“In 5 years’ time, the entire global population will be online – is your business ready for it?”
Those were the words of Pete Danks, Industry Head – Retail of Google UK, who was one of the speakers at the Greater Birmingham Digital Summit 2015.
It was a surprising statistic and one which stood out for me, not least because currently only 2.8 billion of 7 billion people are currently using the world wide web. It left me thinking that businesses are going to need support in preparing for boom.
So how can you be ready for the influx of new members of the online community? From what I gathered at the Digital Summit, these are the three things I would recommend:
- Get on LinkedIn
- Invest in Cloud technology
- Start banking online
Let me expand upon these:
LinkedIn already plays a large role in business and judging by their speaker on the day, Eanna Kenny, the social media platform has big visions to be the place to recruit, market and sell. We at EBS use LinkedIn, including managing director Jason Tullah, who regularly posts on his profile. I recommend you follow suit to increase your online presence.
Cloud Technology is something we at EBS have utilised effectively. We use Microsoft’s Office 365 and we’ve taken advantage of a host of its features. The one that stands out for me is Lync – you can use this to Instant Message, host video calls and even share screens. It’s an incredibly useful tool for me and I recommend it.
I learned that only a small percentage of businesses use online banking, yet the vast majority of the people who attended the Summit said they use online banking personally. Nick Williams, Consumer Digital Director of Lloyds Banking Group encourages SMEs to save time and effort by making the switch and so do I.
If you’d like to talk more about these digital technologies contact me here. I’m keen to hear what technologies you use.
