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4/07/2016 - Posted by Emily Healey
1. Understand it. This is a pretty basic concept, if you don’t know what features your software system has you definitely won’t be able to take advantage of them.
2. Invest wisely. Business software is an investment and needs to be treated as such. When handing over your cash for new software you need to be sure of how it can help you increase your business’ profitability.
3. Use it. With a lot of software packages the more you use it the more it can help you. For example, if using software for analytics, the more data it has access to the more insight it can give you.
4. Take it with you. If you or your employees work off site your software needs to have mobile integration and access. Not having this feature when it’s a fundamental part of your business will hold you back.
5. Get trained. One of the biggest reasons businesses don’t get the most out of their software is that they just haven’t received adequate training during setup. Make sure you and everyone else on your team is properly trained or you’ll quickly start hitting roadblocks.
6. Ask for help. Similarly, if you hit a road block, even if you’ve been using the software for years, always take advantage of the support services available to you. Some answers you’ll be able to find online, other times you might need to use phone-support.
7. Stay up-to-date. Whether it’s to fix small bugs, to ensure compatibility with other evolving applications, or to grow with the needs of your business you’ll want to keep your software up-to date. If no updates are available and you think something is amiss, contact your software provider to let them know.
8. Integrate. Your software should be able to effectively work with the other systems you use. If it can’t or you’re not sure how to set that up it’s best to find out as soon as possible or you are wasting one of the biggest advantages of using business software.
9. Digitise everything. Although it can be time consuming, digitising your records is a must. You should also be encouraging your employees to utilise digital task management built into your software over the manual, analogue procedures they are used to.
10. Be prepared to start again. If at the end of the day your current software just isn’t working for you it may be time to jump ship. While this can be hard to bring yourself to do after you’ve invested a lot of time and money into a particular system, the quicker you start using the right one, the better.
