3 Signs Your Business is Stuck in the Not-So-Good Old Days

There are some good things about the past. Events that happened then have led you to where you are now - you're an owner of a thriving business, and you can remember being a startup like it was yesterday. But, does your technology also remember those halcyon days? If so, you might be due for a much-needed upgrade.

One of the biggest ways that this presents itself is when businesses aren't willing to make the technological leap to the next generation's technology. This is seen all over the place - for example, let's say you go to a small, family-owned restaurant which is still using Windows XP for its point of sale apparatus. Needless to say, you would pay with cash, and perhaps suggest an upgrade to the owner.

But, back to the point: businesses need to make the jump to the next generation or risk being left behind by more technologically-advanced startups. If your business shows the following symptoms, you might be suffering from a severe case of OTS - or Old Technology Syndrome.

Printed Presentations
This should be self-explanatory, but if you are printing out your presentation slides, you are defeating the purpose of your presentation in the first place. The idea is that people are looking to you to tell them what you have to say. They don't want to read your presentation - sell it to them in a way that they'll remember!

Business presentations, from the very beginning, were always based off of this particular principle. You didn't see people handing out slides from a photographic projector. Why? Because it would have been extremely costly. The same goes for printing paper slides today. Not only is paper and ink costly in large quantities, it is also bad for the environment. Maybe an overview of the presentation is acceptable, but nobody needs 100 slides to throw away after watching you present.

Expense Reports
If photocopying receipts sounds like a recurring theme within your company, you're in need of a way to digitize your expense reports. Cramming financial information into spreadsheets and using them to file for expense reimbursements brings a lot of office clutter with it, and it's a lot of unnecessary pain in most cases.

Instead of wasting time scanning receipts and making spreadsheets, take advantage of applications and software that digitize your business expenses. SMART Services can equip you with the perfect solution to this OTS problem, which can help your employees keep track of company expenditures while on-the-go.

The Copy Machine
A copy machine may have made documents much easier to... well, copy, but even if you're still using one that only produces paper documents, you're still in the days of old technology. It's all about workplace digitizing these days - or rather, making documents much easier to store and sort by converting them into digital files. These are much easier to keep track of, and will keep you from shuffling through mounds of paper just to find one necessary document.

If you are having trouble assimilating into the new age of business technology, contact SMART Services at 586 258-0650 . We'll make sure that you put the good old days of the past where they belong, and usher you into a new age of productivity-increasing technology!