Business growth is directly tied to the available resources – an ability to actualize goals — and the best of these resources are found in tech tools. Those businesses that forgo the use of these tools find it troublesome when taking on new talent, expanding audience reach, and managing finances.

There’s only so much a small team can do with basic tools.

This article will look at the five types of essential business tools attributed to growth.

Ready to begin?

The Cornerstones of Business: Five Essential Tech Tools

Tools are found both free and paid – skilled team members will have the ability to maximize the use of these free tools. Yet, before long they will reach barriers due to the limited scope of the tools.

Keep this in mind when selecting the tools within these categories:

·  Pricing

·  User Experience

·  Customer Service

·  Features

And, ultimately… the benefit brought to the business.

Okay, let’s look at the tools.

Project Management

Navigating and implementing project management tools is a tough challenge without expert guidance, reviews, and buying guides (a service found through provides like Selecthub).

These tools give team leaders an overview of their team’s performance. It helps with delegating tasks, managing team members, and seeing the project to completion.

This is done through resource allocation, time tracking, collaboration, and reporting.

Notable tools include: ProjectManager.com, Clarizen, and Smartsheet

Marketing

Marketing is doable for your average business through small-scale campaigns on Facebook, local advertising, word-of-mouth, and referral marketing. Yet, what happens when a business wants to reach thousands – every day – and track dozens of touchpoints?

Marketing tools are available in many forms from social media management and PPC, to outreach and email marketing. These tools homogenize the marketing environment allowing a business to control the campaigns from a single dashboard.

Notable tools include: Hootsuite, Ahrefs, and WordStream

Inventory & Logistics

A sudden influx of orders is a potential business killer if there is a failure to meet demand and chargebacks begin to occur. Generally, this happens because A) misinformation about inventory demands and B) logistic nightmares.

It sounds like a good problem to have but… not so much.

Inventory management tools keep track of all products; it lets the sales, marketing, and logistics team easily share data about its demand. Logistics tools streamline the shipping process to save time during picking & packing and with correct labeling and postage.

Notable tools include: SAP Supply Chain Management, Oracle E-Business Suite, and Epicor SCM

Financial

A handful of employees are easily managed with a single, dedicated floor/office manager but when this expands to dozens (or hundreds), a small business will scramble to keep up.

Financial tools, including payroll and taxes, keep track of logged hours and automates employee pay. The tools are also beneficial for the necessary tax submissions a business will file each year including accounting deductibles.

These tools are also vital with collecting and reporting on data with research & development, inventory, and all other efforts requiring a financial investment.

Notable tools include: Quickbooks, ZenPayroll, and Expensify

Customer Relation Management

Businesses neglecting customers are doomed to fail.

This may happen to the best in the business if their popularity grows, employee count flatlines, and reliance on old systems stay in place.

CRM tools help collect and manage touchpoints with leads and customers. They provide and dashboard and platform to schedule and record customer interactions which are useful for improving contact and customer satisfaction.

Notable tools include: SalesForce, Mothernode, and Sage. These SalesForce tutorials provide more information.

The Five Building Blocks for Growth

These tools save time by streamlining the process of each category of business they cover.

Could a business do without them? Sure, but one shouldn’t expect to compete at a top-tier level through bootstrapping alone. See what benefits they bring to your business. Try one, today.