Once, there were piles of papers, folders, or logbooks that filled an office room. There were memos that an employee received a day after they were signed. Drawers were chock-full of paper bills and coins because there was no other payment option and whispered gossips were a bit too loud. 

Now, thousands of data just sit on a desk. Communication and payment processes are made with a few taps on the computer. Digital technology for business have indeed saved us space and time, and of course, some costs. They have eased clockwork drudgery, too. Here’s how: 

The spreadsheet

We have said goodbye to the manual way of storing, compiling, and organizing a mess of names and figures, thanks to the spreadsheet like Excel or Google Spreadsheet. Ledgers are no longer prepared by hand and sales computations and analysis are done in a jiffy. Now, you don’t have to spend so much time crunching numbers and filing and retrieving documents. What you get to spend is your imagination and creativity to invent something, pursue an idea, or solve problems using all the data you have on your screen.

Automated clerk

Some tasks are simple yet too tasking because, perhaps, of its volume. You can do away with repetitive tasks in billing, scheduling, and payroll preparation with various software as a service (SaaS) applications such as mHelpDesk or Jobber. Financial, bookkeeping and accounting processes that seem like clockwork can be automated with apps like PayPal, Freshbooks, and Quickbooks. This way, mistakes are more likely prevented and anomalies easily tracked down.

Task manager

There are also apps that have made organizing tasks, communicating with team members, and file-sharing quick and easy. Tools like Slack and Trello help members of a team keep track of everyone’s tasks. There is no need, for instance, for such a lengthy process as typing a memo, printing, signing, reproducing, and delivering it.  

Teleconference

The trouble and costs of traveling to attend a conference meeting that will probably last for just two hours are now reduced. Apps for teleconferencing such as Skype, Google Hangouts, and GoToMeeting have made this possible. Recruiting overseas talents have also become easier and cheaper by conducting interviews online. 

The search engine

Finding an answer to a question may have been fun. But it’s not when, after several consultations with the encyclopedia, or other people, you find that somebody else has already succinctly answered it. With the search engine and knowledge databases, an abundance of information resources is quickly accessible to employees. Not only that, knowledge has become a commodity with which you can buy or trade.

The social media

The rise of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn among others has revolutionized the way companies reach out to their clients or the other way around. These social media have enabled an easy two-way communication process among buyers and sellers. The burden of having to deal with loads of customer queries has become lighter. Apps that enable automated responses have allowed customer service agents to spend more time with those who need their help the most.

They have also changed the way marketing is done. The creative process of developing advertisements is still there, but gone are the days where reproducing or printing ads is the only way to go.

Automated analyst

Let’s take this one example to illustrate this point: To test how readable a copy is, you can use the Flesch formula wherein you count the total number of words and divide it by the total number sentences. Then, take the number of syllables and divide it by the number of words. We’re not yet done, but we may have lost you already. Doing the equation can be easy, but counting the words and syllables is really tough. Luckily, the digital age has brought us apps, like Yoast, that do such analyses on the fly. There are a lot of software out there that perform different kinds of analysis.

Conclusion

The examples above are proof that a combination of 0s and 1s has served us more than we know. A lot of technology for business have indeed taken donkey-work off of people and gave