Out of the enormous range of businesses of all shapes and sizes that there are on this planet, there’s a vast spectrum of them that are technologically savvy. One might find a plumber in London who uses paper receipts and writes everything in a notebook, who doesn’t own a smart phone, for example, while at a cafe in Manchester, you can order coffee on an app from your office and just head down to pick it up with no waiting in line. The cafe churns through orders, while the plumber waits for his flip phone to ring with an instruction from a customer who has hopefully seen his Yellow Pages ad.

Because of this spectrum, there are a lot of opportunities for every business to make technological advancement because without it, there’s a lot of money being left on the table.

Businesses often have similar processes; an order comes in, it’s fulfilled and at some point the client pays. Whether it’s at the movie theatre where you pay for a ticket before you see the movie, or at a restaurant where you get the bill after your meal, these basic processes have been streamlined by technology for just about every industry imaginable.

Here are a few examples of things that could transform your business if you’re not already using them:

POS software

In the past it’s been a hassle to deal with credit card companies and fees but as most people use cards for the majority of their transactions nowadays, the industry has had to change to keep up with the demand. Shopify is one example of a company who has transformed the payments industry. For a monthly fee, you get their POS software (which works with an iPad), you can avail of some of the most beautiful and easy to understand analytics, and you can also set up an Ecommerce store with them so everything is streamlined and easy to compute.

Software as a Service

You can outsource just about anything to a company who specialises in it, which saves you time and money having to train an employee. One example of this is www.ciphr.com who specialise in HR.

Web Apps

There are lots of ways to keep in touch with your customers and social media is one of them, but who has time to post all day when running a business? For this, a number of automated solutions have popped up in the last few years, including Buffer, Edgar and Beatrix, just to name a few. These apps will save you time and money figuring out how to keep yourself front of mind with your customers on social media.

CRMs and Email marketing

It’s astonishing the number of businesses who don’t keep in touch with their customers – or even have potential client details from people who have enquired at one time or another. Having a client database is crucial to your sales funnel as these people have either thought about buying from you or have already done so. CRMs like Pipedrive, High-rise or Salesforce are all about keeping those lines of communication open, and email programs like Mailchimp and Aweber are there to help you communicate with everyone on a large scale.

Technology is changing the world, and every business with it. Innovation is happening and those businesses that can’t or won’t keep up will find their customers jumping ship to join those who will.