Every business has a workflow of sorts: be it in marketing, tech development, manufacturing, or anything else, there’s always a business process to follow, with tasks that eventually bring it to completion. Workflow engines are digital tools designed to coordinate these processes, these tasks, and the containers used to execute them — and these platforms have capabilities that have helped to shape the business world in various verticals, especially with the changes below.

Streamlined Improvement

The use of a workflow engine helps to define a more intuitive way to build on and optimize your current process. Before these platforms became commonplace, businesses had to first test and analyze various performance metrics manually to decide whether improvement was necessary. In addition to this, it was also important that businesses looked into which part of their otherwise well-oiled machine was in need of such improvement. Whatever your business, those improvements took a long time, a lot of effort, and possibly a lot of resources.

Within a digital workflow, such improvements already take up fewer resources — but they can be even leaner when implementations are done through a workflow engine. This is because they not only display the performance metrics and identify bottlenecks and other issues in an intuitive, simple way, but because even the implementation of any improvements takes less effort when done through the engine that interconnects all the relevant virtual machines in place. Businesses of any kind will find times and places where optimization is necessary, but when it’s been streamlined thanks to tools like a workflow engine, that’s where the industry becomes capable of achieving better optimizations with less downtime and less labor.

Trust In the Cloud

The business world is not completely surprised by the onset of cloud computing — in fact, the business world is where much of cloud development was implemented first, and it’s proven to be useful. However, the reservations people have against using the cloud often have much to do with trust. Believing that the cloud can store, utilize, and protect your assets all without having to use your on-premise resources is a little hard for some. However, the use of a digital platform that orchestrates process tasks and builds a standardized communication between each activity makes for a great example of how workflow engines are worthy of trust. With this standardization, information transfers from start to finish require less effort, and businesses can allow these to take place automatically.

In the same way, workflow engines work from a centralized place, affecting each virtual machine in a process to make for a secure transfer of information that’s designed as a “black box” system. Each part of an engine-run workflow has only the information that’s relevant, and it’s doled out by the workflow engine to create a simpler and more secure business process in various cases. This aspect alone is enough for more businesses worldwide to start seeing the value of the cloud and to trust cloud computing with the assets that matter most.

More Timely Business Processes

More than just providing a safe, secure way for business processes to complete their workflow, a workflow engine also can and does eliminate waste in vast amounts. By orchestrating each task in a way that optimizes output and the general flow of the workload, a workflow engine creates a better, more timely set of activities, and where they are dependent, these dependencies are managed and controlled by the engine — all to make sure the workflow itself is happening at the pace that makes the most sense for the business.

Anyone in the market for a way to improve business process timing and even the flow itself can look into workflow engines, as such a tool makes it so much easier to properly orchestrate specific events in the case of certain triggers. Orchestration, or the element of a workflow engine that helps tasks be initialized and completed at optimal times, makes for an impressive part of the way business has changed — as you no longer need to plan these things yourself.

Higher Quality Services

It’s all about quality, isn’t it? Whatever you’re offering, you want your client to have the best experience, so you should always provide that. Doing so nowadays means you need a workflow engine. This is because while high quality can be maintained with certain services without machine intervention, the quality can be even higher with the implementation of a tool that automates the microservices in place for a business. If your business can automate such tasks, be they repetitive or unskilled labor, it can greatly improve efficiency, which is one way to help quality.

The other way is this: with a workflow engine in charge of the execution, tasks will be consistent and provide a more consistent service in the output. This consistency, and the elimination of human error at certain junctures, make for an even better and more impressive use case for such a platform — since its ability to direct activity and automate tasks makes it easier than ever to let quality be the guiding factor, more than time and energy spent in a workflow.

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1. When Your Business Uses Several Microservices

One of the most telling qualifiers for a business that should use microservices orchestration is when the business has several microservices that are essential to its chief business output. Whether it’s in-house production for a white label service or a boutique, your chief business output might require various products to create the end result. And in that case, it’s always best if you orchestrate microservices with a tool that makes the process simple to control and to monitor. With something to visualize the overall process, you can identify bottlenecks at various stages and microservices to address problems more quickly, rather than having to inspect each part of the process individually. Again, if your business process consists of several micro-processes, orchestration is a solution that can aid you greatly.

2. When Timing Is Crucial to Production

While some elements of a process can wait for other steps to complete, there are some processes or micro-processes that are sensitive to timing. Whether that means that production should be slowed to await all finished components or whether that means you’ll have to automate times for specific deliverables or materials to become available during the process, orchestration can accomplish exactly that. With a set of rules that defines these timing constraints, you’ll find your business able to carry out what it means to, without putting at risk any time-sensitive deliverables or resources. Everything can be orchestrated to keep the process moving at the rate that’s optimal for quality production on your end.

3. When You Need Business Logic Centrally Stored

More than keeping in mind things like timing and the number of components within your process, you might have to consider how your business logic gets stored. When much of it is stored within the applications and containers of your process, then its likelihood of being fixed in a timely manner depends on a lot of factors, including how complex the rest of the application’s logic is. In addition, you risk error or time loss every time your business logic requires an update, and in some business settings, that can happen very often. So, if your business processes require regular and consistent updates to the business logic that’s essential to your workflow, you might need said business logic centrally stored. While some keep this logic on a separate Business Logic Engine, you also have the option of using a workflow orchestration tool to manage this code and to disseminate it to the many microservices of your operation without much effort at all. This kind of implementation helps to eliminate potential errors in the code updates, as well as to keep it stored separately from the operational logic that keeps each individual application in working order. Having a centralized, tiered approach to the storage of your business logic and other essential programming makes the process much more secure in the event of something happening to a single vital component.

4. When Your Process Uses Multiple Languages

The benefit of having numerous different microprocesses is that they have the ability to work independently on various tasks at their own defined rates, rather than relying on the time allotted after one specific step is finished. All of these applications can work at the same time — but they often don’t share the same programming language, which means that some of the deliverables can suffer in quality if there isn’t a way to properly communicate between them. In these cases, the options are limited: you either are forced to manually handle the transfers between silos, to let them proceed and risk a loss of information, or to implement a language-agnostic method of information transfer between each microservice. If that final choice sounded like the best one to you, that’s because it is. It’s what a great workflow orchestration tool does for various microservices being used together, to create usable deliverables in each instance without the worry of application compatibility.

5. When You Want to Scale Your Business

It’s not outlandish to want more. More clients, more workloads, more production. But you have to be prepared for it if you want it. And that’s why businesses who are looking to scale their workflow to allow for more instances, higher throughput, and overall better service to a wider audience, all need to orchestrate microservices in order to create the best possible process they can. With the emphasis on throughput being so strong, it’s important to know that your business process is inherently designed to run with or without you behind the wheel — and that’s something an automated orchestration tool will easily accomplish.

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This guide will show you how to effectively perform a SWOT analysis on a competitor. We’ll cover everything from how a SWOT analysis is performed to how you’ll go about gathering the information you need to do a complete analysis. 

Know the Acronym 

First and foremost, you’ll need to know what SWOT stands for. If you’re reading this, chances are you know the acronym, but we’ll cover it just in case you’re a newcomer to the technique. 

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. When you’re performing a SWOT analysis, you look at each of these factors in detail to gain a better idea of what you’re dealing with. In the case of a business SWOT analysis, you’re looking at things that are holding your business back or that your business does well so you can make more informed choices. 

In the case of the competition, you want to know these things so you can have leverage over the competitor in your market. Knowing a competitor’s weaknesses and strengths can help you better tailor your business practices to put your organization ahead. 

Your Competition’s Strengths and Weaknesses

The first step of your analysis is to analyze the competition’s strengths and weaknesses. Develop a SWOT analysis that is both thorough and includes plenty of detail by asking the right questions. 

For strengths, ask these questions:

1. What does the competition do well? What are they known for?
2. Why types of customers do they attract and why?
3. What makes those customers loyal to their brand?
4. Why would a customer choose them over your brand?
5. What do they do that you don’t do?

For weaknesses, consider these questions:

1. Are there any consistent complaints about your competitor?
2. What problems have you noticed about their customer service/products?
3. Are they meeting industry standards?
4. What’s something they don’t do that they should be doing?
5. What negative trends have you noticed about the competition in the previous years?

These questions will help your team brainstorm and formulate a proper analysis of the competition. Be sure to look closely at things like customer service, quality of products or services, and consistency. These are usually what separates the competition from one another, whether it’s in a good way or a bad way. 

Opportunities and Threats 

Opportunities can arise at any time during the course of a business’s lifetime, and the same is true for threats. Take a close look at both opportunities that can benefit the competition and opportunities for your business to get a leg-up on the competition. 

Is the competition doing anything right now that can ultimately be an opportunity for you? Perhaps they’re failing in an area where you shine, or their customer service has seriously deteriorated since hiring new people. 

What threats are present to the competition? Are they doing things that are threatening to your business? Maybe they’re rolling out new products that customers are really excited about or overhauling their customer service with an improved training regimen. 

Once you’ve identified these two key factors, you can complete your SWOT analysis and move on to the planning phase. Be sure to include your team in your analysis, and do your research. 

What to Do Next

You’ve analyzed every part of the competition, and your SWOT analysis is now complete. What next? The next thing to do is formulate a plan to excel above your competitor. You know their strengths. How can you match or beat those in the coming months or years? You know their weaknesses. How can you push yourself ahead of them by exploiting those weaknesses? 

All the awareness in the world doesn’t mean a thing if you’re not using it. Don’t let your detailed SWOT analysis sit in a drawer and gather dust. Put it to good use! Your business won’t ever excel in your industry if you don’t know what the competition is up to and how you can beat them. 

Conclusion 

A SWOT analysis is one of the simplest and most effective tools at your business’s disposal. It can be used to analyze your own organization, the competition, and help you make better-informed decisions. Learning to nail a SWOT analysis can make you a better manager/owner, and help you match or beat the competition. 

There are plenty of guides and how-to’s online for SWOT analyses, as well as templates you can use if it’s your first time. Remember that the information you get from a SWOT analysis is what matters, not how pretty the paper looks. Your analysis can be as simple as a piece of paper with four lists.

The post How to Perform a SWOT Analysis on a Competitor appeared first on SiteProNews.

Easy to Train, Easy to Use

Don’t you just hate it when you go to the store to buy a gallon of milk, only to spend five minutes at checkout because the cashier can’t seem to figure out how to ring you up? Maybe they have to go get the manager to help them figure it out. Maybe they had so much trouble they got locked out and need to wait three minutes, do a little dance, and enter an override code along with a DNA sample before they can ring you up. 

This is not the way your POS should operate, and the right one will be intuitive and simple to use. Good software will make it a snap to train your employees, and they won’t have to go looking for a manager to help them when they get caught with an issue.

Barcode Scanners vs. Manual Entry

POS software often comes with barcode capabilities, which will obviously make things much faster in the checkout line. No more searching for the right item in a list or entering a bunch of codes. Spare your customers time and yourself carpal tunnel with POS software that allows you to scan your items instead of entering them manually.

Accept Any Form of Payment

This is a big one. Have you ever gone to one of those discount grocery stores that have all sorts of specialty and international food items for a ridiculously low price? Or maybe crafts are your thing. Those discount stores are the same deal. You can’t control yourself, and so you end up with a cart filled to the brim with exciting items you are itching to get home and try. 

It takes forever at checkout to ring everything up, and you proudly get your wallet ready to pay for all the stuff you got at an amazing price. Then you hear, “Sorry, we don’t accept X card.” Do not let this happen to your customers. Make their experience as fast and convenient as possible by accepting whatever form of payment they are expecting to give you.

Virtual Wallets

Have you ever had the previous scenario happen to you, only when you reach for your wallet, you realize you left it by the front door? Save your customers the embarrassment and inconvenience of having to go back home and get their wallet while their veggie burgers melt in a “hold” cart next to the customer service desk. 

Let them pay from their phone instead, with apps like PayPal and Google Wallet. These apps are a recent development in payment technology that is sure to change the landscape of the checkout process in the future. 

Contactless Pay

Another way payments are changing is through contactless payment transactions. This is the new, more secure way of using your credit card to make a payment. Instead of transmitting your credit card information, a one-time code is shared which authorizes the transaction. 

Once that code has been used, it is no longer valid. This usually goes faster than a swipe or a dip, and is less wear and tear on the card as well.

Take Checkout to the Floor

Help your customers feel like they have more control over their time, by letting them sign up for a spot in line through a mobile app or tablets placed throughout the store. They can continue shopping until an employee comes to them to check out. With a modern POS system, you are more mobile than you are with a cash register, so you can take payments wherever your customers are.

Customize Pricing

Picture this: You have found the most amazing speakers for half off, and the cashier rings them up as being full price. You say something, and they disappear into the back for a few minutes. They come back, tap the screen a few times, then disappear again. Starting to remind you of the craft store incident? You can avoid this frustration for your customers by setting your POS to recognize special promotions and pricing. 

Maybe you want to run a sale but do not want that one aggressive bargain hunter to wipe out your entire inventory of windshield wipers only to resell them on Amazon for a markup. With POS software, you can set limits on the number of items that can be purchased at the promotional price, establish a minimum amount that must be spent before the discount kicks in, or enter any other parameters you want, to make sure you get the maximum effect of any promotions you run.

Store Customer Information

When your customers come into your store on a regular or even semi-regular basis, they like to be remembered. Enter their information into your system and never forget them again. Checkout will be faster when you do not have to enter personal information, payment, or product preferences, every single time. You can even boost your relationships with your customers through exclusive loyalty programs supported through your software.

The post Can a POS Software Help Speed Up Checkouts? appeared first on SiteProNews.

Avoid Repetition 

Repetition is the enemy of progress in a conference call. Repeating the same concepts or topics over and over again doesn’t help reinforce the topic, but rather drives everyone in the call crazy and makes them hope for the meeting’s end. Avoid too much repetition in your presentations. If you must revisit a topic during the meeting, keep it short and sweet so your callers don’t grow bored or disengage from the topic altogether. 

A good way to avoid repetition is to keep track of what you’re discussing. You can do this with an agenda or a simple list of topics to go over in a word document. Organize your ideas for better verbalization and less need to revisit the same topics. An organized call is always more effective than an unorganized one, and your attendees will be grateful for your efforts. 

Use an Agenda

A meeting agenda is an absolute necessity for a successful meeting. Without one, the meeting won’t have any direction, and you’ll likely end up deleting the wrong people to attend; which can only serve to derail the meeting and make it less efficient. For maximum efficiency and productivity, use a meeting agenda anytime you’re planning a conference call. 

Your agenda should be simple and concise, and should also be shared with the call’s attendees a few days before the conference call is to take place. Keeping everyone informed is the best way to streamline the call, as each caller will enter the meeting ready to go and knowing what to expect. 

Agendas can be as simplistic as a Word Document that has the date, time, attendees, and topics on it, or as complex as a template-created agenda complete with detailed topic lists, time blocks, and attendee responsibilities. 

A detailed agenda will help you navigate the call better and prepare everyone more effectively. A better-prepared audience is more likely to stay engaged throughout the meeting, and with an agenda, you’ll find your calls are more efficient overall. 

Mute Background Noise 

It’s high-time someone addressed the elephant in every conference room or call: background noise. Background noise can be utterly distracting and disruptive, and downright annoying depending on the intensity and what kind of noise it is. 

Let’s be honest here; no one wants to hear kids screaming, dogs barking, loud music, or people talking in another room during a conference call. Eliminating that pesky background noise can help calls be more efficient and prevent distraction.

It’s important that you become familiar with the mute button, and encourage other callers to do the same. With digital services like those at conferencecalling.com, you can mute other callers if they’re being too distracting with lots of background noise. 

Calls should only include relevant call audio, not excessive background noise. Keep excess noise at a minimum for more effective calls and a better experience overall. 

Enforce Time Limits

Keeping your call within a one-hour time limit and limiting topics and speakers to specific time blocks is crucial to a streamlined conference call. Some people will keep talking if you let them, so you may need to assign time blocks in order to minimize rambling and give everyone an equal chance to be heard. You also don’t want your meetings to take up too much time, as they can grow tiresome after 45 minutes or so. 

If you need to discuss important points, schedule them 15-minute time slots within the one-hour window. If you need more time, it’s best to save it for a follow-up email or a separate meeting. Don’t overburden your callers with long-drawn-out discussions on topics that don’t actually require such in-depth discussion. Keep things simple and enforce time limits for better conference calls. 

Be Courteous

Along with using the mute button, there are other simple courtesies that should be observed when you are participating in a conference call. For one thing, talking over other callers is incredibly rude and disrespectful; as is a blatant interruption. Keep your thoughts and words to yourself until it’s your turn to speak, and allow everyone on the call ample time to voice their thoughts on the topics. 

A courteous host will not only earn the respect of his or her attendees, but will also encourage retention of information and ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak. This simple gesture of respect can go a long way in solidifying your position and creating more effective conference calls.

The post How to Run a Conference Call without Driving Everyone Crazy appeared first on SiteProNews.

Here are 4 signs that you need to rebuild your website. 

It isn’t responsive 

Responsive web design has been a hot topic since 2012. During this time Google began discussing shifting towards mobile-first everything which means that many websites were left with terrible load times and even worse looking design when it came to visitors viewing from their mobile phone. If you’ve made it to 2019 and your website still isn’t responsive, here’s the sign you’ve been waiting for to redesign. 

According to vox.com, mobile phones are accountable for 68% in web traffic in the United States alone. You can expect that number to increase. Eventually, your website will be nothing more than a listing online if you don’t make it a place where users want to spend their time.

Nothing on your website is consistent

From the fonts to the colors, nothing on your website is consistent. There is no strategy behind your call to actions and no intent behind your navigation. Altogether it’s a headache to look at and an even bigger headache to use. Sound familiar?

If you answered yes to my last question, it’s time for a redesign. A lack of correlation between your website elements will leave users feeling confused and disorganized. This is especially true for brands who have rebranded their logo colors or storefronts over the years. 

Your customers need to know what they can expect from you. Clean and consistent branding leaves a lasting impression on consumers. In fact, branding can have a lasting impression on our language. After all, we call it a Kleenex and not a facial tissue. 

Your conversion rate is low and you’re not ranking well

If your website isn’t getting any traffic from search engines, it’s likely that your website isn’t ranking for anything. There’s a whole lot that goes into ranking for your target keywords online so we won’t get too deep into that.  But generally speaking, you’ll notice that websites that rank for a lot of highly searched keywords get a lot of traffic. What comes next is on their web design. 

What’s more important than website traffic? Customers that spend money on your website. If your website isn’t bringing you qualified leads, then no amount of traffic you receive will do anything for the bottom line. The experience visitors have on your site needs to be able to convince customers to buy. 

An experienced web design company will have strategists available who have literally made it their job to understand what makes consumers click. If you can’t seem to keep your brain on track or simply can’t handle the lift yourself, find experienced web designers who can help. 

Your website is slow and the back end is a mess

As years come and go, a site left to fend for itself becomes slow to load, hard to use, and even harder to update. Nearly 50% of consumers expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less. If you’re honest with yourself, it’s likely that you’ve left a site because it wasn’t loading fast enough. Why should your customers do any different? 

For modern websites that are built by experts, page speed can easily be improved with a few updates. The same cannot be said for websites that haven’t been updated in the last 5 years. At a certain point, the backend gets a little… Messy. If you can’t navigate through your plugins and your WordPress dashboard takes an eternity to load, you’re better off rebuilding your site. Though it can be tempting to try and salvage what you’ve built you’ll find it equally as expensive to fix an outdated site as it is to build a new one. 

Conclusion 

If you made it this far through the article, you can rest assured that you need to rebuild your site. Reaching back to my point about conversions, users don’t stick around for what doesn’t serve them. If your website serves the needs of your customers, you’re going to grow as a business. 

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the digital business world is how much a good website can help and how much a bad website can hurt. Direction Inc. can help you achieve the dream website you’ve always wanted. When did you know it was time to rebuild your website? Did it take convincing or did you know it had to happen?

The post 4 Signs You Need a Website Redesign appeared first on SiteProNews.

1. Update Your POS System 

If you’re still performing checkouts with an old cash register-style POS system, you’re not only outdated, you’re likely running rather slow as well. The older, bulkier cash registers are notorious for slow transaction times, constant errors, and costly maintenance. 

A modern POS system can not only improve those wait times and eliminate long lines but also accept more payment methods; driving in new customers that otherwise wouldn’t have visited your store prior. The way we pay for goods and services is constantly changing, and simple credit/debit card and cash machines are no longer viable. 

POS systems come equipped with plenty of other tools to help the overall efficiency of your business as well, from inventory tracking tools to customer profiles from which you can get to know your shoppers better. By updating your POS software for faster checkouts, you’ll increase your store’s efficiency, setting you apart from the competition with your short lines and incredible service. 

2. Self-Checkout Kiosks

If you’re a shopper at any of the major retailers like WalMart or Target, you’ll likely have noticed that there seem to be fewer and fewer cashiers. Instead, self-checkout kiosks are beginning to become the norm. This is because self-checkout kiosks are cheaper, easier to maintain, and actually improve business. 

Self-checkout kiosks allow for quicker checkout times, with customers scanning their own items and moving through the lines as quickly as possible. With fewer long lines, your customers will be more inclined to purchase more items, driving your sales up as well as providing convenient options for your customers. 

Customers actually prefer self-checkout options, according to a study completed by Whistl, a delivery management company. According to the study, over half of UK shoppers actually preferred self-service checkout over manned kiosks. Startling, isn’t it? 

Don’t forget that even if you do decide to utilize self-service kiosks, customer service should still be your number one concern. Just because the checkout process is automated doesn’t mean the rest of the store is. Customers will still require assistance finding certain items, and likely need questions answered regarding price and availability. 

Self-checkout kiosks are a good option for when your retail store begins to grow and you want to make the checkout process simpler and faster. You’ll save money on cashier labor costs, cut down on lines, and encourage customers to purchase more simultaneously. 

3. Reorganize Your Store 

Congested checkout areas can make standing in line all the more uncomfortable. The last thing you want to do is make your customers feel trapped while they’re waiting in line; whether it be boxes or other supplies piled up by your checkout counters or aisles too close to your registers. 

Switching around just a few aisles or registers can make your checkout lines flow easier, as well as help customers locate the checkout aisle. Have you ever gone into a store and had to search for the checkout aisle? This can be incredibly frustrating. Make your checkout aisle obvious with signs and open spaces for a smoother checkout process. 

4. Improve Employee Interactions 

One of the most important factors of improving the checkout experience is how your employees interact with the customers during the process. We’ve all had an experience with a less than friendly cashier, and are aware of just how much this can affect the entire shopping experience. You can have a great time shopping around the store, only to have the entire mood damaged by a rude cashier. 

Be sure your employees are well-trained on how to interact with customers during checkout. This can include things like the correct questions to ask, how to respond to difficult customers, and when it’s appropriate to call a manager. 

Offering your employees incentives for great customer service at the register is a good way to ensure that you’re getting the most from your cashiers. Gift cards, vacation days, or other incentives can help motivate your employees to perform their best and treat their customers with respect. 

5. Ask For Feedback 

Interacting with your customers via feedback surveys is a great way to generate ideas on how to improve the checkout experience or the business overall. The customer knows exactly what they want out of their shopping experience, and so it’s vital that retailers tap into this wealth of knowledge. 

This insight will help you better tailor your stores and practices to meet the needs of your customers and improve the efficiency of your checkout process. Don’t ignore any complaints you receive, either. While these can be disheartening, they usually contain a lot of wisdom on how your store can improve. 

Conclusion 

Improving the checkout experience is just one of many ways to foster loyalty among your customer base. With a more streamlined checkout process, you’ll find that customers want to visit your store instead of the competition. Never underestimate the power of excellent customer service. Ask for your customer’s feedback and actually take it into account, and you’ll be on your way to creating the best shopping experience for your patrons.

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