Business Finance Articles

Your First Financial Choice....

Jason Obrien

Why Businesses Are Now Using Network Visibility Maps

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

A network is, in most ways, a system. It’s a connection between various nodes and devices that act as conduits for interaction with the network as a whole — interconnected computers and virtual machines acting on each other or in tandem with each other within the guidelines and parameters set in place by the network’s administrators and owners. In most cases, a business owner or their trusted network manager would be the one to set up these parameters, and in most cases, they help define some of the things that are part of your network today: Whether these are security infrastructure tools, role-based access permissions, or even just the ability to share work content remotely from endpoint to endpoint, the purpose of a network is defined by these parameters.

Why Use Network Visibility Maps?

In an increasingly advanced and holistic approach to network security, people want to be able to see what’s in place in their network. A network visibility map is an attractive solution for this reason, as it showcases the components in a network in a way that is mapped out, like the name suggests, rather than in lists and other hard-to-read management interfaces.

More than that, though, network visibility maps show a user things like traffic, network performance, and even analysis of big data that’s present within the network. The benefits to having this information at your fingertips has a lot to do with the idea of managing your network in an informed manner.

What Is Network Visibility?

Much like the idea of threat visibility (which is when you’re aware of threats in your endpoint or network), network visibility is the awareness you have of what goes on in your network — and of which components it is comprised. From here, it’s easy to realize the goal of network visibility is straightforward — and so are the benefits.

Security Benefits

The most obvious benefits to network visibility are those that have to do with the security of a network and all the computers connected therein. For any business using network visibility, they will notice:

  • The availability of information on the network will make it clear what constitutes normal behavior, and what it looks like to see “abnormal” behavior.
  • The increased understanding of abnormal behavior and the network as a whole allows users and admins alike to detect potential threats on the network.
  • The inclusion of network visibility mapping makes it easy to visualize and plan the positioning of new security measures, be it an extra firewall or a new VM that needs encryption protocols.

Management Benefits

With Network Visibility in place, you not only have the ability to protect your assets — you also have the ability to control them. This includes management of who uses your network and how:

  • The ability to monitor your network means you can see usage behaviors clearly, and that you can also define how usage on the network changes, like limiting bandwidth hogging.
  • Looking at the places where your network lags or under-performs can give you insight into how to solve those problems before they become a source of unwanted downtime.
  • You can even use network visibility mapping to view and manage roles in real-time, making sure that users only have permissions and devices that are relevant to their job.

Growth Benefits

There’s more to your network than the components you have. Network visibility can also help you determine what your network still needs:

  • You can troubleshoot and analyze with informed decisions that make it easier than ever to plan ahead for issues as well as for trends in the business’s network performance.
  • The ability to map out your network means you can easily identify places where performance can be improved by adding components and other network adjustments.

Common Challenges Of Network Visibility And How To Solve Them

Network visibility is an evolving aspect of networking, and with that evolution comes its own share of challenges. Traditional monitoring tools, for one thing, have become less and less useful in offering full network visibility, thanks to the way that networks allow access to various endpoints and users from differing devices and connections. The sensors, the links, the data that was used for network visibility and tracking in earlier years is no longer sufficient, in fact.

Network visibility also has its inefficiencies when performed by locally applied devices, such as secure web gateways or threat management applications that are used on premise. Not only do these inefficient methods of monitoring affect performance, but their current applications are so easily made useless by capacity restrictions that would prevent scaling without hardware upgrades. Because of these issues, it’s important that you utilize a network visibility map that is designed for scaling, and that has a centralized and updated understanding of the various new access points that are defined in and supported by today’s wide area networks and remote access landscape.

Why Choosing The Right Software Is So Important

Because it’s not always possible to scale network visibility solutions, there has to be a consideration for what type of network usage you expect to have, and what capacity you expect your network to maintain over an extended period of time. Network visibility software can become inefficient if you outgrow your chosen solution, so in all cases, it’s best to find something that’s easily and continuously updated, and that is made with today’s various networks in mind.

What Are The Benefits of Business Process Modeling Tools?

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

Your initial thought about something as specific as business process modeling is, “What use does that have in real life?” However, if you already manage a business, chances are that you know the truth: knowing business process modeling revolutionizes the day-to-day. What it all comes down to is function. The function, the extended usability of the skill, is far greater than you might guess. The same goes for the benefits of learning the skill in the first place, which not only have to do with function, but also with the added bonuses to having this knowledge. Here are some of the biggest benefits of using business process modeling software, or tools that are made specifically to help you model business processes.

Intimate Knowledge

One of the most obvious benefits of business process modeling and notation tools comes from the way that your understanding of a business process grows as a result. Whether it’s your first time building out a business process diagram, or whether you’re a seasoned BPM professional, you can take the time to get to know a particular process when you map it out yourself — and this is all the truer when you think about software that helps you view the process holistically. Whatever industry, whatever process it is, a modeling tool that aids you in building and analyzing the structure of your business process will make you aware of the essentials, such as the main tasks, as well as more specific details, like the complexity of the process, and the types of decisions you’ll be making along the way.

Ease of Access

Business process modeling and notation tools have created the ability for anyone to map out and get to know their business’s core process with little need to be knowledgeable in the field to start out. You don’t need an education in BPM to start learning the essentials of business process modeling, thanks to the various tools that make it easy and accessible to users of every skill level. You can take tutorials, get familiar with the working parts of the software, but no longer do you need to be the one with industry knowledge — instead, let the software be that expert guidance as you build and model your processes.

Less Mental Math

A BPM professional is often thinking on their feet, and in many situations must do calculations on the fly to aid certain processes in addressing issues with the flow or the resources that are made available. There’s even merit to calculating before or after a process: before, you can preempt what problems could arise in the process; when doing so after a process, though, you can use the same kind of calculations to optimize for better performance. If you have a way to model a process within a software tool of some kind, though, it makes these calculations all the easier — with some programs doing the work for you in terms of analyzing the process that’s been mapped out.

Sharing The Process

When using a modeling tool, your business process becomes shareable. It becomes more than just a map on paper: it’s a platform for collaboration, and in many cases, it’s malleable to the feedback of various users to make it easier to find the best, most beneficial approach in any business use case. Apart from that, business process modeling tools make it easier to explain your process — remotely or in person — as you’re able to control the view and pinpoint things digitally for your teammates, making it clearer than ever what you’re trying to accomplish with your specific processes.

Implementation Made Easy

In some cases, your business process modeling is the first step of your workflow management tool. In other cases, using a modeling tool just means that you’ll be prepared to copy the process step by step into your actual workflow. No matter what, though to implement a specific business process means planning it out, and by using software that’s designed for exactly that, you’re aiding yourself in the modeling of this process to a point where it will be all too easy to implement in real life — because you’ve already designed and built it in the modeling tool.

More Creativity

There’s an added bonus to having a bit of a sandbox to play with, sporting all the tools and assets that can make up a fully functional business process model. While sometimes all you want to do is build your most straightforward solution, there will be times when you want to test out a new approach, a new way of resolving your business process needs. That’s when this software comes in handy to so many business owners looking for new solutions!

All you do is work out new ideas in a business process model that reflects your goals, and if you find it works, you’ll be able to take it to the bank without wasting resources on an actual replication of this design until you know it’s worthwhile!

Conclusion

No matter why you decide to use it, the overall benefits of having a business process modeling tool are too great, and the accessibility too high, for you to turn away from the possibilities now. Many are available for free use or come with workflow tools you already use. In any case, it’s time to put it to work!

What You Can Expect from a Fulfilment Service: A Look at the Step-by-Step Process of Fulfilment

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

Ecommerce fulfilment services have become the best friend of many an e-commerce company. It has proven its merit in fulfilling orders across the country (and even the globe), shipping them, and making sure they arrive at their destination as promptly as possible. Once your customers finalise their purchases, your e-commerce fulfilment partner can take charge of the fulfilment process, and it is indeed a necessary element in your supply chain.

Aside from storing your product inventory, the fulfilment company will process the order, pick and pack the product, and transport or ship it to your customer. Your e-commerce fulfilment partner will ensure a much more streamlined process, and if you may already know, this takes a lot of work and effort. But if you are not completely sure of what you can expect from a fulfilment service, here’s a look at the step-by-step process of fulfilling an order.

Step 1: Receiving the order

The first step relates to inventory, and for the fulfilment company to take care of orders, you need to have enough inventory for your products for the fulfilment company to have what they need. Your fulfilment provider should already have the stock on-hand in their facility or warehouse, so once they receive an order, they can begin fulfilling it

Step 2: requirements for storage

Your fulfilment company should have proper warehousing for your goods, and they need to make sure that your inventory is stored in an organised and easily accessible manner. It would be best to have a dedicated location or area for each product, and your fulfilment partner is responsible for keeping your products visible and secure.

Step 3: order processing

Once the fulfilment provider receives an order, it’s time to pick and pack it. They will be responsible for picking it from the warehouse and packing it for delivery or shipment. They should have a packing slip containing information about the location and quantity of the product, along with packing customisations and requirements.

Step 4: shipment

When the fulfilment service has attached the shipping label, the package is ready for shipping to your customer or merchant. You can have the packages delivered to a specific home address, a post office, a courier branch, or a fulfilment centre. The shipment should come with tracking details, allowing your fulfilment partner to keep track of it and update you and the recipient on the parcel’s real-time whereabouts.

Step 5: returning items

Your e-commerce fulfilment partner doesn’t just take responsibility for delivery – they can also take charge of and handle returns. It’s not often, but sometimes customers may want to return an item. If this happens, make sure your fulfilment partner can deal with returns. For returns, customers will send back the item, and when the item is sent back, your e-commerce fulfilment partner can evaluate it and determine why it was returned. They will inform you of their findings, and you can then decide whether to dispose of the product or restock it in your product inventory.

Whilst these steps are crucial, remember that speed is of the essence – once you receive an order, your fulfilment partner should act on it right away. When you have a solid fulfilment process, it secures your business’ standing with your customers as well.

How To Optimize Invoice Management

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

All too frequently, the invoicing process is plagued with complications, ranging from inefficient manual processes to the possibility of human error. However, businesses may streamline this process and mitigate risk by using effective electronic invoicing or invoice automation technology. Continue reading this Upflow.io article dealing with past due invoices to learn the obstacles that come with invoicing, and how to optimize invoice management.

How Is The Invoicing Process Carried Out?

Before we discuss how to optimize invoice management, it’s necessary to define what we mean by the invoicing process. While the details vary per company, the manual invoicing process generally consists of the following steps:

A supplier issues a paper or digital invoice outlining the expenses associated with the goods or services delivered.

The invoice is then forwarded or assigned to the appropriate member of the accounts payable department for processing.

The invoice’s data is input manually into accounting software or filed in a paper invoicing system.

The invoice is manually approved internally to verify that it is relevant and accurate.

Payment to the provider is planned or paid promptly, bringing the invoicing process to a close.

That’s a lot of stages for what appears to be a very straightforward operation. When extended to the business level, the invoicing process consumes a significant amount of time and effort. Additionally, each stage of the process that requires human involvement is a potential point of failure. As a result, there are numerous considerations while attempting to optimize invoice management.

What Are The Difficulties Associated With Invoice Management?

For suppliers, in particular, the invoicing procedure is frequently fraught with difficulties. For one thing, mailing a paper invoice costs time and money, while sending an electronic invoice still carries the possibility of error and delay. Additionally, if an invoice is lost or delayed, suppliers may be forced to spend valuable time resolving issues or may even be forced to reprint the invoice.

Additionally, invoice processing offers some difficulties for the buyer. While entering a supplier’s invoice into an accounting or ERP system may appear to be a simple operation, it is frequently inefficient and labor-consuming in practice. Suppliers may send invoices via various channels, ranging from physical mail to PDF invoices sent via email, posing a variety of operational issues. And in many circumstances, manual data entry is employed to enter the required information into the buyer’s system — a time-consuming and prone to human error operation.

How Do I Optimize Invoice Management

Fortunately, you can avoid many of these obstacles by setting out to optimize your internal invoicing process methodically and thoughtfully. The following are all strategies for increasing the efficiency and accuracy of your invoice processing, resulting in a more seamless, less manual, and error-proof invoicing process.

– Eliminate Paper

If you continue to use a paper-based manual invoicing method, going paperless by digitizing the entire invoicing process is the natural first step toward optimization. Without this stage, you will have minimal potential to streamline and optimize the process. There are essentially two ways to become completely paperless: either encourage your suppliers to migrate to electronic invoicing or develop your means of digitizing paper invoices via invoice scanning.

– Reduce Human Intervention

As excellent as your accounts payable department is, they are only human. And that means they’re prone to make errors, which is the polar opposite of what you want in an otherwise well-optimized invoicing process. 

Every stage of the conventional manual invoicing process requires human intervention, from the supplier sending the invoice to the buyer’s final payment. By automating each cycle, this input may be reduced, resulting in enhanced dependability and cost savings.

– Integrate Invoice Management With Your Enterprise Resource Planning System

Invoicing is only one aspect of daily company operations; it is connected to and connects with other processes such as cash forecasting and supplier management. As a result, there are frequent advantages to be gained by integrating your invoice processing system with any other processes managed within an ERP, creating a single platform for gaining operational intelligence and achieving cross-departmental efficiency.

– Establish And Monitor Key Performance Indicators

Finally, one of the simplest strategies for optimizing invoice processing is developing and tracking key performance indicators. KPIs will indicate the overall efficiency of the process and should also provide insight into which phases are falling short. By defining KPIs and then monitoring your invoicing process regularly to identify and rectify inefficiencies, you can steadily improve your system’s efficiency.

– Invoice Automation

That may seem like a lot to tackle at once. Still, you can achieve the majority of the value generated by improving the invoicing process with a single solution — invoice automation software.

By using an invoice automation solution, you may drastically eliminate manual input, significantly optimize invoice management accuracy, and link the invoicing process with the rest of your ERP effortlessly. And, perhaps most importantly, it does not necessitate significant changes in the behavior of your suppliers.

Historically, it has not been easy to develop a method capable of accomplishing this effectively. While traditional optical character recognition (OCR) can help automate invoice data capture, OCR is typically only successful when the correct information is in the precise right location in the invoice file. Manual intervention is frequently required to fix any inaccuracies.

How to Run a Successful Faith-Based or Religious Fundraiser

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

Raising money for a church, religious community group or other faith-based project requires money and time just like any other venture. Whether you’re single-handedly trying to get a project off the ground or you’ve joined a large mission and been tasked with bringing more funds on board, there are many things you can do to increase revenue and run a successful fundraiser.

Target the Right Supporters

While casting the net as wide as possible can work in some situations – especially when you have a large budget to utilize – focusing on a smaller group of supporters is often a more effective way of fundraising and could mean that you find a more engaged supporter base.

With faith-based and religious fundraising campaigns, it’s important that you reach out to the people who are likely to be sympathetic to your cause. For example, non-religious people are unlikely to feel compelled to donate to a faith-based project, even if it’s for a worthwhile reason.

Find Different Ways for People to Donate

Not everybody is comfortable with donating online, and others may not be happy to hand over their cash in the street to somebody they have never met before either. Finding a variety of ways for people to donate money to your cause can help you to generate as many funds as possible.

When looking for tips to starting your faith-based fundraising campaign, you will often be encouraged to look into online fundraising as well as offline options. In addition to making the most of local communities and support groups, contact people online and use social media platforms to reach more potential givers and supporters.

Connect with Other Faith Groups

Other faith groups will likely be trying to raise funds for their own projects, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to help with yours. The very nature of charity and faith-based work means that those involved are more likely to support projects and causes outside of their own immediate circles.

Visit other churches, groups, and community centers to tell them about your new campaigns and projects. Be open to hearing about the campaigns of other groups and explore what you could do to mutually support other causes.

Stay in Touch with Supporters

Staying connected to your supporters and helping them to feel like they’re involved with your campaign can help to generate more funds in the future.

People are more likely to support a campaign if they feel personally invested or connected to it. Sharing positive impact stories and regular updates, as well as thanking your supporters for their help, are all great ways to ensure you increase your chances in the future and make your fundraising campaign as successful as you can.

Running a faith-based fundraising campaign is almost identical to running any other form of fundraiser. But a few tailored adjustments could mean that you reach more people, increase your chances of raising funds, and build a loyal supporter base for future campaigns.

Key Metrics That Will Help You Understand More About Your Customers

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them. Understanding your customers’ pain points, loyalties and circumstances can help you to target your strategies to perform better than ever before. You may have already read about setting up your customer engagement strategy, but in this article, we are looking at the key metrics to assist with this. These metrics will provide you with valuable insights and information into your customer’s lives and purchasing decisions so that you can improve your marketing efforts.

Decision Making in Workplace

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is a useful metric for so many reasons, and it is vital for understanding your customers. This data will reveal how likely a customer is to recommend your business or products to friends and family. It is widely used by businesses of all sizes and across all industries because it can provide valuable information about how customers feel about your company. Gathering this data is easy, and all you need to do is ask customers how likely they are to recommend your business on a scale of one to 10.

Customer Engagement

Measuring customer engagement can help you to understand how your audience interacts with your business. Some consumers like to just make a purchase and go on their way, while others will be far more engaged. Customers with strong interactions with a brand are often more likely to be repeat purchasers. Tracking customer engagement can reveal how often they communicate with your business, how long they spend on your website, or how many pages on your site they click on.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is critical for success. In fact, just a 5% increase in customer retention can improve profitability by 75%. Put simply, customer retention is how many clients purchase from your business for a second time. This can vary greatly depending on the nature of your business and the industry you operate within, but almost all companies will benefit from improving their customer retention rates. Understanding which customers are likely to come back again can help you to hone your remarketing efforts in the right areas.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES is a way of measuring how much effort it is for customers to interact with your business. Whether that is making a purchase, contacting your customer services team, or something else entirely. This metric is measured by asking consumers how much effort they had to put into complete various tasks with your brand. It is essential for understanding your customer’s friction points and can help you to work out what they need for a more seamless experience.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

This metric demonstrates how valuable a customer is to your business over their lifetime. When you look at this information, you can quickly understand which customers are worth retaining and which are less valuable to your company. Using CLV to understand more about your customers can help you to see which marketing campaigns are effective and how you can improve your customer experience.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

It is so important that you understand how satisfied your customers are with your service, products, and business in general. CSAT is a metric that measures exactly that. It looks at the average satisfaction rating of your customers. Most brands use CSAT to look at specific areas of the business, such as contacting customer service, completing a purchase, or how well a product is performing. CSAT is measured by surveying customers and asking them to rate their satisfaction using a scale from ‘not satisfied’ to ‘very satisfied’.

Visitor Intent

Tracking visitor intent can help you to understand the reasons why your customers are visiting your website. It delves a little deeper than metrics such as time spent on site or bounce rates and looks into their reason for visiting in the first place. From this information, you can gain an understanding of what your customers are looking for, which can help you to finetune your website in order to serve them better. Visitor intent can be captured using simple website surveys which ask visitors to choose an option that best describes the focus of their visit.

Cart Abandonment Rate

If you are operating an eCommerce business, then the cart abandonment rate is a very important metric to measure. If your customers are adding products to their cart and then not completing their purchase, it could indicate there is an issue with your online experience. Looking at your cart abandonment rate can help you to understand where in the buying journey customers are being put off, and from here you can make changes to fix it.

Using these metrics, you can gain a solid understanding of who your customers are and how they interact with your business. You will be able to identify the consumers who are most important to your brand, and spot opportunities for success in your online experience.

How RPA Helps Businesses Become Recession Proof

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

The recession seems to be inescapable. But while stocks continue to plunge, specific industries remain insulated. One of the industries that are prepared for transformations is Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

As the Covid-19 pandemic triggers dramatic shifts in the economy, many are wondering if inclining to technology, such as RPA, is the ultimate move to survive a recession.

In this article, we will discuss RPA and how its helping organisations through this current crisis.

What is RPA

RPA is a software that automates the repetitive tasks humans do with their computers, such as filing forms, reading databases, creating calculations, opening emails, collecting social media data, and extracting data from files. It can manage a whole process or parts of it. RPA can accomplish a large volume of tasks in minutes, which would typically take hours for humans.

Man touching icons

In 2018, it generated $52.3 million in total revenue, which is a 48% percent increase from the prior year. Although the Australian market is still considered small, it is growing fast.

How RPA Reduce Expenses

Automation is highly essential for struggling organisations that can’t afford a large on-site and offshore team. Therefore, there is an expected substantial boost in RPA adoption in a time of recession. Data shows that global spending is expected to reach $1.58 billion by the end of 2020.

High Efficiency: Can operate 24/7 for 365 days and can complete processes a lot faster than a human being. More affordable than hiring an offshore staff who can handle different time zones.

High Accuracy: Only follows a structure, resulting in high consistency and compliance levels

Rapid Application: Does not require training and systems integration

Low Risk: Changes, patches, and licensing can be managed effectively by an experienced IT staff

RPA is suitable for the customer service setting by allowing you to focus on more valuable interactions through human creativity and lateral thinking.

RPA In Difficult Times

Due to economic uncertainty, the RPA industry is placed in a fluid position right now. While businesses realise the importance of accuracy, efficiency, and speed offered by this software, recession forces us to maximise human intellect for continued growth and survival.

It is important to note that efficiency isn’t the only advantage of RPA. It can also be used to improve customer services, which is critical in maintaining revenues. For this reason, RPA may increasingly migrate from the “back office” to the “front office”.

What Do These Terms Mean?

Back office tasks refer to tasks that run the organisation behind doors. These include inventory, accounting, quality control, and order processing. All other functions with a sales or customer support nature are classified as front office task. Even if these processes can’t be fully automated, RPA can speed them up.

Why Integrate RPA Into Your Front Office?

When front office processes are automated, it can result in faster transactions and faster communications with significantly minimal error margins.

For example: Instead of hiring people to read and sort thousands of customer emails manually. RPA can automatically forward the emails to the right departments so that you can focus more on high-value correspondence. This is incredibly helpful in today’s market, where promptness tends to attract more customers.

Its biggest adopters are telcos, banking institutions, insurance companies, and utility providers. Experts predict that RPA is set to have a 29.30% from 2019 to 2026.

While RPA is relatively new, its applications continuously evolve.

Using RPA The Right Way

Shane Perry, a startup investment expert at Max Funding, believes that it is high time to adopt technologies, “Just like any other form of technology, RPA isn’t the solution for everything. It definitely has disadvantages, such as scaling difficulties and pricey licensing. For this software to be implemented successfully, the strong internal focus is needed.”

Some experts think that RPA may only deliver short-term results. To avoid this, your organisation should use a comprehensive strategy.

Rise of Hybrid Workplaces

Hybrid workplace

During an economic slump, the rate of organisations turning to technologies with a wide range of applications surges. While RPA has superior efficiency, it’s not the solution to all processes. This is where business process management, AI, and other integrated solutions enter the picture.

Once you’ve fully integrated these solutions into your organisation, you can build a workforce that may exceed what humans can delivery. However, the human factor is still crucial for RPA implementation. So, you need highly-skilled technicians to implement and monitor RPA bots to address any hiccups promptly.

Because RPA functions for tasks with distinct inputs and outputs, rule-based, or only repeatable, it cannot make complex decisions. RPA’s major limitation is its inability to understand and interpret context or anything out of the structure, such as images.

RPA During and After Pandemic

High technologies are helping societies cope with the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic, and experts believe these will also be useful once this current situation is over. The aftermath is also filled with challenges as we all try to resume regular routines. Every industry may experience an avalanche of bookings, orders, refunds, requests, complaints, reschedules, etc.

RPA bots will be incredibly helpful in this situation. They can be programmed fast and, once installed, they can handle a vast amount of dull, redundant, time consuming but relatively essential tasks. They can prevent your employees and systems from getting overwhelmed.

Bottomline

RPA turbocharges efficiency, minimises costs, improves flexibility and resilience, and maximises results. This technology addresses the challenges of the current crisis, allowing organisations to, not only survive, but come out stronger.

It could protect an organisation during recessions. But only if it is implemented and supervised correctly. You have to work with specialists in determining the best solutions for your business.

9 Benefits Of API Integration For Your Business

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

As a business owner, you should take advantage of the power technology offers to ensure you’re always ahead of the pack. One such innovation that helps you do this is the Application Programming Interface (API). Thanks to this software, two apps that aren’t designed to work together can interact and exchange information smoothly. 

The API allows the seamless transfer of data between these two points, and helps your business achieve its business goals. Without further ado, let’s take a look at how the API integration will benefit your business, if you’re still skeptical. 

What’s API Integration? 

Application Programming Interface is a highly specialized piece of computer code. You can run two different programs, databases, or applications using this code by enabling communication between them and sharing operations. When running your business, you’ll occasionally encounter complicated technological demands that you can address by implementing API integration. This way, you can integrate databases and programs with the existing industrial applications. 

APIs help you achieve this by ensuring seamless and continuous communication between different applications. In addition, it promotes product innovation, and gives employees the benefits of numerous cloud-based applications. Thanks to this, companies can launch creative ideas without using up lots of time and money.    

How Can APIs Benefit Your Business? 

API uses

API integration is essential today due to the increased usage of cloud-based tools and applications used by companies. Here are some ways API integration streamlines your company’s operations and provides your customers, employees, and partners with an improved experience. Let’s get started.

Promotes Innovation 

Being innovative is more important than ever to maintain a competitive edge over your business rivals. If you don’t want to go out of business, then it’s time to consider integrating APIs, say from https://www.softpullsolutions.com/api-integration/. When you do this, you’ll consistently be thinking of new products to introduce into the market to satisfy your customers’ needs and expectations, which are changing continually. API integration ensures your business always crosses your customer’s minds, thereby ensuring you continue being relevant. 

API integration helps your business keep up with the swift innovation as it enables you to create solutions that make it possible to develop newer things. This is achieved because APIs offer external developers standardized interfaces. 

In the past, the approach was different because only developers with deep knowledge of data exchange models could use APIs. This was the case because of the extremely rigid interfaces needed to be followed when assembling software components. Due to this, creativity was hampered. But API integration has removed this bottleneck. 

Increased Productivity 

Modern software is in great demand nowadays. Because of this, companies are constantly thinking of quick and innovative ideas on how to develop new products. However, the last thing you want is the developers needing to start from scratch to create a new application, even when a set of APIs already exist to offer an identical solution. Otherwise, you’ll end up negatively affecting the productivity of your company. 

Because of this, you should look to incorporate the use of API to avoid such a situation. This will enable quicker development of new products by swiftly implementing the API’s functionality rather than building from scratch. Therefore, you won’t have to spend valuable time developing products from scratch. In the long run, this improves your company’s productivity, and helps you quickly achieve your set business objectives. 

Improved Customer Experience 

Customers form your company’s backbone. And without them, you’ll soon be out of business. Therefore, you need to constantly provide them with customized and personalized experiences to make them loyal to your brand. This is crucial today as outreach and marketing efforts are no longer enough for customers who want and expect you to better grasp their position and needs. It’s only after better understanding their needs that you’ll be in a position to think of personalized and customized messaging to target them. 

With API integration, you can accomplish this goal as it helps you to create effective and new ways to interact with your clients. This is achieved as APIs allows your business to promote your services and data to your consumers. As a result, they enjoy greater freedom over their customer experience and enjoy a lot more possibilities. Thanks to the API, it’s easier for the developers to understand the customer’s expectations, and come up with an appropriate solution that meets their particular needs. 

Automates And Streamlines Numerous Business Processes 

It’s easy to assume that manual efforts don’t take a lot of time to finish. However, these tasks, such as clicking from one application to another, eat up a considerable chunk of your time. Due to this, your efficiency is reduced considerably. API integration helps address such issues by creating an effortless and smooth switch between the interconnected applications. Therefore, you can spend your precious time on other essential aspects of your business. 

Better Marketing 

Companies worldwide understand that digital marketing is the route to promote your products or services to your consumers. This has become more important as banner ads haven’t been as effective in driving the desired traffic to businesses. In addition, it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of a banner, which may affect your marketing strategy.  These are shortcomings API integration helps to address, by enabling you to show dynamic banners and ads on third-party apps to a relevant target audience. 

API integration also helps your business increase lead generation from different channels, including many social media platforms. If you’ve run a startup, this is excellent news because finding new leads will become less difficult. 

The reason for this is that you often end up searching for leads in the wrong places, thereby using up a lot of your time and effort. But by integrating APIs into your system, such issues are avoided, and you’ll be able to streamline the lead generation process. This will help your business land new customers, brand ambassadors, and potential partners. 

Enhances Connectivity And Collaboration 

Today, new applications are constantly being unveiled. While these applications help companies carry out many different activities, they hinder smooth connectivity and communication. Due to these, many businesses have a disjointed system that can’t smoothly share functionalities and data. 

This is an issue that API integration has sought to address by helping boost communication and collaboration within the business. APIs seamlessly achieve this because their primary function enables the various platforms, systems, and applications to connect and share data easily. With this enhanced connectivity, businesses can now develop interoperable components which streamline operations. In addition, this helps the business provide the desired functionalities by removing all the different bottlenecks. 

Helps Your Business Be More Data-Driven 

Your business is where it is at the moment due to the expertise, experience, and intuition you bring to the table as an entrepreneur. But if you want to advance your company’s progress even further, then it’s time you consider using APIs. This is advised as many of the current APIs have real-time access to relevant data that makes running your business a lot easier. Using such useful data increases the chances your business will be one step ahead of your business rivals. 

Knowing this, you need to integrate APIs into your business and get more in-depth analytics to get more comprehensive market insights. This way, you’ll be in a position to make more responsive, accurate, and sharper decisions involving the running of your company. 

Reduces Business Costs 

Developing an app isn’t cheap, and various factors affect how much money you’ll spend during such a project. Some of the things include:  

  • The kind of technology being used 
  • A developer’s expertise 
  • The project’s complexity 

When you use APIs, you’ll be able to significantly reduce the cost of developing an application as it takes less effort to develop one. This is because developers don’t need to start from scratch when creating a particular application, as they can get the desired functionality from somewhere else. This then saves your business both money and time that would have otherwise been spent developing an application. 

Enables You To Exploit The Functionality Of Other Apps 

Today’s world is more interconnected than ever before, so you can’t fully depend on your company’s infrastructure alone. Fortunately, this has been made possible by API integration, enabling you to link to other known and reputable technologies. 

This handy feature allows your clients to continue using the digital payment processors, multimedia, and search engines they know and feel at ease using. Because of this, your clients enjoy the complete functionality offered by such applications and systems without leaving your company’s platform. 

As an entrepreneur, this saves you the hassle of developing your own infrastructure. Instead, all you need to do is synchronize and connect external APIs with the company’s current technology. Doing this will also help boost your customer’s confidence in your brand. 

Takeaway 

Technology is the linchpin that ensures your company succeeds in the highly competitive business space. API is one example of such technology that you should capitalize to increase your competitiveness. As a result, your business can grow a lot faster than ever before. After reading this detailed guide, you now understand how APIs help you attain this goal. 

Exporting to EU After Brexit: What We Know So Far

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

The UK as an ex-member of the EU is presently allowed to avail favored market rights to 40 countries from 70. Keep in mind that those 40 countries trade with the EU already.

If there would be no new contracts to make up for the preceding losses in the business industry, the UK will have to follow the tariffs rules imposed by the World Trade Organization. Negotiations are ongoing to avoid Britain from suffering massive losses in merchandise trades.

If you are planning Exporting to EU, after Brexit, then you must know and follow the below points:

after brexit

Be Sure to Get EORI

As an entrepreneur, you need to ensure that your company has an EORI number. To keep on importing your products to the UK, a 12-digit number called EORI beginning with GB is a must-have. If your company does not own any EORI number, there may be delays and higher costs when you import goods and commodities. However, if your business is service-centered, then EORI will not be a requirement.

If you are trading in the EU for your company’s products, there would be a requirement of an EU EORI. If you don’t have any number with this name, then you should apply for it at the customs office of any EU member country. For the time being, it is possible to have alternate ways of exporting goods.

For example, the top 3 Italian exports are metals, machinery, and textiles. Learn more about this, reading this article about Italy’s exports. Until the Brexit period ends, it is very convenient to export products, but after that, the rules would be even more difficult in terms of weight, or quantity.

Create Export Statement

To create an export statement, you can employ a special agent or expert. Even if you are capable enough, you can do it yourself too.

  • Freight agents can help you deliver goods all over the world, and even help you clear customs at the borders.
  • If you opt for presenting an export statement to customs by yourself, then be mindful of three key factors when exporting goods from the UK. Those 3 keys are:
  1. How to create?
  2. When to create?
  3. Which documents should you have for custom clearance?

Check the Payments

If you export products and commodities from the UK to any member country of the EU, the EU importer should pay duty taxes for the products and commodities to be received. The amount of taxes and fees payable depends on the type of products exported.

Know the Rules

You have to see the guidelines about exporting different goods. For example, you will need a license for exporting goods like tobacco, etc.

Check VAT Procedure

The VAT procedure is going to change after Brexit. Therefore, you need to see and plan how you can claim it from the EU members.

Be Sure to Transfer Goods Properly

Containers

In the post-Brexit period, you can use a representative/contractor to ship your goods out of the UK at any time, but if you ship by yourself, you must get an operator license to transport the goods without any hurdle at the border.

Your queries about exporting goods to the EU after Brexit are always welcomed. Drop your message for us or ask in the comments below!

Top 7 Business Shipping Challenges And How To Address Them

Last Updated on By Leave a Comment

For many businesses, it’s never easy to get their products shipped to their customers. In fact, there are various things that can go wrong when it comes to business shipping. For instance, aside from dealing with hefty fees, business owners may deal with damaged products and lost packages.

Fortunately, there’s a solution for every business shipping challenge. One of these solutions includes finding the best customs broker to help you expedite your shipment’s customs clearance.

Other than that, to help you avoid customer complaints regarding your shipments and solve your biggest shipping concerns quickly, below are the common shipping challenges and ways to address them effectively:

Shipping Delays

Shipping

One of the toughest and most common shipping challenges for businesses is delays. There are several reasons why delays happen. Often, delays are classified into two forms, which are internal delays and external delays.

External Delays

When it comes to external delays, they’re typically due to some factors, such as delivery vehicle breakdown, poor weather conditions, and heavy traffic. In this kind of delay, there’s nothing you can do to resolve such issues.

That’s why some companies have created solutions, like delivering products via drone. However, such solutions aren’t practical. So, the only best way to address it is to inform your customers as soon as possible about the possibility of shipment delays.

Internal Delays

Internal delays, on the contrary, are something you can control if you’re aware of them. For example, you can prepare your items as usual without any customization. With this, you can easily hand them over to your preferred shipping couriers.

If you’re planning to send packages to other countries, be sure to prepare the important documents required by the customs to improve your business’s delivery process. This is because authorities may put your shipments on hold if you don’t have the right documents.

Damaged Items During Shipping Or Handling

Transport conatianers

As a business owner, you should be aware of the harsh conditions in most shipping streams. The forces that shipments may face as they’re loaded in the ships, trucks, and planes are greater than what they’re experiencing when sitting at your home or business location.

To resolve this problem, have a proper crating and packaging scheme in place. If your items are packed or placed in shipping crates well, the risk of damage is reduced.

Order Returned

Even if the possibility of this shipping challenge is rare, business owners may feel uneasy once their orders are returned. The situation can be much tougher to decipher if you have an inexperienced or unorganized order management system. In addition, you can miss some of your orders if your warehouse is big or if you’re dealing with countless orders every day.

Also, if you use third-party shipping carriers for your business shipments, you’ll need to contact them to find your packages. If you’re out of luck, the search might take several days, weeks, or even months.

To avoid this frustrating situation, you should always keep in touch with your chosen delivery agent. Luckily, there are some shipping plugins you can use to track your shipments in real-time. This kind of feature has different order status checkpoints, which will keep both shipping carriers and business owners aware in case an order was lost or misplaced.

Route Disruptions

Some things outside your control may affect shipping routes. Political unrest, pandemic, and natural disasters are some of them. While such events are unpredictable and can’t be prevented, think of other ways to deal with them.

For instance, you can work with the best shipping logistics service providers that monitor every event that may affect their shipping routes. If problems arise, they’ll take advantage of their industry contacts to change the path of their shipments to avoid any possible trouble in the long run.

Customers Refuse The Delivery

Even if it’s uncommon, there are instances wherein some customers don’t pay their orders and would often request to return them. This may happen for some typical justifications, such as when customers made the wrong placement or the items they received were damaged or incorrect.

Regardless of the case, it’s never simple to manage returns. The reason behind it is that you need to get the orders back, unpack your items, and place them back in your inventory. Handling returns may also cost you time and money.

To avoid losing resources and lessen the hassle, you can make a minimum order limit for cash on delivery (COD) products and charge fees to customers if they refuse to accept the orders. This is necessary as it can help prevent damage to your revenues and avoid future delivery refusals.

Expensive Shipping Costs

For both business owners and customers, shipping is never cheap. Generally, the cost of shipping packages may depend on some factors, like how much the packages weigh, where they’re going, and how fast they need to be delivered. Unfortunately, several businesses don’t know how to handle expensive shipping costs.

To avoid paying a high shipping cost, one of the options you can consider is to let your customers pay for it. When you charge your customers for shipping, you’ll allow them to order your items without the need to worry about your profit margins.

However, it isn’t always a good idea because some customers don’t like expensive shipping costs. So, you might want to charge your customers a flat rate and affordable shipping fee to reduce the shipping costs and avoid driving your customers away. Just make sure to consult your shipping company regarding the costs, so you and your customers won’t be surprised by the charges.

Unexpected International Fees

Unlike domestic shipping, international shipping is more expensive since the packages have to be transported in far places. In addition to that, international shipments are subject to local taxes and duties. For this reason, some businesses get rid of international shipping as much as possible. However, if you want to serve customers globally, you need to deal with international shipping.

Therefore, instead of eliminating international shipping from your business, be clear with the policies involved with it, so your customers will be aware of the possible extra fees they need to pay for international shipping.

Conclusion

To provide excellent customer service, it’s essential to be aware of the common business shipping challenges and the best ways to resolve them. With this in mind, you’ll be able to impress your customers by handling shipping issues with grace. Plus, you can ship your products or items with confidence. Just make sure to continue planning and improving your shipping strategies to provide the best possible shipping experience to your customers.