In light of the changes COVID-19 has brought to doing business, SME businesses are always looking to save time, money and find ways to allocate resources to make their hard-earned dollars stretch a little longer.
While there are a significant amount of resources available to improve business operations, finding the right resource, at the right price, or for no cost at all, is a time-consuming task. Finding a credible, reliable and cost-effective resource is another challenge entirely.
Huge annual advancements in computers, phones, tablets, POS systems, cloud storage, data backup, software, and more create an ever-changing realm of IT possibilities and businesses invest their dollars accordingly. This can make it difficult to determine how to allocate businesses funds appropriately.
Many owners make the mistake of using the same IT budgeting model every year, without considering changing company needs and technological advancements that could benefit them.
Here are three free resources businesses need to know about that can assist SMEs in their growth and development with little to no budget.
Need help with your marketing and digital needs? Meet Google Digital Garage
Learn all about digital marketing for businesses at your own pace with resources designed to assist individuals with any knowledge and skill level with their business marketing.
Google Digital Garage is a one-stop-shop for businesses with online courses in everything from search ads to content marketing with the majority of the courses being free and approved by industry experts. This platform provides individuals with a tailored training plan to learn digital skills completely for free.
This style of small business mentoring ensures businesses can learn anywhere, anytime, about situations they might otherwise pay other businesses and contractors to engage in.
Need help with business? Meet Network Educate Invite
The Network Educate Invite (NEI) platform allows small- and micro-business owners to access everything they need to grow and build their business all in one place. NEI is an Educational platform with information from the best business coaches, mentors and business minds from around the country aimed at helping businesses grow.
The purpose of NEI is to create opportunities for businesses to do business and educate business owners looking to improve their operations, without having to pay thousands of dollars for the advice and resources required to fix a problem they may have.
With a range of resources available to businesses, this platform can be accessed using an app and is at a user’s fingertips 24/7. The NEI community is available to businesses in Australia.
Need help securing agreements and contracts? Meet DocuSign
The preference for cashless exchanges, the increase in popularity of online meetings and networking and the development of business agreement solutions, since the emergence of COVID-19, are changing the way we conduct business.
This is beneficial for businesses and customers as the concept of contactless business solutions can be completed and can be implemented as new normal customer interaction.
“Clickwrap agreement” legislation and the concept of online contracts being legally binding was addressed in 2000 with e-signature law-making electronic contracts and signatures legally binding in the same way a paper contract is legally binding.
These contactless solutions have the ability to save time, money and resources for businesses while remaining user friendly.
DocuSign has the ability for businesses to sign and send contracts anytime, anywhere that are secure and sustainable. With a free trial, you can check if this program works for your business before integrating the resources into your technology suite.
The benefits of emerging technology and resources to support SMEs are providing a lifeline for businesses. With the changing nature of business in a post-COVID-19 society, these resources are invaluable to SMEs.
