The Latest Tech Trends Innovating Home-Based Businesses

Alice Tuffery, writer

Published at 29/03/2020, Updated on 04/05/2022 , Reading time: 7 min

The Latest Tech Trends Innovating Home-Based Businesses — Photo © tech-trends.jpg

As time goes on, it’s getting easier and easier to create a thriving business from the comfort of your own home. Technology is making a wide range of different processes much simpler, from recruiting employees to organising meetings and reviewing customer feedback. So, let’s see what tech trends are shaping home-based businesses today.

Recruitment platforms

1. Workable

This platform helps business owners find the most suitable employees. If you want to grow your business by building a workforce, Workable will help you do it from your sofa. You’ll find job description templates, as well as interview scheduling and assessment tools all in one location. The platform also uses AI in its skills search engine and gives you the chance to reward effective candidate referrals.

2. Olivia

Olivia does much of the hard work for you as you hire staff members. It can find and screen candidates, and send suitable applicants’ details straight to you. You can also use it to schedule interviews and resolve queries. According to the experts, it achieves an application completion rate of over 90 percent.

3. Assense by Actiview

This helpful tool creates assessments to filter the most appropriate candidates. The technology can identify certain behaviours as they work through its ‘games’ and then evaluate their suitability to work in your business. Applicants’ cognitive abilities, motivation levels and integrity are all measured in the process.

4. ThriveMap

ThriveMap was created with the intention of eradicating recruitment blunders. It focusses on cultural preferences and matches candidates’ attitudes to your business. A five-minute assessment measures decision-making ability, working style, team interaction, career progression plans and, of course, performance. Then, the findings are reorganised into simple visual charts.

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Learning & development platforms

5. Sunlight

If you want to get the most out of any employees you have, you’ll need to invest in learning and development opportunities. Sunlight helps you do this, with thousands of online courses, books and events. The employee is in control of their progression, but you’ll get real-time updates of their purchases.

Project management platforms

6. Trello

A popular online tool, Trello lets users organise their ‘to do’ lists with ease. Create cards for individual projects and tick off tasks once completed. You’ll be able to add collaborators, comments, attachments and deadline dates, as and when you need to.

7. Wrike

Wrike is a useful tool for organising projects and collaborating with others to get them done. With this technology, you can delegate tasks and share content with colleagues or employees. You’ll get real-time update reports as you go.

8. Basecamp

The name says it all; Basecamp is a one-stop shop for project collaborators. Here, you’ll be able to create ‘to do’ lists, Wikipedia-style documents, share files and quickly message your co-workers. In short, you’ll be able to complete projects quickly and efficiently by working with others through Basecamp.

9. Asana

Many project coordinators use Asana to manage collaborative work. The platform allows users to allocate jobs, add stakeholders to individual projects, set goals and monitor progress. You can also use it as a ‘to do’ list or deadline calendar to make sure you tick off every single task.

Organisation platforms

10. Dropbox

Access all your important files in one user-friendly space. Dropbox Spaces combines files from a range of different platforms, including Google, Trello and the cloud. Once you’ve set up your own account, you and your teammates will be able to browse documents from a computer or mobile.

11. Magnet

This platform is aimed at Apple Mac users and organises your open windows into tiles arranged side by side. This should save time flipping between different programmes and allow you to complete work faster – all in the name of decluttering.

12. Station

Like Magnet, Station organises your windows and apps to help you compare and move between content quickly and easily. Its search facility helps you find specific pieces of information or pages you have saved, so you won’t waste time scouring tabs or document folders.

Time management platforms

13. Toggl

Track tasks easily with this project management software. It allows you to create new jobs, tag them with a memorable word and end monitoring when you’re done. Your browser will automatically track your progress to provide accurate time management insights. You can also use Toggl to measure your business’ spending and profitability.

14. TimeBoy

TimeBoy lets you manage a number of different employees and their outstanding projects at once. As you do this, it’ll build productivity reports to help you work out how time is divided during different tasks and provide an overview of your business’s performance.

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Messaging platforms

15. Chanty

Say goodbye to slow email conversations with Chanty. This messaging platforms stores files, and hosts audio and video calls, using AI to collect important information as you go. You’ll be able to search previous conversations and share files with teammates.

16. Slack

Slack makes internal communications much simpler. You can send co-workers messages directly or create groups for different projects. Once you’ve set up your Slack account, you’ll be able to send and receive files and hold audio and video calls. This technology also integrates third-party applications like Google Drive and Dropbox.

17. Flock

Flock is a messaging platform with some additional handy features. As well as inviting business partners, suppliers, freelancers and employees into your groups, you can organise tasks with the To-Do facility and launch video conferences with up to eight people. Or take advantage of Rich Note Sharing when it comes to sending ideas or documents with your collaborators.

Audio/video conferencing platforms

18. Zoom

When you work from home, organising meetings can be tricky. But digital conferencing tools like Zoom take the stress away. Simply send a link to your chosen participants and host the meeting from your computer, laptop or mobile. You can even screen-share during the call, to show others what you’re seeing.

19. Appear

Collaborate online with up to eight people via Appear. You’ll be able to choose your own custom background image, share your screen and message in a group chat as you speak. If you’ve got important things to discuss, you can even block the room for private discussions.

20. Tetra

This is one clever piece of technology. As a Tetra member, you can benefit from AI, which records phone conversations and writes them down, so you don’t have to make notes as you speak. Once you hang up, your discussion is transformed into a document, ready for you to review.

Meeting management platforms

21. Calendly

This software helps you schedule meetings without the ‘back-and-forth’ conversations. Just input your availability options, share the Calendly link via email or on your website, and wait for your peers to choose their ideal time. Then, it’ll send confirmation emails and reminder notifications to those involved.

22. Oncehub

Like Calendly, this platform helps users arrange meetings. The premise is as follows: you schedule calls and invite participants once, and the software takes care of the rest. Oncehub will automatically assign organised meetings to the right team members and send them email confirmations. It’ll also list your appointments in your calendar and make sure you’re never double-booked.

Customer management platforms

23. AutoPilot

You can collect customer insights and streamline the process of following new leads through applications like AutoPilot. This platform automates different activities, from welcoming new members to organising appointments. You can also send personalised messages, distribute newsletters and request customer reviews.

24. Pipedrive

Create custom chat bot conversations and web forms to catch more leads with Pipedrive. Like AutoPilot, this platform automates many customer-related processes, tracking sales interactions and synchronising emails, calendar events and calls. It also allows you to use dashboards and management tools to monitor your business’s progress.

Tech trends shaping home-based franchise businesses

If you run a franchise unit from home, you have the opportunity to maximise its productivity and profitability by taking advantage of current tech trends. As you can see, there is a huge number of online platforms out there to help you as you build and develop your business. The ones mentioned here are just a few of the options available to you.

To find out more about running a successful business remotely, take a look at some of the other articles in this series:

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