Businesses should leverage digital tools for better outcomes: survey

The survey aims to understand how businesses use digital tools in operations.

Amidst a slowly recovering economy, organisations should start hanging onto new digital opportunities to grow their business more competitively this year, beyond short-term solutions for disaster recovery, according to the latest survey by online platform GetApp.

Over 500 Singaporean business owners and employees were interviewed for the survey to better understand how they have been using digital tools for business, with its results demonstrating that despite many companies currently adopting digital tools, they are using it only as a temporary approach to sustain their businesses during the pandemic.

Local businesses report that they mainly use digital tools for the purpose of increasing promotions or sales (73%) or to engage in customer dialogues (55%). These tools are also used to communicate updates on company policy and hours (47%) and to address common customer questions and concerns (39%).

Whilst these solutions may seem like a straightforward answer to retaining a customer base now, it might not work in the long run as companies compete more aggressively to establish their brand and customer base in a saturated market, according to the report.

As such, companies must start rethinking how different digital tools can efficiently streamline businesses.

They are still finding it challenging to harness the full extent of advantages that digital tools can offer, with some of the biggest problems being shifting internal processes online (80%), familiarising employees with new software (78%), and maintaining team and cross-team collaboration (76%).

The survey reports that 79% of business leaders are having a challenge finding the right software, whilst 77% are struggling with implementing the software.

Business leaders should continuously leverage the digital environment to plan out their investments, maximise operational efficiencies, and increase their revenues in the long run, the report added.