As per Startup India, India has the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world, which is expected to witness a consistent upward annual growth of 12-15% year on year. The estimates suggest that each day 2-3 startups and small businesses emerge in the country.
Some may argue that it is easy to start a small business but very difficult to sustain it in the long run. There seems to be merit in this statement since out of thousands of startups and MSMEs established annually, only a small percentage make a mark.
With that said, the optimistic socio-economic conditions in the market, deep technology and high internet penetration, and supportive government policies make it a rather conducive environment for businesses to boom and for people with unique ideas, products, or services to truly excel.
Succeeding as a business in today’s highly competitive environment requires many aspects to come together in perfect alignment. These include proper planning, quick-to-market decision-making, and maintaining a sustainable business environment.
Also Read: Leverage Paytm Startup Toolkit to Accelerate Growth for Your Online Business
The use of technology can never be overstated in all the mentioned areas. Read on to get some helpful tips regarding the essential business tools for startups and small businesses that can significantly increase their chances of succeeding:
Social Networking
As a business owner and/or an entrepreneur, it is important to develop and maintain a diverse professional network, while keeping yourself abreast with the latest industry news and developments.
While sites like AngelList, Opportunity, Meetup, etc., LinkedIn remains the most popular web-based professional networking tool. It is, especially, valuable for those just entering the business world and needs to develop a network of fellow professionals, vendors or partners, potential customers, and investors or venture capitalists to maintain a steady inward flow of capital.
It is also a platform where people can share business insights, offer advice based on experience for the newbies to learn from, and provide paid / unpaid business consulting.
Online Advertising
Along with networking, advertising plays a big role in spreading the word regarding your new business and sounding out potential customers.
While the traditional forms of advertising, like print, television, etc., might be unaffordable at the nascent stages of the business, internet advertising is mostly cheaper and has a wide reach.
Using the analytical features you can develop content focused on your core potential customer base. You can also conduct online opinion polls for getting valuable ‘real’ feedback to loop back into your business strategy.
You can also choose to create informative blogs on WordPress or use the power of social media and influencers for free publicity by sharing creative posts on social media platforms. Some useful advertising tools include:
- Google Adwords – Google’s online advertising platform where you can display videos/advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or to millions of web users.
- Facebook / Instagram – A simple and economical way for startups and small businesses to reach a large number of users is by creating an FB account and using it to post ads. Using services like ‘Ads Manager’, you can create multi-platform ad campaigns.
- WordPress – create free blogs or articles to self-promote your business. You can use their premium services to enhance the hot rate and appearance in online search engines.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management is a vital aspect of the success of a startup or small business. It has become all the more relevant in the post-pandemic world, where physical interactions have become limited.
With the help of a web-enabled platform, a CRM tool can help businesses maintain customer relationships efficiently across different geographies and timezones.
The typical customer relationship management life cycle begins with identifying a potential lead followed by completing a business transaction and does not necessarily end there.
CRM acts as a touchpoint at every stage and is useful for maintaining all communication until the conversion of the prospective lead into an actual customer.
Even after this conversion, the role of CRM is to archive, retrieve, track and analyze the business and sales-related data. This data is useful for effectively and efficiently managing every aspect of customer relationships and gaining more insight into the business through various generatable reports. Some examples of popular web-based, on-demand CRMs in India include:
- SalesForce – possibly the most popular CRM tool, Salesforce is favored by several leading organizations to manage and track their salespeople. Enterprise modules can be a tad bit expensive.
- ZOHO CRM – this award-winning cloud-based CRM tool is of Indian origin. It provides several options for customization to become an ideal fit for your business. Implementation of individual modules makes it more affordable than several competitors.
- Freshsales – is another Indian-origin CRM suite that was recently in the news for its landmark public listing on the US stock exchange. Offering a high level of automation and AI analytics, Freshsales helps in saving time and provides pertinent reports for you to make sound business decisions.
Communication
It is essential to stay connected to your customers if you wish to understand and fulfill their requirements as well as to receive their feedback for improving your business operations.
It is equally important to stay connected to your internal team members for ideations and quick execution of those ideas. This need has become further grown in the last two years due to social distancing regulations imposed due to the global pandemic.
Successful businesses have adapted quickly to the new channels of communication like video-conferencing, collaborative virtual whiteboards, war-rooms, online meetings, presentations, etc. Some of the most common tools being used to engage with people include:
- Microsoft Teams – using Microsoft’s Skype platform, MS Teams is rapidly emerging as the global market leader for enterprises of all sizes. This lightweight omnichannel tool can be used effectively on PCs, laptops, smartphones, and tablets for effective collaboration.
- Zoom – since 2020, Zoom saw a massive rise in its subscriber base for people trying to stay connected in virtual teams and manage the business effectively. Although some concerns regarding data security were raised earlier, Zoom continues to be a popular communication tool
- BlueJeans – owned by Verizon, BlueJeans offers cloud-based video conferencing services. It also has AI features like real-time transcription, call recording, closed-caption subtitles, etc.
- Cisco Webex – is popular among larger enterprises with large and diverse teams spread across multiple geographies. Noted for its flexible and secure infrastructure, Webex may be a slightly expensive option for up and coming businesses.
Recruitment Tools
All startups and businesses require a sound, reliable, and committed set of people to take them to the next level. After all, technology and tools are replaceable, but the human aspect is always indispensable.
To recruit the right talent for your enterprise, you can utilize the services offered by any of the following tools:
- Naukri – widely recognized as the top job posting & recruitment Platform in India, naukri.com has a huge database of employers seeking candidates and applicants seeking jobs, which has helped it remain immensely popular for years. They also provide paid professional services in the field of hiring and acquisition for shortlisting the right candidates.
- TimesJobs – powered by the Times Group, Timesjobs helps startups find the right candidates from campus to senior-level roles. Due to its well-established network in the Gulf and Middle East region, Timesjobs is a popular tool for businesses looking to expand their operations there.
- Shine – backed up by the Hindustan Times group, Shine allows access to a large database of candidates across a diversity of skills and experience. It is easy to use their paid service to hire the right talent for your business.
- LinkedIn – apart from the obvious networking benefits, LinkedIn is also a great place to attract talented people without using paid services. This makes it very appealing for startups at the nascent stage who may not have the required budget for hiring.
Conclusion
The amount of effort and toil that goes into building a business is undeniable. A lot of disparate aspects need to come together in perfect harmony to raise the chances of its success.
Whether you are in the stages of setting up your small business or in the process of expanding it, technology-enabled tools are a great way of improving efficiency, reducing the time taken on tedious tasks, reducing errors, and staying connected.
The above list is just indicative and intends to get you started on this journey.
There are several other tools and areas you can consider based on the nature of your startup business. These can include inventory management, bookkeeping, sales analytics, governance reports customization, Human Resources & Payroll management, and account payable & receivables management, just to name a few.
As a startup business owner, you must spend time researching tools or seek advice from professionals on the right suite of tools for your specific business. To help you on your journey of building a successful startup Paytm has incorporated a toolkit that can help you focus on some of your business-critical tasks without investing too much time and human resources.
Paytm Startup Toolkit
As startup founders/co-founders/founding members, there are numerous other things that entrepreneurs need to take care of when launching their online business. Since it takes time and money to build a team of specialists for handling different business-critical tasks, early-stage startups often have to deprioritize some critical tasks.
We understand this dilemma and have curated a comprehensive toolkit, Paytm Startup Toolkit, to help entrepreneurs with the same.
We have incorporated Paytm Startup Toolkit to help businesses in India utilize the best of Paytm products to scale and grow their business.
With this toolkit, we have opened the Paytm ecosystem to let early-stage startups leverage Paytm’s payment, banking, distribution, and growth tools. These tools are helpful to startups in achieving product-market fit and scaling their business, making Paytm the ideal growth partner for online businesses.
So what are you waiting for?
