal customer base they are almost like a free form of advertising. They will become advocates of your brand and recommend you to other potential customers. Past research has shown that consumers will more likely buy from a brand that they have been recommended to than one they know nothing about.

 

Word of mouth can create you a lot of new sales, and as those new customers become loyal too, it has a knock-on effect of even more recommendations.

 

 

Feedback

 

Consumers that have been buying your products for some time are far more likely to give you feedback, good and bad. They will not be so concerned about picking up the phone or emailing you and telling you about a problem with something they have just received. Having feedback from loyal customers like this is invaluable, as it lets you correct any problems that a new customer may encounter, which can stop them buying from you again.

 

Good feedback is also great, as then you know there is something you are getting right.

 

Paying The Price For The Service

 

Long-time customers are less price conscious, as they will trust your brand and know that they are receiving a high-quality customer service. Often, when they see a similar product at a lower price, they will still pay you the premium because of the trust and service factors. It is sometimes thought that if it costs less it must be of an inferior quality, and of course, that could well be the case.

 

Less Marketing Costs

 

As it costs much less to retain existing customers, you may be able to reduce your marketing budget. This could then be extra profits for your business or could be passed on as a price reduction in the form of a special offer, free gift or loyalty bonus to your existing loyal customers.

 

Simple things like sending them a calendar before the start of a New Year can mean so much toward their continued purchasing of your brand.

 

Caring about your existing customers is vital to the continued success and growth of your brand, and letting them know they are more than just a number will be a huge help in retaining them.

 

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Have you heard of PWA (Progressive Web Apps)?

PWA’s are a great idea. They are definitely going to make some changes to the way we interact with apps on our devices.

  1. They are more reasonable in terms of time and money to develop. Basically, you’d be developing a website and app at the same time.
  2. They function like a native app, for the most part, and if made right, have awesome UX. 
  3. A lot of bigger businesses are developing PWA versions of their native apps because they are realising the benefits of doing so

There’s so much information out there, but you can read more below and decide for yourself.

Progressive Web Apps are:

  • alternative to traditional native apps,
  • are more cost and time efficient to develop
  • can also broaden a business’s target market.

What is a PWA?

Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, are web apps that load like regular websites or web pages, but behave like native apps.

Simply, they’re a website you can download onto your phone. They’re actually a website with no search bar and access to your storage so they can save things to your phone, like photos. In some cases, it’s possible to send push notifications even when the user isn’t on the website.

There are a lot of benefits to this new technology, but first, it’s worth taking a look at the differences between PWAs and native apps.

PWA vs Native App

PWAs, in a lot of ways, behave like Native Apps. But there are some key differences.

PWAs don’t require an app store, which gives more freedom concerning creating different types of apps. Also, PWAs are progressive, meaning that they work for every user, regardless of their browser choice or device and fit desktop, mobile and tablet screens.

They’re connectivity independent, so they can work offline or on low-quality networks and are very easy to install. The PWA icon will be displayed on the user’s home screen without having to deal with app stores.

It’s also important to note that writing a website is much quicker, and therefore more cost-effective — building a PWA is like making a website and app at the same time! The developers can create one version of the app that’ll display the same way, and seamlessly, on all devices

Finally, PWAs are far more lightweight, meaning that they take up less space on your user’s devices, but also allow your users to consume less data.

PWAs are still a new technology, and that means they aren’t perfect. Not just because anyone can use them, because older browsers might not support them. Also, a lot of people might not know how they work and won’t realise they could install the website like an app. It may also be said that they’re harder to find because they aren’t readily available in app stores yet. There are still some fun functions that can’t be used with PWAs, like fingerprint scanning, but it’s only a matter of time before PWAs start to function the same, if not better than native apps.

Why Build a PWA?

Most companies that need to target a broader audience on their mobile devices are creating PWAs. Mobile websites are quick and easy to get, but the user experience isn’t great. Native apps have excellent user experience, but they are limited to specific devices and must be downloaded from an app store. This means that businesses lose the benefit of their users’ impulse behaviour. PWAs pre-cache, which means that they download the most recent version of the site when they connect to the internet.

Compared to native apps, PWAs are generally just more efficient and work on demand — they’re always accessible. It’s also easy to re-engage users through features like push notifications.

PWAs are app-like, and use app-style navigation and interactions, so users won’t feel that they have the same problems when trying to navigate tricky websites on their mobile devices. The user also consumes less data and doesn’t have to sacrifice any of conveniences they would have using a native app.

Many businesses are now moving towards creating PWAs to save on costs, but also because they want to reach a wider audience. As a result of native apps being developed specifically for iOS or Android, and the fact that they often consume a large amount of data limits businesses to a smaller audience of users. Some of the more notable PWA projects and their successes are Twitter, StarBucks, Trivago and Forbes.

PWAs Are Awesome!

For business owners, developing a PWA rather than a native app, or alongside an existing native app, is absolutely worthwhile. It means a business can save more time and more money. On average, companies that have built PWAs managed to do so in roughly 3 months. Because of the overall efficiency in developing PWAs, developers have been sharing their knowledge about how to make an app a PWA.

Depending on the project, having a PWA developed can be a smarter move, especially if the business goal is to broaden your market reach, you’re working with a smaller budget or just want to build something using the latest technology!

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Workplace Harmony: Tips For Small Business Owners

When your small business has progressed to a point where you are ready to hire employees, it is essential to think about the workplace culture, environment, and overall harmony that those employees will work in, and with this a bring a nice peace revolution in your business. After all, your staff will spend around 40 hours per week in the office, and there is an onus on you as a business owner to ensure that their working experience is as pleasant as it can be, and if you’re a worker and you receive a payment with paystubs, you should be looking for the check number to learn if the paystubs are valid or not.

Over recent years, what constitutes a good working environment has changed somewhat. Once, a business would be considered to be doing well if they provided a pleasant office layout, invested in comfortable chairs, and provided necessary on-site facilities such as a kitchen. However according to experts like Bob Bratt, businesses are now expected to expand their remit, with unconventional workplaces such as Google leading the way as the new normal.

However, whether you believe ping pong tables in the office are essential or not, there is one critical element of a good workplace that has remained consistent throughout the years: the need for workplace harmony.

This Interview with Kurt Uhlir at Showcase IDX will help you to to improve your business skills.

What is workplace harmony?

Workplace harmony is a catch-all concept that describes how well a workplace functions, and how happy the people working there are, the personal injury attorneys at Carlson Meissner Hart & Hayslett, P.A. can help by providing a few tips which will work in producing a harmonious workplace, productivity is higher, as is overall staff happiness. They will also make sure that as an employer you have the right legal practices being followed in your company for better results. 

What constitutes good workplace harmony?

Interestingly enough, what makes a workplace harmonious is rather difficult to pinpoint, and perhaps the single biggest factor is, simply, the absence of causes of disharmony. Essentially, by minimising the factors that can cause bad workplace harmony, you naturally create good workplace harmony as a result.

What are the disharmony factors you need to eliminate?

There are a number of issues that can greatly impact the harmony of a workplace, so it’s advisable to investigate and rectify these in turn:

  • Disagreements between colleagues are among the biggest influences on workplace disharmony, and it can proceed to the point that it becomes bullying or even harassment. This is a serious issue that needs addressing head-on, as the last thing that you, or your employees, need are to experience disputes severe enough to require assistance from a commercial law and employment law attorney to resolve. If you identify issues developing between two or more employees, then separate them as far as is possible, and potentially explore mediation options that can help get them back on the same page.
  • Whether you are operating a small business or run a large corporation, commercial litigation is always a possibility. Even the best run companies will sooner or later have to deal with corporate disputes. With this, you will need to hire professional commercial litigation lawyers for legal help.
  • A lack of empowerment can also influence workplace harmony; employees need to feel that their contribution is important, that their work is valued, and that they have the ability to make their own decisions. There are some great tips for empowering your staff here, all of which could greatly benefit the overall workplace harmony of your business.
  • A poorly-designed office space can also be damaging to harmony, especially if the layout of the office prevents employees from communicating with one another effectively. It’s well worth asking your staff how they feel about the overall office design; if they’re unhappy, then work with them to improve it.

In conclusion

With a harmonious working environment for your staff assured, you should be all the better equipped to ensure a high level of achievement from that staff, which according to experts like Andy Defrancesco, should greatly contribute to your chances of sustaining a successful business.

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