SEO is the process of optimizing websites for search engines to obtain organic traffic, high-quality leads, and elevate the revenue generation rate. It is considered one of the significant parts of digital marketing. Besides this, other aspects of digital marketing, such as PPC (Pay Per Click), SMM (Social Media Marketing), Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, and Display Advertising, are also effective.

But they can’t match the long-term success of SEO. However, SEO is like a lock; you can’t unlock it without the right pattern. But what is the right pattern? No need to worry because this blog will reveal all the essentials of a perfect SEO strategy.

Here are Some SEO Strategies That You Need To Consider:

Keyword Research 

Keywords are the popular search terms your target audience uses to reach you. Finding those key terms is not as easy as ABC. However, some SEO executives conduct keyword research solely with the help of tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz or Keyword Magic Tool. But you can’t expect to experience the best results unless you put manual effort into it. 

‘NEVER-FORGET” Tips

1. Filter Keywords based on search intent, keyword difficulty, and global volume. 
2. Don’t only rely on seed keywords. Make sure to use a combination of long-tail keywords and interrogative questions (What, Why & How).
3. Don’t solely rely on keyword research tools – SEMrush, Moz, Keyword Magic Tool, etc. 
4. Never forcefully embed keywords. Always embed keywords according to proper keyword density. 
5. Never use keywords in exact match form. By doing so, you will be killing the user experience. 

On-page SEO 

On-page SEO is crucial for the success of an SEO campaign. It refers to all the elements of the website. Everything needs to be on-point: speed, content, page URLs, internal linking, and structured markup. In addition, On-Page SEO requires only 30% effort, but it accounts for 70% success of an SEO campaign. Here is the on-page SEO checklist: 

Off-Page SEO 

By Off-Page SEO, we mean the off-page SEO activities conducted outside the website. These activities are crucial for building credibility and authority for the website. Unlike on-page SEO, off-page SEO requires 70% of the effort, but it accounts for only 30% of the success in the SEO campaign. It has been observed that Google prioritizes websites with strong off-page SEO in search engines. 

What is the best approach to conduct off-page SEO? 

Off-page SEO works better if it is conducted through guest posting. Guest posting of blogs and infographics can help you get valuable backlinks from reputed websites. 

How do you get backlinks through guest posting of blogs and infographics? 

To obtain backlinks from reputable websites through blogs and infographics, you must prepare a strong pitch and convince clients to accept it. Once accepted, you must provide them with content that meets their word count, formatting, outline, and content structure guidelines. Embed the link within the content.

Tip:

Make sure the anchor you choose is informative. Promotional anchors often create a negative impression in the user’s mind, as they may assume that the information presented in the blog or article is solely for promotional purposes. Consequently, the content may appear to be of low quality.

Local SEO

Local SEO refers to optimizing a website or online presence to increase visibility and attract relevant traffic from a specific local area. It targets potential customers within a specific geographic location, such as a city or region. Local SEO aims to improve a business’s online visibility in local search results, especially when people search for products or services in their immediate vicinity.

For example, if you own a bakery in New York City, you would want your website to appear prominently when someone searches for “bakery in NYC” or “best bakeries near me.” Or if someone is looking for an SEO company in Toronto, their search query can be “SEO Toronto” or “Toronto SEO company.”

How important is content in SEO? 

Content is incredibly important in SEO because it’s the backbone of what search engines and users look for. High-quality, relevant, and engaging content not only helps search engines understand the purpose and relevance of your website but also provides value to your audience. Creating content that aligns with user intent and incorporates targeted keywords naturally increases your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Additionally, valuable content attracts more organic traffic, encourages user engagement, and can earn backlinks from other reputable websites. All of this can contribute to improving your overall SEO performance. In short, content is the fuel that drives successful SEO campaigns by satisfying both search engines and users alike.

Conclusion

To make an SEO campaign successful, you need to ensure that all three SEO components are properly aligned with the goals and objectives. For example, if off-page SEO aims to build credibility and authority, don’t settle for low-quality websites. And, if you’re doing on-page SEO to enhance the user experience, then follow any black hat SEO techniques to get it as needed. 

Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!

The post SEO in the Age of Digital Marketing: Secrets to Online Success appeared first on ReadWrite.

The world has seen many leaders, but the realm of leadership continues to remain intricate and tricky. Some say that individuals are born leaders — while others assert that leaders rise to the occasion. This debate will certainly go on through the eternities. The fact remains that there is no obvious pathway to effective leadership or to becoming a leader.

Leadership is not something that we can explain via a mathematical formula, but leadership skills certainly affect employees and the employee’s productivity.

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis.

What is a Good Leader?

Good leaders are always looking out for ways to better themselves, and it’s through this that effective leadership is born. In addition, successful leaders explain that leadership is affected by many things or what others may refer to as leadership skills.

On the other hand, there are also different types of leadership styles which are key factors for business success or failure. From autocratic leadership, democratic leadership, and transformational to participative leadership, all these influence leadership efficacy in many ways.

However, despite the type of leader one is, the results of leadership depend on leadership skills. In workplaces, leadership duties and responsibilities span everything! It can either break or make an organization, and that’s generally through its impact on employees.

Findings by The Conference Board indicated that disengaged employees cost organizations up to a whopping $550 billion annually. Moreover, about 73% of employees cite leadership as a major determinant of their morale. With that, leadership skills matter a lot in any place where they are required.

Featured Partner for Workplace Productivity Learn More on Monday's website Free Version: FREE FOREVER Starting Price: $8 / monthly Integrations: Outlook, Teams, Slack, Zoom, Excel, Zapier, LinkedIn...

What are Leadership Skills and Examples?

Leadership skills are abilities that an individual demonstrates to influence others. This influence is mostly aimed toward a desired direction or outcome. Leadership skills are essential in management and crucial for employee performance. They also influence a variety of outcomes, and these include employee productivity, innovation, turnover, and a company’s profits.

When we talk about leadership skills in contemporary times, we are talking about a broad spectrum. This spectrum includes empathy, open communication, creativity, and adaptability. Besides,  strategic thinking and the ability to delegate and mentor are also essential for leaders.

Apart from these, effective leaders must have quality interpersonal skills. Further, they must be able to inspire, and they must have the desire to keep on learning. With such traits, leaders can script their history and leave a footprint that others can learn from.

But how can all these traits impact employee productivity? This is exactly what this blog explores and aims to answer. In this blog, we draw a correlation between the personal effectiveness of a leader and employee performance. So, let us get started without further ado.

5 Ways Leadership Skills Affect Employee Productivity

Employee productivity can be defined as the level of output of an individual employee during a given period. Employee productivity is good when employees are efficient and can complete more within a few hours. Apart from that, employee productivity is termed ideal when the available resources, such as raw materials, are optimally utilized.

However, all this is largely influenced by the nature of leadership in an organization. So, how do leadership skills influence employee productivity?

• Impact Work Environment

Although leadership skills may be taken as mere traits, many of these skills correlate with a given type of leadership style. Leaders can fall under several leadership umbrellas, such as autocratic, authoritarian, democratic, participative, transformative, and so on.

The most commonly leveraged leadership styles include democratic, autocratic, transactional, and bureaucratic. Autocratic and authoritarian leaders make decisions by themselves, i.e., without seeking others’ thoughts, especially the employees.

Democratic and participative leaders, however, inquire about and consider others’ knowledge, skills and differences. They generally cultivate a platform where employees can openly express their views and feel comfortable at their jobs.

On the other hand, servant leaders are focused on others’ interests. For example, they promote the well-being of their teams, engage them in decision-making, and besides that, they share authority with their subordinates. There is also open communication which encourages employees to share their opinions.

Several studies indicate that democratic and transactional leadership styles have a positive impact on employee performance. But autocratic leadership models hurt employee results since they render work environments strict.

With this, it’s clear that some work environments may not be conducive to some employees, and this can directly affect their productivity. Introspecting on the type of leadership skills you possess using different reflection models can help you identify your weak areas.

Self-reflecting will also help you review your effectiveness as a leader with respect to employee performance. This can help you develop better leadership skills that can produce a conducive work environment for better employee productivity.

• Great Leaders Lead By Example

Leadership is more than just getting things done through people or securing resources for a company. As much as a leader is supposed to oversee the quality of work that employees offer, the element of leading by example has a huge impact on employee productivity.

Leading by example is a crucial leadership trait that can largely make a huge difference in employee productivity. It can inspire and motivate teams to do as you do, for example, when it comes to time management.

A great leader will set fine examples of conduct, self-motivation, resilience, accountability, and integrity. Such a leader will be seen as a role model by the sincerest employees of the organization. Having said that, when leaders lead from the front, employees will step up too. This is how a great leader can make team members far more competent than they have ever known.

The greatest leaders of the world are those who do not just pass instructions and guidelines. Rather, excellent leaders will do the needful and show how it is done appropriately. This is how strong leaders inspire an entire generation of hard-working team members.

Also, a leader who sets goals and follows deadlines can also motivate employees to do the same. This, in the long run, leads to better employee productivity. However, leaders who don’t lead by example fail to show the exact picture of their rules, and this limits employee involvement.

Additionally, leaders who lead by example and are also resilient can help an organization through tough times. It would be easy to implement new rules and influence employees to follow them. This can surely make a huge difference in employee morale and productivity.

• Enhances Employee Engagement

Engagement is key to productivity, yet leadership skills are major determinants. Leadership skills that frustrate employees, demean them, or provide no room for belongingness sabotage employee productivity.

For employees to be happy and productive, there must be a conducive work environment besides employee perks. Another key factor for employee productivity is inclusion and collaboration. Having a diverse workforce and making the most of it by promoting inclusion are two very different things. To keep a diverse workforce engaged, you also need to promote a great sense of inclusion. This is where your personal effectiveness as a leader matters immensely.

When a leadership style provides room for the expression of views or caters to work-life balance, it increases employee morale. Besides that, leadership styles that offer promotion avenues, career development, and deployment of skills positively impact employee productivity.

Therefore, leaders ought to understand their teams and align their skills accordingly. Leaders should try to improve internal team communication and provide constructive feedback. Open communication is very important in an organization as long as it’s formal. It can help leaders realize gaps that hinder employee growth, productivity, and development.

The latest statistics indicate that over 38% of employees don’t feel appreciated, yet 69% say that they would work harder if their efforts were recognized more. With that, any leader should prioritize feedback by cultivating a culture where employees are assessed and made to understand their performance. This can lead to better performance, even in low performers.

• Impacts on Creativity & Innovation

It would not be incorrect to say that in contemporary times, innovation is the most sought-after business USP. Effective leaders know how to lead the way with innovation. They are ready to take risks associated with innovation, and they foster a similar attitude across their teams.

Quality leadership skills inspire but also provide a platform for employees to display their creativity. A willingness to take risks is one of the key leadership skills that can help employees showcase their creativity and become more productive.

Creativity generally refers to the power to realize new ideas and recognize opportunities. Employees become more creative when they are motivated at their jobs.

On the other hand, creativity can lead to innovation. Employees can bring about new inventions if they have high morale to work and are fully engaged in their work.

However, the opposite is also true. When rigid leadership skills are leveraged, especially with autocratic leadership, there may be no or limited room for creativity. In this case, leaders may not be good problem solvers as they rarely involve employees in decision-making.

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that offers room for creativity and innovation in an organization. It can also bring about positive transformations since it allows employees to become more creative and innovative.

• Absorbs Team Weaknesses

Accountability is a must-have leadership skill for employee productivity. But there are many cases when leaders fear getting involved in their team members’ mistakes. This creates avenues for low productivity.

Employees don’t require micromanagement. However, they can easily become unguided if the leader is distant from them. This can result in miscommunication, confusion, and low productivity.

As a leader, be concerned about improving your employees’ productivity. You can set key performance indicators and recommend productivity improvement tools to help them work smarter.

Ensure to take charge of certain roles to help your employees perform better, for example, updating and analyzing spreadsheets and providing related resources that can benefit employees.

Featured Partner for Workplace Productivity Learn More on Monday's website Free Version: FREE FOREVER Starting Price: $8 / monthly Integrations: Outlook, Teams, Slack, Zoom, Excel, Zapier, LinkedIn...

Bottom Line

Employee productivity has a direct correlation with company ROI and growth. Companies where employees perform exceptionally enjoy a good public image, a low employee attrition rate, and higher profits. Besides that, these organizations have an increased chance of having smooth change management or traversing through challenging times.

All in all, a leader needs to attain a range of leadership skills to increase adaptability and better management. Leaders can also follow a single leadership style to attain sizable results or manage change in an organization. However, understanding the different leadership styles and discovering where you fall can improve your leadership efficacy.

Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!

Related Post: Best Productivity Tools of 2023

The post 5 Ways Leadership Skills Affect Employee Productivity appeared first on ReadWrite.

Times have changed considerably and in the modern days, you can easily start up a business and operate on a large scale. Almost every sector presents a wide range of opportunities for entrepreneurs. However, starting and running a business efficiently may not be easy as we may perceive it at first. Technology as we all know is helping businesses globally to operate efficiently and to thrive, but there comes another hurdle, Cashflow!

Cashflow realities are intricate topics when it comes to business management. Cashflow management falls under the umbrella of financial literacy and comprises the way business owners handle cash matters. Financial knowledge is very crucial in business management since it influences business operations, growth, sustainability, and expansion.

In fact, statistics show that 82% of small businesses fail due to poor cash management. Improper handling of cash can lead to business failure and there is no doubt, it is an aspect that many businesses struggle with. If you’re a business owner or have lately started a business, we would like to explore a few tips that can help you manage and improve your business cash flow. Let’s take a deep dive into it by beginning with a cash flow definition!

What is Cashflow?

Cashflow generally refers to the way money comes in and goes out of the business. In other words, the movements of cash in a business refer to cash flow. Good cash flow enables a business to stay afloat, meet operational costs and scale up. However, poor cash flow, which commonly springs from a lack of financial literacy affects business operations and growth.

Good cashflows indicate that a business is growing and that it can sustain itself. It allows business managers to operate efficiently, and reduce the likelihood of loans, and investor dependency. Running a business comes with a range of complexities i.e, employee pay, daily operating expenses, and risks.

Moreso, you may have different growth plans, for example, AI deployment or implementing newer technologies like AR or VR or you may want your business to enter the metaverse. With such great ideas, poor cashflows can limit business growth opportunities. But what can you do about it?

5 Actionable Tips to Improve Business Cashflow

Whether you’re running a small business or an enterprise, these few cash management tips will help you improve your business’s financial health; 

• Encourage customers to Pay on time

It is good to extend trade credit facilities to customers, but it’s essential to evaluate business capabilities first. Providing goods on credit, discounts, and other incentives can promote business sales, but if poorly managed, can cost a business heavily. If your business provides such to customers, they must be encouraged to pay back on time.

Encouraging customers to pay on time helps a business to run efficiently. An organization will not have to apply for loans to meet daily expenses or plan for growth. Apply payment deadlines, request for initial deposits, and introduce realistic penalties where necessary to drive customers to comply with payment terms.

Additionally, monitor cash inflows and outflows to understand monthly or weekly expenses. This will help in financial planning, improvement, and management.  

• Invest in Affordable Marketing Techniques 

Marketing activities promote a business’s goods and services and allow it to extend its reach. Effective marketing strategies also enable a business to attain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. However, marketing is quite expensive, especially when running multiple campaigns.

Above all, marketing can cost business owners heavily when done wrong. With that, it’s essential to evaluate marketing strategies to ensure that they are affordable and relevant to business goals. 

In the case of a startup or a small business, avoid investing in costly marketing strategies. Leveraging effective copywriting tips and low-cost marketing strategies like video, blog, and email marketing can help a business promote its offerings on a low budget. Above all, you can invest in social media marketing. 

Social media marketing is an effective way to promote your products, develop customer relationships, and extend business reach. Utilize social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn among others to market your business and its offerings. In this way, you will manage and improve financial cashflow better. 

• Avoid Unnecessary Spending 

Business management expenses can’t be taken out of the equation, but business owners usually have the upper hand in them. Quite often, you may want to provide employee perks, rent an attractive office space, or throw annual company parties, but it’s important to check their affordability.

Start by evaluating HR operations and expenses. In this case, avoid hiring without a proper plan. Overhiring or wrong hiring plus unmonitored daily HR expenses are major causes of unnecessary spending. Also, avoid office spaces that are highly priced because they only increase business expenses in the long run. Primarily, evaluate and then approve requirements before spending.

• Evaluate Cashflow Patterns

Monitoring cash inflows and outflows weekly, monthly, and annually can offer insights into business spending. The best way to ensure effective cash flow management is to create cash flow statements. A cash flow statement is a financial document that allows businesses to manage and improve their finances.

It generally showcases the amount of cash present in proportion to the cash that comes in and goes out of the business. Creating other financial statements like a balance sheet, a tax return, and an income statement can help business owners evaluate and improve cash flow.  Generally, they help business owners understand money movement patterns in order to eliminate unnecessary spending and acquisition of loans. It also paves a way for effective financial planning. 

• Operate on a Budget 

A budget is an excellent financial management tool and that’s why it’s important for business owners to engage in budgeting. Budgeting is mainly a process of estimating the possible expenses and revenue of a business. Operating on a budget serves as a compass for all the financial dealings of a business.

Create a budget and leverage financial KPIs to gauge your monetary dealings, revenues, and overall financial performance. A budget can also help to eliminate unnecessary expenditure patterns that affect a business’s financial prosperity. In this way, you will be able to improve cash flow effectively.

Bottom Line

It is quite challenging for business owners to manage their cash flow effectively as there are many possible uncertainties that can be encountered in daily operations. However, Financial statements like a cash flow statement can help any business owner understand, and monitor the in and outs of a business’s cash flows. When properly used, a cash flow statement can help determine unreliable financial patterns that affect a business’s financial health.

This blog details a few ways business owners can utilize to improve their financial health. When seriously followed, they can help increase business profitability and cater to smooth operations and lay a foundation for business growth. 

The post 5 Tips for Business Owners to Improve Their Cashflow appeared first on ReadWrite.

The corporate world is changing at a fast pace, and advanced technologies such as ERP system is at the epicenter of the ongoing digital revolution. Businesses are more dependent on technological tools and enterprise software than ever before. In fact, these tools and software are enabling businesses to drive greater success by enhancing business processes. Are you ensuring that you have the right software and tools to help your business advance swiftly?

There is a plethora of software and solutions to choose from, and each of them comes with its own merits. But what is making a real difference is the integration of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that can streamline processes across various verticals in an enterprise.

The use of ERP systems defines a new trend altogether in the modern workplace.

Gone are the days when only multinational companies subscribed to ERP solutions for managing processes at the entire enterprise level. Nowadays even small businesses are bridging ERP systems onboard to facilitate business advancement. To validate, as per statistics, the global market size for ERP software is expected to reach USD 96.7 billion by 2024. Finances Online further explains that more than 52 percent of organizations are highly satisfied with the decision of integrating ERP systems.

Probing further, vertical ERP, small business ERP, generalist ERP, and Open Source ERP is among the most common types of ERP software that businesses are integrating. Moreover, it is also notable that most organizations are showing a keen interest in Cloud-Based SasS ERP systems, given the edge they have over traditional ERP.

All in all, the integration of ERP systems has become one of the most sought-after change management activities in the corporate world. The question is, what are the advantages of ERP software that businesses are subscribing to ERP solutions? Let us find out in this blog.

Key benefits of ERP Systems for businesses

1. Massive optimization of productivity

The ultimate objective of every enterprise is to drive the highest productivity across every vertical. However, when your employees work on recurring and repetitive tasks, not only their individual productivity takes a hit, but the efficiency of the entire organization takes a setback. This explains why businesses increasingly spend on automation tools to streamline repetitive tasks like invoicing. Even marketing automation is one of the thriving corporate trends.

All in all, the greater the automation in an enterprise the higher will be the productivity. Having said that, this is where we must look at one of the greatest benefits of integrating ERP systems. To substantiate, ERP systems come with incredible and reliable automation capabilities that can help your organization achieve its business objectives at a greater pace.

Moreover, with AI integrations as per the latest developments, the automation capabilities of ERP systems are much higher than ever before. To substantiate, as per Netsuite, employers are now happily investing in advanced ERP solutions that come with intelligent AI or machine learning capabilities.

Needless to say, artificial intelligence is the way forward for enterprises, and the blend of ERP and AI is worth embracing. This combination will certainly give your business an unparalleled competitive advantage.

2. Real-time analytics

Having timely access to analytics that can help you constantly enhance processes is nothing short of having a competitive advantage. In fact, everything in the modern enterprise world revolves around analytics. From analytics on customer engagement to analytics on inventory management gaps, you need analytics at almost every step.

This is where ERP comes up with another great feature that you should definitely not ignore. An efficient ERP system can generate real-time quantitative analytics that can lead to better planning, execution, and monitoring. Besides, the best part is that with an ERP, you can create data analytics capabilities in your businesses without even having to hire a dedicated team for data analytics.

Moreover, real-time analytics will also ensure that there is a smoother workflow management and will also aid in effective collaboration between teams. Especially if your project teams work remotely, it is essential that there is real-time sharing of data analytics for project success. ERP does not only automate data generation but also data reporting in a presentable and lucid form. However, in the ultimate sense, the positive impact of ERP is subject to the efficiency of your change management process.

3. Greater cost-efficiency in operations

Irrespective of whether you are a budding startup or an established business, operational costs will always be a top concern for you. The correlation is quite simple, the lower the operational costs the higher will be the profitability. Now, the question is, can ERP help you in bringing down operational costs? Well, the answer is a big yes and it is time you acknowledge that.

To validate, as per Datix, ERP solutions can help organizations reduce operational costs by 23 percent. This clearly indicates that you can save a major chunk of operational costs by investing in the best-in-class ERP solution. The sooner you bring ERP onboard, the greater the savings.

4. Magnification of data security

It is a well-known fact that the contemporary corporate world has a massive dependence on big data. Every business process in the modern corporate world has data engineering and analytics at the forefront of things. Data security has become a top concern, especially when cyber-attacks and data breaches are more advanced than ever before.

One of the most compelling reasons why your business needs ERP is the set of advanced data security features. When an ERP is integrated into business processes, you can set controls for accessibility to confidential data. To explain, you can control who can access sensitive information and who cannot.

Otherwise, in the absence of an ERP system, you will have to spend fortunes on cyber security and data security solutions. ERP gives you multidimensional benefits of optimized business processes along with credible data security measures.

5. Enhanced flexibility

Does your organization have a traditional on-site working style or a hybrid working style? Are you planning to move your employees to permanent work from home? ERP gives you great flexibility irrespective of your organization’s working style. Simply put, ERP can be easily integrated even in remote working cultures or hybrid cultures and will also help you to avoid employee burnout (seodiggerz dotcom “help employees avoid burnout). You can implement an ERP system with great ease and put it to work from the word go.

Besides, ERP systems also offer great flexibility in terms of future scalability. If your business is expanding and you want to add more users in the future, ERP systems offer the room to do so. Room to expand has to be the most important feature you should be looking for when you choose an ERP system. Not every ERP system may come with an effective scope of future scalability. Still, you will find a lot of ERP systems that do offer scalability features and you must choose from them.

Conclusion

ERP systems are changing the way businesses approach their operations and key objectives. Besides, ERP is much more than a planning resource and offers immense value in terms of optimizing business processes.

Integrating ERP for your business can be a real game changer.  The sooner you subscribe to it, the more advantageous it will prove to be for your business. Make sure you choose an ERP software that is best suited for your enterprise.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Erik Mclean; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 5 Essential Benefits of Choosing an Efficient ERP System appeared first on ReadWrite.

Have you ever planned to read for an exam at night only to sleep and wake up two hours before the examination? Or perhaps you postponed reading a topic and found it in the test, yet you didn’t even look at it before entering the examination room. A lot of this happens to us when we are students, but I have learned that these experiences come as opportunities to plan or do time management better next time.

A popular phrase goes, “Time Once Lost is Never Found,” and another says, “Time waits for no Man.” That’s quite true, and I have surely lived to learn that there is always time for everything. Although, it’s all about what we choose to do at a particular time, which influences the outcomes.

Effective Time Management Plans

Throughout life, there is always going to be something to take us off course, and this badly hurts our time and success. Time management is a very crucial aspect of an individual — whether a student or an entrepreneur.

Effective time management skills are crucial throughout one’s academic journey and professional life. Generally, if we want to achieve greater goals, we must be good at time management.

However, it’s common to lose track of time, get caught up in traffic, or forget the assignment’s due date. In a modern world like today, just using a hand watch or a calendar is no longer an effective approach to managing time.

At this juncture, we would like to explore the most reliable time management tips for students that will guarantee optimal efficiency and productivity, especially during the examination period. Usually essay service have a team of experienced writers who are well-versed in various academic fields, and they can help students with any kind of writing assignment, regardless of its complexity or length.

7 Actionable Time Management Tips for Students

There is a range of time management tips students can leverage to escape stress, achieve a class-life balance or perhaps excel academically. But let’s look at the top 7 most reliable time management tips any student can rely on.

1. Creating a To-Do List 

Creating a to-do list is one of the best approaches to effective time management. Some people also follow calendars or schedules to ensure that they perform every task timely. However, it’s not all about creating a list of things to do in a day or week but also grading them according to their importance.

Prioritizing tasks helps us not to waste time on tasks that don’t matter or spend a lot of time on those which require less time.

The Pareto principle is a simple and time-efficient rule to follow. Developed by Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian engineer and economist, the principle shows a correlation between the output and the input. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of the outcomes are driven by 20% of the input. In other words, 80% of the goals will come from 20% of your efforts and actions. Focusing on a few things at a time will offer you efficiency.

When it comes to applying the Pareto principle, one has to list down all tasks, identify the 20%, remove unproductive tasks and then execute the 80/20 rule. Generally, you have to be clear on whatever task you have to do in a day, week, or month. You then have to identify the most crucial tasks (20%) that will bring about the 80% (expected results).

Once you have graded all your tasks, it’s essential that you identify the productive and unproductive tasks. You have to get rid of them or delegate them. Then implement the 80/20 rule by beginning with the most crucial tasks. You can also re-organize tasks or refocus priorities as you complete the most crucial tasks to achieve optimal efficiency.

2. Using Time Tracking Tools

Most of us agree that time management is essential, but there are many times when we lose track of it. For example, you can plan to spend two hours on a task and end up completing it in four. Identifying the cause of that and eliminating distractions can help you manage time better.

Thanks to technology, there is a range of time management tools besides your watch that can help you stay ahead of time. With these tools, students can create to-do lists and organize notes in one place for easy access. Some tools allow users to prioritize tasks as per the due date or sync notes across all devices.

Using at least one reliable time management tool can help you manage time better, make better decisions, and become more organized and productive. If you’re looking for time management tools, you can check out a few, like Trello, Evernote, my Homework Student Planner, Focus Booster, etc.

3. Using POMODORO Technique

The Pomodoro technique is a simple productivity hack that helps people work within the available time. If you aren’t used to this time management technique, you might find it unrealistic or boring, but many people swear by it.

The Pomodoro system requires one to identify the available time or tasks and break it into 25-minute intervals with a 5-minutes break in between. The intervals are referred to as Pomodoros, and after every four Pomodoros, one must take a longer break of 15-20 minutes.

Most people tend to feel like they have the entire day or a lot of time to complete a task which increases sluggishness and ineffectiveness. The Pomodoro technique comes in to instill a sense of urgency where one is reminded to complete a task within the allocated time. It also helps one to be mindful of distractions and unnecessary activities like phone use that can lead to poor time management.

This time management approach can help increase focus and productivity and also works effectively to reduce burn-out. One can use a timer, but there are many Pomodoro apps, such as Pomodoro Timer Lite and Focus Keeper, to help track productivity, ensure breaks in between tasks, and own your time.

4. Collaboration Tools

It’s impossible to escape collaborative activities in today’s education system, more so in the corporate world. Collaboration is an effective way to enhance knowledge, get complex tasks done effectively, or coordinate remotely. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a greater demand for collaboration tools across sectors.

When it comes to the education sphere, collaboration tools are seen as a dynamic learning technique with the potential to increase engagement. Today, there are many collaboration tools that students can use to collaborate on projects or share feedback timely.

Some of these include Edmondo, FlipGrid, School Frindzy, Google Docs/Google Drive, etc. These tools come with different functionalities that allow student-teacher collaboration, content creation, formative assessment, and feedback sharing.

5. Manage Distractions  

It is quite easy to plan, but whenever we plan, it’s essential to also plan for the unexpected. There is nothing that affects academic outcomes like distractions and unexpected assignments. So whenever we plan, we should always leave room for the unexpected. Distractions are everywhere, and they can occur whether studying virtually or in a physical classroom.

So what do you do when studying remotely, but there is a lot of noise around you that makes it hard to concentrate? Try to find a safe and noise-free learning environment to help you concentrate on your studies. That could be creating a dedicated study space that is soundproof and with no distractive elements like portraits or TV screens. You can also find a noise-free zone in case studying within the school premises.

Moving away from distractions will help you finish classwork at the appropriate time, and it will help you escape stress and classroom anxiety. It will also help you spare time to build your social life or develop your talent. You ought to know that distractions are everywhere, but managing them effectively is one of the best approaches to keeping track of time.

6. Be Flexible 

Being flexible is like having a growth mindset. Students with a good degree of flexibility are hardly affected by abrupt happenings or changes in systems. For example, the 2020 outbreak forced students to adopt remote or hybrid learning cultures. Some students who aren’t flexible enough found it challenging to the new learning models.

Cognitive flexibility is vital for teachers and learners to move at the same pace. Generally, cognitive flexibility allows students to adopt new learning systems without hesitation, embrace new experiences, and deal with classroom anxiety. When it comes to professional life, cognitive flexibility allows us to deal with or manage people effectively.

Student life is all about being flexible because there are times when you will have to read while surrounded by noisy people. Or search for a suitable place to continue with your reading instead of postponing it. We all know how studies can become boring, so you have to experiment with schedules to find the period in which you’re most effective to help you manage your time appropriately.

7. Avoid Procrastinating

We’ve all done it before, and perhaps we still do it. If you aren’t sure whether you’re a procrastinator, then spare a few minutes to assess yourself. Do you get tasks with a future deadline and postpone them only to work through them a night before submitting them the next day? Do you at times find yourself racing with time to meet the deadline, yet had a whole week to do the task?

Procrastination is the tendency to delay or postpone activities with a belief that there is still time to do them. Procrastination may not always be bad, but it increases ineffectiveness because there are higher chances of operating in rush hours. Letting go of procrastination can help you improve yourself and the way you value time.

To encapsulate, poor time management affects punctuality and can lead to loss of opportunities. Being sensitive to time during school life can contribute to one’s success in the professional sphere. We have taken the time here to explore the most reliable time management tips for students, and we believe they can make a huge difference in the way you manage your time.

Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!

The post 7 Actionable Time Management Tips for Students appeared first on ReadWrite.

In this digital world, dependency on professional tools is prevalent. But, what do you lose while relying on these tools? Productivity. Yes, the increased dependency on technical tools can restrict your creative mind in the organization. Your ability to brainstorm for a project, and work on your weak areas can get hampered by it. Further, leading to decreasing your overall workplace productivity.

Keeping this in mind, a report by Forbes says there is an increase of 27% in “excellent” performance ratings with employees who are highly engaged in the workplace.

Talking about improving your workplace productivity or on an individual level, one must not entirely depend on productivity tools that are widely available nowadays.

Going one step deeper into this topic, it is right to say that increasing productivity isn’t a hack. Yes! You heard it right. There are no hacks. However, you can develop new techniques that can play a part in improving your productivity without depending on tools. Whether you are working from the office or home, learning these strategies can make you more productive.

Know These 5 Effective Strategies for Increasing Your Productivity

• Introspect

The first step to improving your productivity is to introspect. Identifying your unique strengths and weaknesses can help you understand the impact of both on your work. Once you have self-awareness about your shortcomings and positive aspects, you believe to align goals for future tasks in a way to enhance performance.

For better understanding, reflection models (crowjack dotcom) come to play an essential part. One can choose the best approach from various reflection models. These models help in knowing one’s knowledge, past experiences, and beliefs. Further, by relating new knowledge to your previous understanding, you can learn innovative strategies to crack the code and improve or fix it in the future.

Along with that, focusing on the L&D in those specific areas gives a chance for improvement. The best to recognize lies in the key element of no one-size-fits-all theory. Invest in yourself and improve your practices by consciously thinking. This involves past experience, what is currently being done, and what is needed to do in the future. Ultimately, this will boost your productivity without depending on any tool or technology.

• Eliminate Time Killers

Harris conducted a poll on behalf of New CareerBuilder on 2,175 employees to understand the different factors of employee time thieves. The top factors were cell phones/texting with 52 percent followed by internet surfing with 44 percent.

It is a noticeable fact that multiple things act as distractions leading to consuming time and making you unproductive. For instance, jumping from one meeting to another, conference meetings involving non-business conversations, or a battle with bulk emails involving spam emails.

To explain further, there is a difference between being at work and working in the office. The business environment involves tasks that can act as a time killer. One research says that 33% of people spend 1-2 hours checking their emails.

Understand your tasks that involve productivity killers. The moment you realize those tasks that are unproductive can surely throw a ball in your court and will make you more productive and sane at the workplace. Remember, there is no 100% set rule to block out all distractions. Yet, distractions are avoidable. Count your time on the completion of a task, and keep your routine stress-free.

• Upgrade Skills

Companies always appreciate employees with upgraded skills. Linking upgrading skills with productivity can reduce your dependency on technology. It is no rocket science to improve your productivity skills.

An employee needs to be more careful in the organization for managing time and focusing on high-productivity tasks. On professional grounds, an increase in productivity can be influenced by many factors, such as respect, meaningfulness, and salary.

This further benefits the holistic development of the organization and employee satisfaction. Having said that, it can be intact by the McKinsey study.  The study says employee satisfaction is significantly correlated with business enhancements. This includes higher profitability, reduced churn, and improved customer relationships.

Moving further, organizational development and employee satisfaction increase performance levels. This leads to upgrading soft and hard skills as well. To explain, time management skills can assist you in organizing your tasks that need much attention. Nobody is born with time management skills. However, one can learn skills to boost productivity.

Not only time management skills but also soft skills can enhance your performance at work. Soft skills can help increase the understanding of inter-departmental tasks. Along with that, other tasks include

• organizational skills,
• planning skills,
• decision-making abilities, and
• problem-solving skills.

Upgrading all these skills can be beneficial for you and your company.

• Seek Feedback

Business grows best when employees work with a clear vision. The performance is increased when there is clarity in mind. Therefore, it is better to seek feedback to excel in your career. There are tools like paraphrasing tools or proofreading tools that hamper your productivity. However, once you start working on your own while showing less dependency on those tools, it will provide you with actual results.

Having said that, you would be seeking feedback for the weak areas that need improvement. Feedback is the fastest route to improving productivity. This way you can focus on your efforts, correct them, and achieve your goals on time.

It is a two-way street where your performance helps you as well as your organization. An increase in the exchange of feedback provides deeper insight and better clarity of work. Remember, positive feedback helps in adapting to the environment, improving performance, and reaching better decisions for the success of the company.

•  Set Deadlines

There is no such possibility that states the fact that taking a long hour to achieve a task leads to perfection of work. On the contrary, the longer you take to complete the task the more your productivity will be hampered.

Achieving long-term or short-term goals is equally important within the time frame. Having deadlines can act as a great asset to understanding the importance of your time and work. Finding yourself frazzled and stressed at work? It’s time to set deadlines. This is one of the best ways to manage your tasks and complete everything on time. The question is, how to meet a deadline?

First, evaluate what is required to complete the task. Second,  get your hands on the right resources. Third, think of the potential problems that can impact your performance, and lastly, plan your deadlines accordingly to achieve your goal without any external support of tools and technology. Keep in mind, missing deadlines will impact your productivity and there is a chance that you will lose track of work in the organization. It is better to take responsibility, avoid making excuses and focus on meeting deadlines.

Conclusion:

To conclude, understand that every minute you spend working is to be treated as gold. Business experts claim that you must know productivity techniques to run any business. Of course, that can save you time and effort. It can assist in doing your job in less time.

Moreover, high productivity is a key indicator of a healthy business and work culture. Improving productivity without depending on any tool or technique can add up to profitability, and improve customer service. Along with that, it will lead to highly motivated employees, lower production costs, and better business relationships.

By eliminating time thieves, upscaling your skills, setting deadlines, and having positive feedback, all these elements add up to being more productive. You can implement commonsense tools that can reduce your dependency on different tools. To explain, making to-do lists, taking in-between breaks, and reducing distractions can be a big win to improve your productivity.

Once you’ve understood the importance of productivity without relying on tools, you will implement it to increase valuable business resources. In the continuity of the point, make sure you optimize emailing and meetings, encourage self-awareness and improve office communication. Trying the techniques mentioned in this article will improve your business productivity and performance without depending on tools.

Related Post: Best Productivity Tools of 2023

Try Out Productivity Tools We Are Using

The post 5 Ways to Improve Productivity Without Depending on Tools appeared first on ReadWrite.

Every small business aspires to grow as big as a Fortune 500 company one fine day. In fact, any business would want to keep advancing in an incremental way to scale new heights. Besides, this is what makes the enterprise world highly competitive. The ultimate objective of every business is to penetrate its market to dominate the market share in its own exemplary way.  This explains why businesses lay great emphasis on market penetration strategies.

The fact of the matter is that business advancement strategies cannot exist without market penetration tactics. The market share of a company will always be a key performance indicator of its advancement and authority.

Probing further, in every industry, we identify the top performers in terms of their market share. For instance, if we talk about the smartphone industry, Samsung and Apple are the biggest players with dominating market shares. They have always had fierce competition in dominating the industry. Still, due to some extraordinary market penetration strategies, Samsung dominated the smartphone industry by leaving Apple in the second spot.

To substantiate, in the second quarter of 2022, Samsung made it to the top spot with a market share of 21.8. Whereas Apple bagged the second position with a market share of 15.6%. We can largely attribute the success of Samsung to its market penetration strategies. This example makes a clear case for paying heed to the need for a firm market penetration plan. However, what does the term market penetration exactly imply? Let us find out.

What is market penetration?

Market penetration is a measure of how much share a company holds in the overall market for a product. To elaborate, it defines how much a product is used by consumers relative to the total estimated market size for that product. For service businesses, it will be a measure of how much a service is used by consumers relative to the total market size for that service.

Now, let us also look at the definition of market penetration strategies. It is the course of action that a company initiates to increase its market share in the overall market. Besides, market penetration is one of the four elements of the Ansoff Matrix. To explain, Ansoff Matrix is one of the widely applied strategic models used by companies. A company’s market penetration strategy is the set of tactics aimed at increasing its market share.

Let us understand the same through an example. Currently, Tesla has over 70 percent market share in the US EV market. Now, let’s say the company sets a target for attaining a market share of 90 percent in the next three years. For that, the company will need to frame an effective market penetration strategy. The KPIs of its penetration strategy will determine whether the company meets its business objectives.

Now we know all about what market penetration is and what is a market penetration plan. For successful market penetration, companies need actionable strategies. This is what this meticulous blog is all about. The next section puts forth some incredible strategies for market penetration.

5 Business Strategies For Successful Market Penetration

1. Revolutionize Your Promotional Practices

Marketing and promotional strategies have nowadays become a major pillar on which the growth of every business majorly depends. Statistical data (vtldesign dotcom) states that big names like Salesforce and Oracle dedicate 20% or even more of revenue to marketing. Besides, the same reports validate that marketing is eventually responsible for generating companies’ revenue growth of 38.4%. This brings us to the very first marketing penetration strategy. In this, you have to ensure that you need to revamp your promotional practices.

To elaborate, thanks to technological advancements, we have tremendous marketing sources like affiliate marketing, social media marketing, and so on. Apart from the sources, technological advancements even revolutionized the way marketing was done before. For example, technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), VR, and AR (augmented and virtual reality), have also contributed to the same. They have assisted in presenting even simple messages of brands in the most impressive form to attract more potential consumers.

Hence, revolutionizing the form of promotional practices will assist you in enhancing the awareness and brand visibility of your business. This greater brand awareness will assist you in attracting more customers. Besides, this will assist you in acquiring a bigger share of the market effectively.

2. Enhance Your Business Territories

Business territories here include all of your distribution channels through which you deliver your product or service in the market. Distribution channels play a major role in penetrating the market effectively. The success mantra is simple, the more distribution channels you have, the more accessible you are to your target audience.

Hence, in order to effectively penetrate your target market, you need to enhance the territories of your business. For online mediums, you can enhance the distribution channels by

• Creating websites
• Selling features of different social media
• Collaborating with e-commerce websites
• Creating separate apps

For offline mediums, you can invest in building up more brick-and-mortar stores. Other than that, you can also dig out the opportunities to give the franchises to other people.  Rather than handling it all at once yourself, you can let your other franchise partners handle it. This will assist you in expanding your business networks in terms of your business partners as well as your customers.

This way, you will be able to take advantage of different distribution channels to get more customers to your business. Hence, you will get successful in acquiring more market share for your business.

3. Acquire or Partner With Other Businesses

Jim Henson once correctly said, “when you can’t beat them, join them.” The most prominent and perfect example that fits the above-given quote is Facebook, now called Meta. This happened when Meta acquired Instagram and Whatsapp, which were some of its biggest competitors. With this comes another tremendous strategy that can assist you in penetrating your business effectively.

To elaborate, while acquiring, you can always target your competitors like Meta or go for acquiring small businesses. When you acquire any business, you will automatically get control of its existing clientele base. This will ultimately add up to your clientele base and will assist you in having more market share under your wing. Besides, when you go for partnering with other businesses, there is also a major consideration. You should always go for businesses that complement your business in one way or another.

For example, recently, an Italian MNC, Ferrero Group, or simply Ferrero’s subsidiary brand Kinderjoy ‘Nations’ has announced its expansion in India. Along with its expansion, the company joined hands with Discovery Channel. The main aim of this partnership is to promote their unique animal collection in order to encourage kids to gain effective knowledge of wildlife. Now, as Kinderjoy is a specific product created for kids, partnering with an educating medium enhances the value of both partners. Additionally, it also gave them the opportunity to totally tap into their partner’s target market to acquire new customers or audiences.

Hence, both partnering and acquiring are both great ways to penetrate the market. The only need is to identify which form of market penetration of these two goes best for your business.

4. Acquire customers through cost leadership

As per the cost leadership strategy, companies look to develop a competitive advantage by offering a product or service at the lowest price. It is a strategic advantage that companies look to gain over their competitors. To explain, when companies offer the highest quality products at the lowest price, they attract new customers.

In such cases, businesses often try to become the price leader in the market. To define, a pricing leader refers to the dominating firm of the market that sets the price and the rest of other firms the competition follows. Businesses become the price leader by lowering their profit margins and grabbing the attention of their customers towards them. One of the biggest examples of effective cost leadership in the aviation industry is RyanAir. The company used a dynamic pricing strategy and became the cost leader in the aviation industry.

However, in the race to become a cost leader, you also have to ensure that you can not make your prices too low. This will directly impact the profitability of your business, or people can also doubt your quality. Besides, being a cost leader cannot be a long-term pricing strategy. Once you acquire a substantial share of the market, you can change the pricing strategy. The foundation for that would, of course, be excellent customer service. When businesses offer great customer experiences, customers are even happy to pay premium princess.

This way, dynamic pricing will assist you in attracting more and more customers from different social groups. This will ultimately assist in gathering a larger share of the market.

5. Embrace Product Diversification

Last but not least, a strategy that can assist in enhancing your market penetration rate is product diversification. For those who are not aware of the term, let us explain it to you. Companies apply product diversification by introducing new product lines or services to attain a greater market share. The underlying objective of diversification is to amplify business profitability.

In fact, there are a host of successful product diversification examples to look at. Disney went on to introduce its own OTT platform and cruises after starting with cartoons. Similarly, Coca-Cola ventured into the healthy drinks market after starting with carbonated drinks. When businesses expand, they can tap into more markets and acquire more customers.

As diversification allows you to add more variety of products to your business. By implementing this, you will easily be able to capture the largest share of the industry. However, every diversification strategy should be accompanied by a clear change management strategy. An effective change management approach ensures better integration of transformations in a business.

However, one of the biggest challenges that might occur in product diversification is failing to identify the potential of the target market. Hence, it is really essential to rectify the attractiveness of your target market before investing a huge amount in it. This is where the analysis of the business macroenvironment and microenvironment becomes essential.

To encapsulate, with the increasing competition in the business world, it often gets difficult for businesses to enhance their market penetration rate. Hence, the need is to effectively understand the market and utilize some of the effective market penetration strategies in order to enhance the growth of your business.

Besides, the above-given strategies will effectively assist you in skyrocketing your market penetration rate. So what are you waiting for? Utilize them and experience the difference yourself.

Featured Image Credit: Gustavo Fring; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 5 FoolProof Market Penetration Strategies for Business appeared first on ReadWrite.

Every nation’s manufacturing industry is one of the most vital economic sectors. Regarding Canada specifically, as per Financial Post, manufacturing accounts for about 10 percent of the country’s GDP. Scalability in a country’s manufacturing industry implies more significant economic growth for the country. The more the manufacturing industry in a government grows, the greater the overall economic prosperity will be.

Stellar technological innovations and the global manufacturing industry have become more scalable.

With the integration of state-of-the-art technologies, the manufacturing sector is growing by leaps and bounds. In addition, we are witnessing a massive digital revolution transforming the world’s ways in unimaginable ways.

While a wide range of technologies is driving transformations in the manufacturing sector, blockchain technologies are disrupting the industry with the most significant momentum. The charm and prowess of blockchain technology do not limit themselves to cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain technologies indeed have the potential to transform major economic sectors completely

Blockchain technologies indeed have the potential to transform major economic sectors, including the manufacturing industry, completely. This explains why many manufacturing businesses are now subscribing to blockchain solutions.

As per Globe Newswire, the global market for blockchain in manufacturing is projected to grow at a whopping CAGR of 66.4 percent between 2022 and 2027. The market for blockchain solutions in manufacturing is anticipated to reach a net worth of USD 17047.8 million by 2027. This indicates that businesses see great scope in blockchain technology to add greater value and efficiency to manufacturing operations.

This blog looks at the most significant advantages of blockchain technologies for the manufacturing industry. In other words, this blog sheds light on how blockchain technologies can revolutionize the manufacturing sector.

Five incredible merits of blockchain for the manufacturing industry

1. Improved and improvised traceability

In manufacturing, traceability is essential at each stage of the manufacturing process. Better traceability facilitates more significant streamlining of operations and better coordination between teams. To explain, with blockchain systems in place, manufacturers can keep a systematic track of all data about materials, processes, and finished goods.

Since blockchain is a decentralized ledger, manufacturers can effectively store and share information regarding the origin of materials, shipping status, compliance measures followed, and other details. In this way, businesses can trace all the assets and goods systematically and simply using the blockchain ledger.

Besides, with greater traceability, the sales team can also answer customers’ queries about sustainable practices, animal testing, or other concerns more organized manner. The fact is that greater traceability further paves the way for greater transparency. When there is greater transparency in the course of operations, employee engagement is high, and customer experiences can be enhanced.

We must acknowledge the fact that modern customers love transparency from brands. Therefore, the kind of traceability and transparency blockchain ledgers can provide is priceless for manufacturers. In this way, they can optimize their employees’ experience and customer service dynamics.

Moreover, in the case of product recalls too, effective traceability will have such a crucial role to play. The product recall process in the case of defects or refinements will be relatively simpler when data is stored on a ledger.

2. Optimized inventory management

Supply chain operations and inventory management form the spine of the manufacturing industry. Therefore, any inefficiencies in the supply chain and inventory operations can derail the entire range of manufacturing operations. It is essential for manufacturers to have regular insights into their supply chain operations.

This is where blockchain solutions are proving to be game-changing for manufacturers. With blockchain ledgers, manufacturers can track the supplies throughout all manufacturing stages. Furthermore, with this ability to track supplies and processed goods in real-time, manufacturers can provide clear commitments about delivery to their customers.

To add, given the decentralization feature of blockchain, manufacturers can share this vital information with their supply chain partners and managers for better coordination.

Furthermore, with blockchain technologies, manufacturers can also trace the source of defective supplies or materials that do not comply with their quality assurance standards. Businesses can easily trace all the risks and inefficiencies of the supply chain operations, based on which they can quickly mitigate the risk in real time.

Also, security becomes a significant issue in automated inventory management and supply chain operations. Blockchain solutions also offer the incredible benefit of improved security in global supply chain operations involving an extensive network of suppliers and vendors.

All these advantages explain why the significance of blockchain in the global supply chain market is increasing at a rampant pace. According to Allied Market Research, in the coming years, the market size of blockchain in supply chain operations is projected to grow at a staggering CAGR of 80 percent.

Innovative businesses will vouch for blockchain integrations in supply chain and inventory management. Are you ready to embrace the incredible benefits of a supply chain digital revolution?

3. Enhanced data security

Now that most sectors run on big data, it leads to enhanced security from cyberattacks or leaking of confidential data, which has become essential for manufacturing businesses. For example, manufacturing businesses need to secure details of contracts and invoices from being a target of data breaches.

Moreover, as discussed previously, automated supply chain operations need to be protected from cyber threats and vulnerabilities. Blockchain solutions keep sensitive data more secure with efficient cryptography techniques in place. Besides, they eliminate threats in a more worthwhile way.

Blockchain ledgers come with end-to-end encryption for maximum security.

Besides another more significant feature of blockchain is that businesses can store all the data on a network of computers rather than storing all the information on a single system. This makes it highly difficult for cyber attackers to access confidential information.

Also, since it is a distributed ledger, no individual can alter or manipulate the data in a personal capacity as authorizations need to be sought. If any unauthorized person tries to manipulate the information, those who have access to the ledger will receive notifications.

Blockchain can effectively transform the manufacturing sector in terms of data security in an incredible manner. With the integration of blockchain solutions, manufacturers do not have to worry about large volumes of client and supplier data. The risk of vulnerabilities of breach will be minimum.

4. Automated payments with smart contracts

Smart Contracts are gaining high traction in the contemporary business world and are becoming a regular feature across industries. To explain, smart contracts are blockchain programs that execute the next step upon fulfilling predefined conditions. The purpose they are meant to serve is the automation of agreements’ execution to mitigate third-party involvement or unnecessary wastage of time.

In fact, as per Globe Newswire, the market size of global smart contracts is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 24 percent between 2022 and 2024. The manufacturing industry involves multiple recurring payments to vendors and suppliers. Blockchain can enable manufacturers to automate these recurring payments via smart contracts to minimize third-party reliance.

Moreover, smart contracts will eliminate the possibility of human errors or unprecedented delays in payment because of human inefficiencies. When smart contracts are run on a blockchain, ll automatically make the payment if prerequisite conditions are met. In fact, if prerequisite conditions are met in times to come, the benefits of blockchain in payments will only get bigger and better.

With effective automation in the settlement of payments, manufacturers can rather focus on optimizing other operational aspects. Also, with a more secure system of payments, businesses can avoid unprecedented financial losses. Moreover, the manufacturers can reduce the overhead costs of transactions with smart contracts. Subsequently, they can save a significant part of operational costs.

5. Effective talent management

It is correct to say that a business is ultimately as competent as its people. This is the simple reason why businesses lay immense emphasis on talent management and performance management. Interestingly, as per Forbes, businesses with high employee engagement can be 21 percent more profitable.

However, for acquiring the prerequisite levels of workplace motivation and engagement, businesses need to ensure that they get everything right about talent management. Blockchain can offer a massive opportunity for leaders at manufacturing firms to drive  optional performances.

To explain, leaders can maintain effective blockchain records containing specific details of employees’ performance, employment history, skills, education, and training. Besides, the HR managers can also store details of preferred employee benefits and compensation forms. In fact, these are the times of HR analytics.

Organizations are now embracing a data-driven approach to employee experience and employee engagement. As a result, businesses can effectively manage and share all the required data and information about employees and the concerned authorities. Also, blockchain’s multifarious benefits in recruitment need to be looked at. Finally, organizations’ best-fit policies for optimizing engagement and retention.

From optimizing the supply chain to getting the best out of employees, blockchain brings enormous benefits to the industry. The market size for blockchain solutions in the industry is increasing at an unprecedented rate. More and more manufacturing companies are now investing wholeheartedly in the potential of blockchain. We can say this with reassurance that blockchain holds the key to the future of the manufacturing industry. The sooner manufacturers embrace blockchain sockchains, the more beneficial they will be.

Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!

The post 5 Ways Blockchain Can Revolutionize the Manufacturing Industry appeared first on ReadWrite.

Creating a highly competent and skilled workforce is a common ambition that all organizations share. In the ongoing era of enormous competition, organizations show a sense of urgency in bridging the skills gaps within their workforce. This is where employee training comes into the picture.

All organizations offer some form of training modules and programs to their employees. Besides, it is also true that employee training accounts for a significant part of the operational expenses of organizations. To elucidate, as per Indeed, the average cost of training per employee is around USD 1200.

Even if your business is based on one of the low investment business ideas, you still need to ensure that you keep the operational costs down. Sometimes, the operations costs can be far more overwhelming than the cost of starting a business. Therefore, leveraging any possible reduction in employee training costs should be on your priority list.

Suppose you wish that eagerly, you can make things work in your favor. In this article, we shed light on how small businesses can cut down on employee training costs. In addition, the report offers important and rational ways to keep training costs in check. So, let us get started without further delay.

Five ways small businesses can reduce training costs

1. Delegate responsibilities

Are you comfortable delegating authority and responsibilities as a leader, or do you like to keep the entire control to yourself? If you are not embracing the charm of delegating, you may miss the trick as a leader. The fact is that you cannot do everything on your own with identical efficiency. Besides, why would you want to do everything independently when you have a team of talented individuals?

When you delegate tasks and authority to your team members, you offer them an excellent opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge. Furthermore, I bet people learn in a more holistic way when they learn from real situations rather than classroom training. Let us take an example to substantiate this argument.

Let’s say you need to train your team for PHP development. Do you think classroom training on PHP can be more effective than actual PHP tasks? When employees are given practical exposure, they learn more wholesomely. The best part is that many classroom modules can be replaced with on-job training that you offer through delegation.

You can indeed cut down the exorbitant costs of employee training. Besides, not only can delegation help you bring down the prices, but it also helps you foster high engagement. To explain, when you delegate responsibilities, you show greater trust in your employees. Therefore, your delegation acts will be heartwarming for your employees as they will promote greater trust and acceptance.

Because of this trust, they will feel greater zeal and motivation to make a positive difference. To validate, as per Harvard Business Review, employees in companies that thrive on high trust manifest 76 percent higher engagement. Moreover, in such companies, employee productivity is 50 percent higher.

As a small business owner, you can gain big from little acts of delegation. The greater your effectiveness in delegating, the better the results. Charging can be an excellent cost-cutting strategy for your operational costs.

2. Introduce mentoring programs

Mentoring programs are a big hit in the contemporary corporate world. From small businesses to the leading global corporations, all businesses are investing in mentoring programs. Push Far shows more than 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs. Additionally, 93% of SMBs see great scope in mentoring programs for upscaling their business success.

While mentoring programs have multidimensional business benefits for small businesses, a considerable reduction in employee training costs is outstanding merit. To explain, mentoring arrangements in the workplace promote a more organic approach to employee training and development. Employees learn from the first-hand experience and expertise of mentors who have spent years in their field.

Hence, not many classroom learning modules will be needed in a more natural, organized, and continuous learning environment facilitated by mentoring. You can replace a few learning modules on a few hard skills and soft skills with thoughtful mentoring programs.

Moreover, employees will be more comfortable seeking assistance and guidance in mentor-mentee relationships. If they are only going to look at you as a boss, they may not have the same confidence while seeking practical advice from you. Therefore, it makes complete sense for small businesses to introduce meticulous mentorship programs.

From effective knowledge sharing to cultivating a greater sense of belonging in the workplace, you can build various competitive advantages for your business through mentoring programs. The key is to identify the skill gaps and knowledge gaps in your workforce and create particular mentoring programs to fill these gaps.

You will not need to develop separate training programs that add to operating costs. Instead, you can spend this money on leveraging business growth with R&D spending increasingly aggressively over time.

3. Invest in Learning Management System

When it comes to disruptions in education and learning, LMS is among the most progressive advancements. As a result, the global learning management system market is soaring as more businesses subscribe to LMS integration. To explain, as per Fortune Business Insights, the global LMS market is projected to reach USD 40.9 billion by 2029.

LMS solutions for employee training can enhance training outcomes in an incredible way. Besides, LMS solutions are among the most cost-effective employee training and development approaches. As per Finances Online, 41 percent of business organizations have successfully brought down employee training costs with the integration of LMS.

Besides, LMS solutions also offer the scope for gamification in employee training, consistent tracking of learning outcomes, and creating personalized courses. LMS can make employee training far more effective, accessible, and comprehensive. This is one investment in the best interest of your objectives of bringing down operational expenses. The sooner you integrate LMS solutions for employee training, the more beneficial it will be for your startup.

4. Encourage leadership opportunities

The fact is that you cannot groom leaders via classroom training programs. Leaders are born out of real situations and rise to the occasion to display great leadership traits. Therefore, all organizations need to identify great prospects for leadership roles and groom them for the future.

This explains why most organizations have leadership development programs that can indeed cost a lot. However, I am trying to say here that you can groom your future leaders more practically by promoting leadership opportunities in the workplace. Expose your leadership prospects to real situations where they have actual leadership responsibilities to take care of.

A leadership opportunity can be as simple as leading one of the employee engagement activities in the workplace. The idea is to groom leadership abilities in individuals by expecting them to deliver in actual leadership roles. More importantly, in this way, you will not need to invest in excessive leadership development programs. With these additional cost savings, you can cater to other aspects of operational obligations.

Besides, your sincerest employees will view leadership roles as a great career advancement opportunity. This will further cultivate a greater sense of satisfaction among employees. As a result, you can reap more significant benefits in higher engagement and retention.

5. Shift training modules to the virtual mode

It is a well-known fact that physical training programs come with high costs of logistics and hospitality. If you are conducting training sessions over days, you have no choice but to bear these costs. However, you can save all these expenses thanks to technology by completing online training.

Interestingly, around 90 percent of employees want to access training material anytime and anywhere. Lorman further states that 85 percent of workers wish for autonomy and flexibility in learning at a time of their own choice. Moreover, 90 percent of business leaders and employers see great scope in switching to mobile-based employee training.

Therefore, as it is evident, switching to virtual training sessions is a win-win situation for all. From your employees’ perspective, they can access virtual training sessions at all times and can even learn on the go. Besides, if you look at it from the operational aspect, virtual training can be a great way to evade logistics, stationery, and hospitality costs.

Probing further, Upskilled also reveals that e-learning modules can help in enhancing learning retention by 60 percent. Besides, online learning and training also allow employees to access learning resources as often as they want. Otherwise, they cannot have round-the-clock access to lectures in physical coaching sessions.

So, the bottom line is that not only will online training help in cost savings but will also enhance learning outcomes in the organization. With online training modules, employees can learn consistently and incrementally.

Conclusion

To encapsulate, employee training is a salient operational aspect for all business organizations. To create a competent workforce, each business must invest in employee training programs and bear the same costs. It is also true that these costs can be pretty overwhelming for small businesses. However, even though employee training cannot be overlooked, a considerable part of training costs can be saved using the above approaches.

Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!

Try Out Productivity Tools We Are Using

The post 5 Vital Ways Startups Can Pull Down Employee Training Costs appeared first on ReadWrite.

It is a well-known fact that millennials will soon represent 75 % of the global workforce. To put it the other way around, millennials hold the key to the future of the corporate world. For organizations, this paradigm shift in workplace demographics is both beneficial and challenging. Businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups all join in the hope that they can keep their millennial workforce engaged and happy.

Millennials are the Future of all Business

Millennials surely bring great intellect and potential to the workplace. However, the same generation is also infamous for low rates of employee engagement.

The truth is, that organizations cannot run away from this critical transition. They need to embrace this change by looking at the brighter side of it. If low engagement in millennials is an issue, business leaders need to find definite solutions to the issue. After all, employee engagement has a direct correlation with business success.

If You Engage These Optimists — You’ll Be Profitable

Did you know that companies with high engagement can turn out to be 21 % more profitable than their counterparts? This insight by Forbes explains why employee engagement is a buzzword in the modern business world. For you as a startup owner, this insight holds far greater significance. If you succeed in driving high engagement in your millennial workforce, you can take your startup to the next level within a span of a few years.

How Do You Stop the Millennial Hopping?

Yes, millennials are known for low engagement levels and for hopping jobs too soon. However, it is also true that highly engaged millennials can be a force to reckon with. With their prowess and charm, millennials can change the fortunes of your startup for the better.

How Will You Lead the Future Leaders?

As a leader, this is where your effectiveness will be tested. In the ultimate sense, it all comes down to what you can do differently as a leader to stimulate high engagement in your pool of millennial talents. When you succeed in doing that, you can lead your business to great success.

To offer some valuable assistance, this blog highlights some exceptional and rational ways in which you can boost engagement in a millennial workforce. So, let us get started without further ado.

Incredible Tactics to Drive Engagement in a Millennial Workforce

1. Cultivate a culture of empathy

Your organization’s culture has an essential role to play in fostering high engagement. Would you feel like giving your best in an environment that is not very welcoming? On most days, your performance is inspired by your surrounding environment. The same is the case when it comes to your employees.

Empathy is a workplace virtue millennials prioritize

When it comes to engagement, the working environment has a direct role to play. In fact, as per Forbes, companies with great cultures can increase their revenue by four times. There are various dimensions of organizational culture. However, in times when most people find their mental health vulnerable, empathy is a workplace virtue they prioritize.

Are you psychologically safe for your workforce?

As a business leader, you can offer greater psychological and emotional safety to your workforce. Speaking of millennials, in particular, they often find themselves in the middle of emotional chaos where they look up to others. They want their seniors and co-workers to understand their emotions and assist them in dealing with their emotional insecurities.

In fact, empathy is one of the greater considerations for millennial employees. To substantiate, as per inFeedo, 80 % of millennials will consider quitting their jobs to join a more empathetic organization. Clearly, workplace empathy is vital for both engagement and retention when it comes to millennials.

Understand the millennial mindset

To be fair, millennials do feel bogged down at times because of enormous competition, consistent work stress, and other reasons. Also, they tend to struggle at times to segregate their personal and professional lives. In such scenarios, their motivation and engagement certainly take a setback.

On the contrary, they will be amply satisfied and happy to be a part of an empathetic workplace. In such an environment, they will not feel reluctant to trust their co-workers and ask for help.

Is your business dangerous emotionally? At this time in history, the working climate needs to be safer than it ever has been before.

All employees in high-trust organizations are 76 % more engaged. That goes doubly for the millennials. Harvard Business Review further reveals that in high-trust companies, employee burnout rates are 40 % lower.

The bottom line is that empathy is the basis of trust. Further, by cultivating trust, you can unlock new levels of productivity and engagement in your organization.

2. Promote career development opportunities

It is often argued that millennials exhibit low levels of engagement in their jobs. Well, that is true to a great extent and it is indeed challenging for organizations. However, at the same time, it is also true that millennials carry a unique zeal to learn and advance. For them, workplace learning and career advancement are of utmost importance.

Learning opportunities in the workplace are imperative for 87 % of millennials

Besides, vital insights reveal that millennials value career growth opportunities more than other generations. To explain, 72 % of millennials give importance to career advancement. On the other hand, 64 % of Gen Z employees prioritize career growth.

Promote career development

A vital and great way of fostering employee engagement among your millennial workforce is to promote career development. You need to find ways in which you can offer enriching learning experiences to your millennial employees. Moreover, you also need to go a step further to offer reasonable career advancement opportunities to them.

The question is, how can an organization do complete justice to millennials’ learning and advancement expectations?

Effective strategies that you easily implement as a small business

• Offer immersive learning experiences through gamification
• Encourage your employees to take initiative
• Introduce millennial-centric mentoring programs in the workplace
• Offer leadership opportunities to your millennial employees
• Delegate more responsibilities to your millennial workers
• Leverage professional development apps and LMS
• Create cross-functional teams
• Track learning outcomes through KPIs

These strategies are quite inexpensive. As a small business, you would not have to spend much on incorporating these approaches. However, the kind of returns these strategies will offer can be quite overwhelming. Novel strategies are surely worth a try.

The greater your effectiveness in terms of implementing these retention strategies the better the results.

3. Encourage regular feedback sharing

In every organization, feedback loop sharing is a crucial aspect of performance management. Also, feedback loop sharing is a key aspect of social interactions in the workplace.

The flow of knowledge and guidance remains perennial when feedback sharing is regular. Especially in the context of startups where almost everything is in the learning phase, feedback sharing is far more significant.

Feedback loop sharing correlating to high engagement employees

Feedback sharing has a direct correlation with employee engagement and HubSpot reveals that more than 40 % of highly engaged employees receive feedback every week. Further, 98 % of employees will struggle with engagement if they do not receive regular feedback.

All employees need and can benefit from constant feedback to drive high productivity and engagement. However, millennials, specifically, expect to receive feedback far more regularly than others. They want to become better versions of themselves each day through effective learning and upskilling.

Millennials are highly receptive to feedback from their managers and supervisors.

Millennials want and expect to receive constant and constructive feedback even if they do not ask for it. Engaging millennials with feedback is an incredible way to engage them. You need to revamp your performance management approach. Your performance management strategies need to make way for more regular feedback sharing.

Your managers and supervisors need to be trained in various approaches to be able to offer a constructive promotion of careers and how to take more responsibility in feedback loops.

It takes effort and concerted effort, strategy, and planning to create a culture of systematic and thoughtful feedback sharing.

4. Promote greater flexibility

Flexibility is one of the highlights of the new normal when we talk about the corporate world. As the expanse of technological innovations is widening, flexibility is becoming a thriving trend. In fact, millennials and Gen Z folks are quite obsessed with the idea of flexibility.

Millennials want to do things in their own way from working in a location of their choice and at a time they deem appropriate.

BusinessLine on Campus conducted a survey showing that more than 60 % of millennials have a huge preference for flexible working arrangements.

Millennials joining the flexible workforce

A large number of millennials will leave their current jobs to join organizations that offer greater flexibility and autonomy. To be precise, People Matters concludes that more than 51 % of millennial workers will quit their jobs for greater flexibility.

Since the pandemic more and more businesses have realized that a remote workforce works just fine — and in fact, possibly better than ever. Globally the workforce is changing. The best part is that everyone from the largest businesses to the smallest startup are embracing the possibilities of a remote team. Connectivity is better than ever and every business had to up their game during the pandemic or go out of business and the possibilities are exciting.

When you offer greater flexibility to your employees, you empower them by setting them free.

Also, when you offer flexibility to your employees, you assist them in achieving the kind of healthy work-life balance they have always dreamed of.

Work-Life balance — not just for the millennial

Apollo Technical found that around 80 % of employees are of the view that flexible working hours facilitate better work-life balance. Employees of all ages and stages are responding with greater engagement with the help of their employers in overcoming the major life challenges of the work-life balance.

Flexibility is spelled T.R.U.S.T.

Employees perceive flexibility as a measure of trust. You offer flexibility to your employees when you trust them enough for the fact that they will not misuse their time and effort just because you are not looking over their shoulder.

Feelings of high trust always lead an organization to great milestones in productivity.

5. Millennials love to share a common purpose

One of the greatest assets of your millennials in the workforce is that they instinctively have an innate sense of purpose. Your millennials will lead your whole team in projects that serve a purpose whether in your workplace or serving out in your community.

The millennials want to make a positive difference in their surroundings with their work and unparalleled skills. Most millennials today want to work for purpose-driven businesses and serving a larger purpose keeps millennials highly engaged.

Millennials want to work for a great cause

A Forbes study shows that more than 70 % of millennials want to work for businesses that cater to a larger purpose beyond profits.

Fast Company reveals that around 40 % of millennials prefer to work for organizations that contribute positively to sustainability. If you wish to drive high engagement in a millennial workforce, your startup needs to find its purpose. Start by writing a purpose-driven mission statement.

Even better — share your “why” and your high purpose with all employees

Retain your top millennial talents by sharing your company’s larger purpose with them. This purpose can be in the form of corporate social responsibilities, great projects to help the environment you feel a responsibility for — or take some company funds and go feed the homeless in your area.

Motivation for the extra mile

When your millennial workforce is convinced that their organization works for a larger purpose, the motivation levels will be enormous. Millennials will go the extra mile for their organization when they see their efforts in contributing to a collective goal.

For best results — add your purpose-driven goals to your brand

Also, by creating a perception of a purpose-driven company for your startup, you can create an appealing employer or business brand. The top millennial talents around you would love to be a part of your organization for its purpose-driven approach.

Core values and actions speak for themselves

Remember, millennials are smart and observant people. Choose from organic virtues in the natural workplace environment and allow your workforce to offer suggestions. This is where you as a leader will have the opportunity to lead by example.

6. Embrace inclusion

Millennials are happy to be a part of a diverse and inclusive work environment. They are keen on learning from others’ perspectives and exploring others’ experiences. A diverse workplace that embraces inclusion at all levels gives them a perfect opportunity to do so.

Diverse and inclusive environments are vibrant and help all employees remain engaged

Millennials are uncompromising in the virtues of equality, equity, and inclusion

You’ll find your entire workforce will gain emotional intelligence when embracing the mind of the millennial with respect to equality and inclusion regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or any other differentiation.

Hiring a diverse workforce in itself may not be enough — you’ll want to fully embrace inclusion and find ways to build a fully operational team. Your team will learn to trust each other and work through issues on team projects with greater communication skills.

How will you embrace inclusion?

• Make the decision-making process more transparent and inclusive
• Promote Diversity and Inclusion through games and training activities in the workplace
• Encourage your employees to take the initiative
• Cultivate greater self-advocacy among your employees
• Offer greater creative liberty to your employees
• Seek employee feedback

7. Offer personalized rewards to millennial

The importance of employee recognition and rewards is well known in the workplace and in business. As a leader, you already know that appreciation and recognition are among the strong pillars of engagement.

Of course, a startup doesn’t have exorbitant resources to invest in employee recognition programs. But even small recognition directed toward your employees will grow in great benefits in terms of engagement in organizations.

Millennials don’t mind a smaller price tag

It is not always about the price of the reward. When it comes to millennials, they don’t go after the high price tag. Even if you are appreciating them for a simple post on social media,– they will feel pleased that you noticed and their motivation levels will rise.

Think “personalization” for effective awards and rewards

As a small business, you can offer non-monetary personalized rewards to your employees to enhance engagement. Personalization is a booming trend at present and will help you choose relevant gifts and small tokens of appreciation for your employees. Awards that are given publically at expected intervals — like quarterly are beneficial for motivation. Why not inculcate personalization in employee recognition to steer workplace motivation?

Rewards offered by company leadership go a long way toward motivation

Personalized rewards can capture your whole team’s engagement in the most worthwhile way. For instance, let’s say an employee is a huge fan of binge-watching. To reward that employee, you can offer a Netflix subscription as a token of appreciation.

Similarly, if an employee loves to read fictional novels, you can give the latest novels to recognize their contribution. Also, when you offer personalized rewards, it promotes a sense of belonging among your employees. They feel valued and understood when you reward them with something that is closely linked to their heart.

To encapsulate

Millennials are the future of the global workforce and you are lucky to have them in your employ.

A few millennials may come with a rigid challenge or two — that may include low engagement and high turnover — but you’ll find their energy and high work output more than makes up for most of these temporary hiccups.

Use the strategies above to cultivate and involve your whole team with greater efficiency and connectedness to each other and your company. They will help you build a wide spectrum of ideas, creativity, talent, and skill in your company and workforce.

Image Credit: by Ketut Subiyanto; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 7 Ways Startups Can Keep Their Millennial Workforce Engaged appeared first on ReadWrite.

We are dwelling in times of a surreal digital revolution, and it is only getting bigger day by day. Emerging technologies are revolutionizing and revamping the world swiftly, and the corporate world is aligning itself with these technologies without wasting any time.

On the list of these disruptive technologies, blockchain is a much-talked-about aspect of the ongoing digital revolution.

The Application of Blockchain Technologies in Business Operations

Today, you can see the application of blockchain technologies across all industries and business operations. From the automotive industry to telecommunications and retail, every industry is transforming with the intelligent application of blockchain solutions.

While blockchain has an immense scope of adding value to many industries, its implications in the retail sector are enormously impressive. As a retailer, you can reap the incredible benefits of blockchain in driving effective organizational changes.

Blockchain in the Retail Industry

This blog delineates the unparalleled advantages that blockchain solutions can offer to the retail industry. You need to understand how blockchain holds great potential to drive immense value addition in retail businesses if you are a retailer.

However, firstly, to be on the same page, it is essential to look at the definition of blockchain. The better you understand what blockchain is, the greater your understanding of the business benefits of blockchain.

What is blockchain?

Speaking of the disruptive technologies of the contemporary world — blockchain technology takes a significant lead over other technological advancements. It may have initially started with transforming financial systems, but today, blockchain technology finds wide-ranging applications across different sectors.

Blockchain is a decentralized and immutable ledger facilitating records of financial transactions and assets in an enterprise network. Assets here can include both tangible and intangible assets that can be tracked or traded in a highly secure manner via a blockchain network.

Now that we have established a clear understanding of blockchain, let us look at its incredible benefits for the retail industry.

Significant advantages of blockchain for the retail industry

1. Optimized supply chain operations

It is correct to say that supply chain operations make the backbone of the retail industry. For retailers to succeed in their business objectives, they must drive consistent enhancements in their supply chain operations.

The equation is quite simple; the more optimized your supply chain and inventory management operations are, the greater your success in retail will be. This is something you would surely agree to, isn’t it?

Retailers investing in tech advancements streamline supply chains

Retailers across the globe are now investing in state-of-the-art technological advancements to streamline their supply chains. More specifically, retailers are now integrating blockchain technologies into their supply chains to enable maximum operational efficiency.

The market for blockchain technologies in supply chain operations is expected to grow at a staggering CAGR of 80 percent by 2025, as per Allied Market Research. As a result, the blockchain-enabled supply chain solutions market is forecasted to reach USD 9852.9 million in the projected period.

Retailers helped by blockchain technology

Such scintillating numbers speak for the massive scope retailers see in blockchain technology to optimize their supply chains. Incredible, isn’t it? But what are the actual benefits of blockchain technologies in supply chain operations that attract retailers?

To explain, the foremost benefit of blockchain in supply chain operations is high traceability. With blockchain, you can track supplies in real-time through all stages in the supply chain and store all the information on a decentralized ledger for improved traceability.

In addition to improvised traceability for managing supply chain issues, blockchain also promotes greater transparency in the supply chain. Subject to this transparency, you will be less vulnerable to fraudulent purchases as a retailer.

Blockchain logging product activities

Besides, blockchain technologies can improve automation in supply chain operations by logging product activities for minimal inaccuracies in the system. Further, blockchain integration also enhances the overall security of the supply chain and inventory management operations.

Optimized Data Security in the Global Supply Chains for the Retail Industry

To explain, blockchain enables optimized data security in the global supply chains of large retailers. Furthermore, with blockchain facilitating supply chains, businesses get an excellent opportunity to build higher credibility.

2. More secure payments

We all know that companies and retailers all across the globe are increasingly accepting blockchain cryptocurrencies for transactions. Some of the top retail companies accepting cryptocurrencies include Home Depot, Starbucks, Amazon, and Overstock. Besides, even Microsoft accepts cryptocurrency in lieu of its software services.

However, the idea of introducing blockchain in retail payments is not limited to offering consumers another option in terms of payment. Instead, the concept of securer payments is driving more and more retailers to switch to blockchain payment systems.

Blockchain technologies offer greater security than credit cards and other forms of internet payments. With blockchain-enabled payment mechanisms, you can achieve greater consumer and supplier payments security.

Furthermore, blockchain can enable your retail business to reap incredible benefits like faster settlement of payments in a decentralized mechanism. Besides, the usual payment providers in retail charge exorbitant privilege fees from retailers hence, reducing profits.

However, with blockchain payments, you can significantly reduce this fee and boost your profitability greatly.

So, as you can see, blockchain offers a more transparent payments system with enhanced security, but it also comes with incredible cost benefits. The risk of fraudulent consumer or supplier transactions is minimized. All transaction records can be effectively stored in a decentralized manner.

As a retailer, you make multiple transactions daily, and blockchain databases can work amazingly well to secure these transactions.

In fact, with blockchain, you can create your cryptocurrency, which will be specifically used only for your retail payments. This can be a great way to win the trust of your customers by offering them a highly personalized and secure payment system. It sounds like a great idea, isn’t it? Blockchain is undoubtedly the future of business payments.

3. Quick resolution of vendor disputes

Vendor disputes are common in retail businesses, and their vulnerability is likely to be high. Further, vendor disputes can be highly time-consuming, and in the course of this time, they can result in heavy losses for the retailers.

It makes complete sense that you want to avert these issues as much as possible. However, even if they occur, you certainly want them to be resolved in real-time such that you do not have to bear any loss of trade.

Given the high traceability feature of blockchain, you can resolve vendor disputes effectively as all the information regarding the issue will be easily available to access. Therefore, you save a lot of time in case of conflicts with the vendors, and the problems can be resolved with credible information. In this way, you can avert substantial trade losses that may directly impact your business.

4. Enhanced identification of counterfeits

Retailers are often burdened with the task of ensuring that their customers do not receive counterfeit products. Unfortunately, as technology has grown by leaps and bounds in the contemporary world, the market for counterfeit products is also expanding.

Once you lose the trust of your customers because of counterfeit products, it will be tough to retain them. Hence, you have to double-check that your customers only receive authentic products from your side.

However, with so many orders and transactions involved, detecting counterfeit products will never be an easy task, right? But, thanks to blockchain technologies, you can now ensure product originality in a more effective and hassle-free manner.

To explain, when you track the entire supply chain with the integration of blockchain, you can verify the originality of the products with greater precision. In addition, you will be able to track if the sources of the products are authentic or not.

In case, there are any disruptions in the supply chain, you will be able to identify them when you track every point through the blockchain. Quite an intelligent application of blockchain technologies, isn’t it?

You can persistently ensure that the authenticity of the products is verifiable at all times. Moreover, if any gaps hint at the possibility of counterfeit products, you can learn about them in real-time.

5. Greater effectiveness in predictive maintenance

The retail industry directly correlates with fleet management operations and sophisticated machinery. Therefore, any disruption in the fleet or machinery can result in delayed shipments or operations. This is where the significance of effective predictive maintenance comes into the picture.

The predictive maintenance technique aims to monitor the state of machinery, equipment, and fleet to ascertain the requirement of maintenance works. Subsequently, based on a data-driven approach, equipment repair and fleet are carried out to avert collapse.

So, basically, as a retailer, you can primarily benefit from predictive maintenance as you can resolve maintenance issues even before they arise.

You also need to know that blockchain technologies can play a vital role in worthwhile predictive maintenance. For example, in a decentralized manner, blockchain technology can store information on the condition of vehicles in the fleet and the equipment used in retail.

Blockchain can effectively coordinate the entire maintenance history of vehicles and equipment. You can track the history of the maintenance works performed in the past. Subsequently, you can plan the further repair works to avert breakdown.

Consequently, with enhanced predictive maintenance enabled by blockchain, you can experience higher uptime concerning your fleet and machinery. Besides, you can also avoid unnecessary repair costs by tracking the maintenance history efficiently.

6. Improvised marketing

Who says retail brands do not have much to do with marketing? On the contrary, marketing is as essential in the retail industry as any other business. As a retailer, innovation in marketing is your best chance to acquire new customers, especially in an environment where customers directly interact with brands through digital channels.

The need of the hour is to design targeted marketing campaigns that directly engage your target audience. Of course, the greater the personalization, the better the outcomes of your marketing efforts will be. But does blockchain have anything to do with marketing? Can blockchain help with improvised marketing campaigns as well?

Well, the answer is a definite yes! Blockchain can also play a game-changing role in the vertical of digital marketing. The first benefit of blockchain in marketing is that you no longer need to rely on third-party marketing platforms when you have precise data on marketing performance metrics.

To explain, when you have accurate data concerning clicks, impressions, average engagement rate, and other crucial digital marketing metrics recorded on the blockchain, you can drive greater self-sufficiency in your marketing operations.

Besides, with accurate data on the key performance indicators of digital marketing, you can design more effective advertising campaigns targeted at specific audiences. Understanding the implications of key metrics will help you cultivate greater personalization in your marketing campaigns. As you know, personalization is indeed the most significant marketing trend in the contemporary business world.

Moreover, when you are handling so much customer data to enhance personalization in other marketing campaigns, the security of this data becomes very imperative. People have legitimate data concerns after the data scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. As a result, a large share of your target audience is reluctant to share their personal data. That definitely does have an impact on customer relationships.

However, when you integrate blockchain, you can address your customers’ privacy concerns and once again win their trust. On the blockchain, you can store customer data encrypted and decentralized. Consequently, you can inspire greater confidence among your customers.

You can effectively address your customers’ privacy concerns when you integrate blockchain databases to secure data.

Therefore, blockchain in marketing means optimized targeted adverts, greater transparency in marketing campaigns, and better customer relationships. Overall, all these benefits will add significant value to your marketing success, and you can win more customers.

With improvised data-driven marketing based on blockchain, you will only see your marketing ROI scale new heights.

7. Automation of administrative tasks

The retail industry involves a wide range of recurring back-office administrative tasks. If you can automate these tasks effectively, you can improve the overall efficiency. However, effective automation is synonymous with adequate technology. This is where blockchain retakes the lead.

Blockchain technologies can efficiently automate repetitive tasks like payroll administration. Hence, it can help your staff focus on other tasks requiring greater human intelligence. Benefits of blockchain in back-office administration include smart contracts that can automate freelancers’ payments upon completing their work.

Indeed, better administration will lead to better business outcomes and greater success. Do you still have doubts about the increasing significance of blockchain in the industry?

To recapitulate, blockchain technologies hold the key to the future of the business world. The advantages of blockchain solutions are no longer limited to finances. The culture of blockchain technologies is thriving with significant momentum across industries, and so is the investment.

Talking about the retail sector, particularly the merits of blockchain integration, are fabulous and ceaseless. Blockchain can unimaginably transform the retail industry. Thus, the sooner you acknowledge that, the better it is for your retail business.

Image Credit: by Czapp Árpád; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 7 Incredible Benefits of Blockchain for the Retail Industry appeared first on ReadWrite.