From cloud computing to collaboration tools and on to the Internet of Things, there's an ever-growing list of tech trends that influenced small and medium-sized businesses this year.
Here are the top five.
Automation technology is one of the major trends of the year, says Stephen Canning, technologist and CEO of ASX-listed Australian tech company JCurve Solutions.
"According to the 2016 SME Directions Survey, 66 per cent of small businesses plan to use automation technology more before the next financial year to help them cut costs and streamline existing processes," he says.
"That's not surprising, considering automation can be used to increase business efficiency in so many areas, including inventory management, business intelligence reporting and enhancing the customer experience."
Canning says SMEs are investing in customer relationship management (CRM) technology. "They are realising that in addition to helping them manage their growing volumes of customer data, CRM also provides them with insights into customer-buying behaviour and trends, which in turn, helps them refine their sales and marketing activities."
According to Canning, cloud-based software, and cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems, in particular, have seen a rise in popularity in recent years, especially with SMEs.
"It's widely known that cloud-based solutions have a more reasonable cost of entry than many on-premise solutions," says Canning. "But there are many additional benefits including robust security, automatic software maintenance and upgrades, and remote flexibility which make a business's entire workforce mobile and more productive."
Having on online presence is important for many growing businesses, says Canning. "Setting up a good online eCommerce store that's connected to your back-end ERP system can provide customers with detailed product information, product images, stock on hand, delivery and back order times, and allow customers to manage their own ordering and returns online. This all cuts down the time employees may have previously been spending on the phone or replying to customer emails."
Canning also says more SMEs are using online planning and collaboration tools such as Trello and Slack to communicate and manage internal projects.
"The driving force behind this trend is the increasing level of work being done outside of the office as well as the saturation of mobile technology allowing people to work from anywhere."
He says there has also been an uptake in cloud-based data management services, such as Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox, which can often be seamlessly integrated with core business systems or an ERP.
"These types of tools make it easy for employees to share data, collaborate and be confident they are working with the most up-to-date information. It also removes the inefficiencies caused by splintered data as a result of employees sharing versions of documents and spreadsheets over USB media or email."
Andrew Tucker, CEO of ITonCloud, says cloud computing has been the dominant trend with SMEs in 2016. "Applications like accounting software, file sharing, ERPs, file storage, project management and CRMs have streamlined operations and, in some instances, become commonplace."
ITonCloud helps businesses simplify and automate their IT systems by leveraging the cloud.
"The next stage of widespread cloud adoption will see businesses have their entire IT environments in the cloud, including files, email and applications – all accessed through a cloud desktop platform."
Tucker says this trend is resulting in a decline in businesses utilising on-premise servers, especially SMEs. "According to research from the International Data Corporation, global IT hardware budgets for on-premise infrastructure are expected to decline by four per cent in 2016, as service providers and enterprises move to the cloud."
He says the Internet of Things (IoT) is an area where automation is happening. "Having everything under one roof in the cloud makes this very efficient and easy to implement."
Workflow management tools are allowing businesses to become a lot more automated, he says. "This used to be expensive to implement but the cloud has allowed it to become a lot more affordable for SMEs," says Tucker.
"For instance, businesses that have a mobile workforce, or even trucks or delivery vehicles, have the ability to ensure they take the most efficient routes using smarter technology. When they arrive on premise they have access to all their business tools they need to complete the task meaning that invoicing is done on the spot. The whole process from customer satisfaction through to ensuring that the goods or services have been invoiced is now completely automated. This technology is now quicker and cheaper, and also more secure thanks to private cloud providers."
Millennial entrepreneur Mitch Hills who runs the website Mastered Marketing and was the founder of the now-closed app AroundAbout, says there are a slew of new tech tools coming out every week.
"On top of that, the bigger players like Google and Facebook are bringing out more impressive features, which are really exciting for SMEs. There's too many to name, but I think the most useful types of tools that have emerged would be collaboration tools such as Slack, Basecamp and Trello to bring teams together both locally and internationally."
He says design platforms such as Canva and Piktochart allow small businesses to get access to not only easy-to-use tools but hundreds of pre-made professional designs that they can tweak for their own use.
Hills says web design platforms such as Squarespace allow lots of entrepreneurs to make slick looking websites, while education platforms such as Udemy and Lynda help people learn skills to either start their own business or grow existing ones.
He says design and web platforms have had a huge impact on his business, "not only in my ability to deliver quality products, but to create a collaborative process between my company and the client. These tools make it easy to teach your clients how to manage their own projects moving forward."
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