It’s hard to imagine what business was like before the use of business software became available to ease business operations. Compared to the labor-saving benefits that automation now provides us, we can only speculate that it was no easy task to run a small, medium, or large business.
The idea of telecommuting from home would probably sound like a sci-fi concept to someone in the 20th century. In fact, everything moved slower—administration, marketing, sales, accounting, and all aspects of business operations. Communication was slow between employees, associates, and customers in the era before text messages and emails, and before the turn of the century, businesses had to rely on television commercial, radio spots, print advertising, and billboards to get attention.
If you ran a business before the advent of the Internet, you would probably have made so many miscalculations based on slow business processes and inaccurate information gathering systems that a positive return on your investment was probably more a matter of good luck than astute organization and shrewd planning.
How Software Organizes and Expedites Myriad Business Processes
Here are some examples of what is now possible.
1. It’s easier to run a facility of any size.
If you’re looking for software tips for managing your facilities in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible, you need look no farther than facilities management software.
This software is remarkably comprehensive because it is loaded with features for:
- · Organizing maintenance, property management, and fleet management
- · Managing HVAC through remote heating and cooling or programmable thermostats.
- · Taking care of all health, safety, and security issues
- · Assisting with order management, materials transport, and managing service and contractors.
Besides providing support for day-to-day facilities management, the software can also assist with big-picture thinking by providing decision makers with the data necessary to decide how to allocate people and equipment.
2. It’s easier to manage people in an organization.
There’s a lot of paperwork involved with keeping track of employees work schedules, salaries, promotions, training, compliance with labor laws, and so on. However, applications like human resource management systems (HRMS) or Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) combine a complex web of systems and processes into an integrated whole, making it far easier for a company to keep track of all employee-related data.
3 It’s easier to keep track of business finances.
It takes years to become an able accountant. However, accounting software now does most of the heavy lifting. While it’s still immensely useful to be conversant with all the established conventions of how to keep track of assets and debits, positive and negative cash flow, and profits and losses, accounting software streamlines the processes of recording and processing accounting transactions. In fact, even somebody with a rudimentary understanding of basic accounting can manage to use modules for accounts payable and accounts receivable, keep a general ledger updated, and stay on top of payroll and trail balances.
4. It’s easier to run a cash register.
When the cash register was first invented in a saloon in Dayton, Ohio, in 1879, it was considered a major technological breakthrough. James Ritty, the saloon owner, was frustrated with how adeptly his employees were pilfering his profits because it was not easy to keep track of all the transactions that occurred during the course of a working day. Today, POS software tracks all transactions and even tells cashiers how much change to give the customers back. POS software can be used as a cash register, on a computer, or on an iPad. It takes minutes for a financial transaction to input products, calculate total costs, and update inventory levels to keep everything running smoothly.
The Future of Retail
We’ve come a long way. A whole spectrum of business tasks that used to be difficult, time-consuming, and tedious can be quickly automated. However, what we have now will probably look like hard work for future generations. In the future, you may not be surprised to walk into a store and find a robot shelving products, changing pricing information, researching competitor’s offers, and interacting with customers. Currently, a Japanese firm, Software Group Corp, is testing out how well humanoid robots can greet shoppers, demonstrate cellphone operations, make purchase recommendations, and assist customers with order processing and finalizing their data plans.