Start-ups have now become a leading business model and are contributing greatly to driving innovation and elevating economic growth worldwide. As of 2022, the United States has the maximum number of start-ups (71,153) while India is the second on the list with 13,125 startups.
However, establishing a start-up in this stiffly competitive environment is a hard nut to crack. Not every startup witnesses the desired level of growth and the kind of exposure that they have thought of. So, preparation and strategy are critical for a start-up to succeed. In this segment, we will highlight some major challenges faced by start-ups and how technology can prove to be a godsend approach if you apply it in the right areas.
Major Challenges Faced By Start-ups & Small Businesses
There’s a famous African proverb, “Smooth seas do not make a skillful sailor”. Hence, you must not worry about the challenges. Rather, your focus must be on developing troubleshooting skills to encounter whatever comes your way.
On that note, let’s have a look at some common challenges that startups face on a global scale.
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1. Fiercely Growing Competition:
Whether it’s a B2B or B2C startup, it certainly feels the heat of a highly competitive business environment, and if it’s an online business, competition keeps you on your toes.
2. Managing Human Resources:
The kind of workforce you have plays a vital role in the success of any startup. Today, you can easily approach a huge pool of talented and skilled professionals, but the challenge is to develop a team culture that acts as a stimulus to achieve big targets.
3. Networking:
This is another crucial aspect that decides the level of success a startup is going to achieve. In this ever-changing and ever-expanding digital environment, finding trusted partners for your startup takes a lot of social exploration.
4. Knowing Your Customers:
The biggest challenge for most startups and the biggest mistake that startups often make is that they take customers for granted. In this internet-dominated digital era, consumers across the globe are becoming much more aware of the products and services they use. You must aim to monitor their changing requirements and deliver the level of customization that they expect from you.
Technology Is The Key To Every Secret
In the present context, Technology is the great growling engine of change. If you want your start-up to succeed, you must know how to leverage its true potential by adopting it in the key areas of your business.
You will be surprised to know that 127 new devices are connected to the internet every second whereas the world has formed 90% of its Big Data in the past two years. Not only this, the number of smart devices which collect, process, analyze, and share data will reach around 50 billion by 2030. Hence, there’s no doubt about the massive adoption of technology at a global level.
Still, merely investing in the latest technologies will not work for startups until they realize their core strengths and weaknesses to fill the gap with the right type of technology.
Read also: Want to know which is the best technology for your website?
Key Areas To Embrace Technology To Remain Competitive
Targeting the right area with the right technology will help you get a kickstart for a startup. This is a major difference why startups like Airbnb, Handy, Uber, NJOY, and many more succeeded to mark their presence in this highly competitive business environment.
Custom Software Development-Web & Mobile Apps
For any business, having an online presence has become mandatory. So, regardless of the size of your startup or business, getting a website will prove to be a proactive approach toward hitting the maximum target audience. By leveraging the fullest potential of technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and WordPress, you can create an interactive website to grab instant attention for your products and services.
Drive Flexibility With Cloud Services
The recent pandemic has certainly taught us to always be ready for a sudden shift, and that requires a flexible operating approach towards your business that can only be managed with cloud-based services.
Switching to cloud-based services allows you to scale up & down various cloud resources depending on your business requirements and performance. In simple terms, you can adjust your server according to major events and peak times and get ready to deal with heavy traffic. Cloud-based solutions offer you a protected network where you can easily store and utilize sensitive data as per your requirements.
Business Intelligence For Better Informed Decisions
There are ample Business Intelligence tools that startup owners can use to monitor and observe data trends and get insights for identifying the source of different types of customers, their purchasing patterns, and specific conversion rates.
Based on this crucial data, you can easily tweak some creative ways to serve your customers in the best possible way and deliver exactly what they expect from your brand. Whether it’s about enhancing productivity or making projections for sales & revenues or even product marketing, Business Intelligence tools can help you make better and informed decisions to elevate the level of your startup’s overall performance.
Cyber Security & Compliance Must Be A Priority
We are living in an interconnected world where millions of IoT devices keep transferring data and signals every single second. As a result, data breaches have become a common threat for global businesses. The irony is that the cyber threat detection rate is as low as 0.05% in the US. Moreover, data hacking and destruction is up by 600% fueled by the recent pandemic.
Hence, cyber security & compliance must be a priority for startups to win the trust of millions of online customers. Choose a highly sophisticated cyber security software along with a robust internet security suite, install SSL to your website and switch to a highly secured cloud service like Amazon Web Services.
Innovate Digital Marketing & Social Media
You have to approach this aspect very systematically and strategically by prioritizing your goals and gathering as much information as possible for your target audience. A website plays a crucial role in streamlining your digital marketing strategy. Additionally, you can also take help from social media tools, SEO tools, and conversion optimization tools, and leverage the data of IoT devices.
Big Data Analytics-Know Your Customers’ Pain Points
If you master the art of using Big Data Analysis, nothing can beat you to deliver what your customers expect from you. This is a proven tactic and one of the most efficient ways to boost customer service and identify the pain points they are facing. The more insights you develop for your target audience, the better customization you can offer them to develop brand loyalty.
Wrap-up
Focusing on these key areas and using relevant & latest technologies will certainly enable you to improve your business’s overall performance and stand out among your competitors. Just make sure that you follow proper feedback after implementing technologies in these key areas; otherwise, your investment may prove to be futile.
Be strategic, be innovative, and above all, highlight your core strengths to survive a fiercely competitive business environment.
