Entrepreneurial skills – going digital – and online

“Companies decided not to be a part of digital revolution are going to disappear in less than 10 years […]They have no choice but to reinvent themselves.”  – Pascal Buffard, CEO of Axa Technology Services and

If 85% of all companies are thinking about the digital transformation – isn’t it then the right time to think about it at the startup of the company? The reason for that is dead simple – your customers!

The Internet is part of your daily routine. It is not something that is used occasionally, and it is not just about social media. The Internet is now a base for all business communications, and customer convenience is probably the most critical factor, as 71% of the customers believe they will get a better price online. The Internet also means access to a worldwide market and exploitation of global competition.

Usage of digital resources has two different areas – internal and external. Internal digitalisation is the process to organise our internal processes, and external digitalisation is how our customers can access and reach us, buy from us and enjoy the products and services we offer. While external digitalisation is almost always online, significant companies use internal digitalisation still on their computers and servers on their premises. In recent years, cloud-based solutions are coming forward and leading new transformation – off the premises digitalisation – going cloud.

Supporting evidence and practices

One relatively recent survey of 550 startups from BestVendor found a majority use cloud-based resources: QuickBooks (71%) for accounting, Google Analytics (70%) for BI, Salesforce.com (59%) for customer relationship management, and Dropbox (39%) for storage and backup. In 2018, there was a report about 280 North Inc., a San Francisco-based startup which produces presentation and Web development software. The founders said they incurred initial monthly expenses of about $4,500 a month by using code available free on the Web and renting storage from Amazon Web Services. As Chris Sacca, a 280 North investor and former Google Inc. executive, said: “The biggest line item in these companies now is rent and food…  A decade ago, I didn’t think you could write a line of code for less than $1 million.”

Cloud usage definitely means a shift in user thinking. You don’t know where your data is … but for a small fee (or even free of charge), somebody else is taking care of backing up your files, taking security measures, all the time. You do not need to carry your files around, and you can access and edit your data through your phone, tablet or notebook. It’s the perfect mobile office!  

Office need

Microsoft office is still a de facto standard for office use. In the past, Microsoft shaped the market with the unique user experience, interface and file structure. Everybody knows .doc and .ppt files and Powerpoint is the generic name for the slides.

But with the internet and clouds, things get changed. Google produced its own Office suite completely free and offered collaborative work on the same document. You can work on your marketing plan document in real-time with your counsellor who is in another country. Or at the same time with the whole team. Just imagine doing this offline – everybody sends their part by mail, one is updating, leaving something unintentionally behind, send merged file again, getting feedback … It’s tedious and nonproductive work.

Some old Microsoft Word users said the Google docs are not as versatile as Word. Maybe it is true, but it is also right that statistics is telling that 90% of the features are not used by the majority of the users.

This is not a question related to Microsoft Word or Google Docs – it is about offline or online tools, their benefits and money savings. There are all offline tools that you need to install, update regularly and in general, pay it (such as Microsoft Offices). So, why someone paying for this, if there are other online alternative ways, free of charge, non-installable and no maintenance?

For 90% of the offices, free Online Microsoft Word stripped-down version of Word 2016, is the perfect tool. Or you can use any of the free online office suits you, which is described in the following article.

Software as a service (Saas)

This title may be daunting, but it denotes merely some piece of software that someone else builds it and it can be used using the browser. This software can be your everyday tool – from accounting, design, customer relationship management or gaming. It is essential to know it has attached business model. It means, it is payable on a monthly basis, but in general, every provider offers a free version of the basic version of the software. For the smart entrepreneur, it can set up the entire office with some versions of that software for free.   

It is not just what you need for the daily tasks of your organisation. Cloud-based solutions give you the opportunity to offer your services or products to the audience more accessible than ever.

• If you need a basic website, you can prepare it by yourself without any technical skills, just one afternoon, using the templates provided by different services like www.wix.com or www.web.com. You can find other options in the article here. All of these providers also offer online shops and online credit card payments. What just a few years ago seems to be impossible for an entrepreneur, now it can be done fairly easy.
• You can offer your products (or even services) on big online shopping schemes – like eBay, Amazon or Shopify. In these platforms you do not need to think about how to set up your online shop and how to process payments – you just need to focus on your product. These providers also offer different analysis tools to track prices on similar products and where they are sold, but you need to remember that you will be amidst the fierce competition. The good point is that it is not costing you a lot to test and try, but still it takes a lot of time and patience to be found and recognised. In this article, you can learn how to set up an online shop on Amazon. 

Business organisation

While we cannot provide you with the answer to what you will be needing for your business, since it is different for every company, here is a list of the items you should think about.

• Organising the work for your group: it is essential to know that arranging the tasks for the whole team and communicate it to them, especially if you are sitting in the different office, is not an easy task. The time that the old emails and spreadsheets used has passed, and there is plenty of tools which demystify coping with all information. You can use Trello, Airtable or Yalla. 
• Workflow management – organise the processes you use in your company: Probably we have never heard about them, but these are the perfect tools to coordinate your work. If you have, for example, a regular process to prepare documentation for your accountant, you can set up all the steps for the operation and then put them in motion. The people involved in the process do not need to know the full process – they just need to receive the task, do it, add files and click the “Done” button. The process automation software will store info and send it to the next person in the process. Using that, you have completed an overview of where you are in the process, what is due deadlines and you have performed an analysis. You can use Pipefy, Elegantt for Trello or Process. 
• Customer data is probably your most important asset. Dealing with the customers, sales management and the storage and organisation of all of your of sales data at the one place is ‘a must’. You can use a free or paid version of the Bitrix24, Podio or Wrike. 

Additional resources and links

• How Cloud Computing is Fueling the Next Startup Boom – https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2011/11/01/cloud-computing-is-fuel-for-the-next-entrepreneurial-boom/#6f57e8a01db8