Tech Matters Now More Than Ever

2022 promises great opportunities for small businesses—and great challenges. Every business owner I talk to has trouble finding talent and supplies and anticipates inflation to rise. Wages are also pushed higher, in part due to inflation. However, the workforce contracted, and businesses now compete for talent across the United States. Remote Work saved many businesses during Covid, showing employers and employees that geography is not the last word—you can hire people from anywhere.

The low cost of living in East Tennessee combined with the low taxes overall means that we can expect more out-of-state companies to hire remote employees from Tennessee. This is because those employers can pay less, and the employees still get a pay bump. 

The only ways out of this are to:

1. Increase efficiency (to do more with the same resources)
2. Increase productivity (do better with the same resources)
3. Automate everywhere you can (decrease labor requirements)

Tech will not be a panacea, of course, but it will play a more pivotal role than it ever has before. You can keep up with the times or go out of business. 

Specific examples include:

1. Change business workflows and processes to be cloud-centric. Use products such as Microsoft Teams or Slack. So your team can communicate by phone, chat, or video and collaborate in real-time on documents – from anywhere.
2. Implement new software for your business or turn on new features that let you “outsource” human labor to computers. Microsoft alone has many features you know don’t about, such as Forms (populate an Excel sheet), Planner (a Kan-Ban style project planner), To-Do (integrated todo list that combines Outlook tasks, flagged emails, Planner tasks, and more) or Bookings (allow clients and prospects to book a service time with your company and pay for it in advice.)
3. Use products such as Zapier or Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Flow) to respond automatically to clients’ integrated separate software to connect data points and avoid manual data entry.