Levelling the playing field with digital tools for decision-making
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Posted: Mon 3rd Jun 2024
Making well-informed decisions quickly and efficiently can be a challenge for small business owners. There are unique challenges, from scaling up and onboarding staff to adapting to new scenarios.
But with fewer resources and less knowledge, it's not easy to compete on an equal playing field with larger organisations. Traditionally, those businesses have been able to take advantage of the most innovative tech only available to firms with deeper pockets.
But lately this is starting to change. Digital tools and AI capabilities are becoming more accessible and allowing smaller businesses to overcome some of these hurdles.
These new innovations won't just level the playing field but, when used effectively, can also open up new opportunities for your business to flourish.
Better collaboration means better decisions
Effective decision-making thrives on collaboration, especially in small businesses where colleagues often wear a number of hats and work closely together.
The main goal when it comes to collaborating is to reduce friction, so you're not wasting time on admin or unnecessary work.
Digital collaboration tools in the form of file-sharing platforms like Dropbox help colleagues in different locations to communicate seamlessly in real time. These solutions bring together employees' collective brainpower quickly and efficiently, boosting productivity and leading to better-informed decisions.
This can only be possible with the right tools, especially when it comes to more complex mediums like video. Replay, one of our favourite tools, is essential for this reason, making it possible for lots of users to add feedback to videos precisely and neatly.
Case study: Myth Studio
One small business that has grown remarkably in the last four years with the help of digital tools is Myth Studio, a creative agency based in London.
Founded during the pandemic, Myth Studio expanded in just 18 months, increasing from two to nine full-time employees and working with a network of highly skilled freelancers across a number of locations, all while collaborating with some of the most famous international brands.
Myth Studio used Replay to provide collaborators inside and outside the business with one central process for reviewing and providing feedback.
This meant there was organised version control, live viewing features and seamless file management. Ultimately, this helped its team communicate more efficiently and reach creative decisions more quickly.
AI as your personal consultant
Everyone is talking about AI. And while it's still early days, the capability that the technology offers means there's a lot to get excited about. For small businesses like yours, it will be the key to unlocking decision-making power so you can become as effective as your larger counterparts.
As a soundboard
First, AI can become a soundboard, letting you sense-check decisions and ultimately make the right call based on the data to hand.
As AI tools gain more data insight, they will be able to think and make suggestions in the same way you might, providing better personalisation as a result. In this sense, AI can become a "personal consultant" tailored to your organisation's needs.
Working more productively
Second, AI can boost productivity. Because it can pick up repetitive, admin-based tasks, you can instead focus on more valuable work that contributes to broader growth.
New integration capabilities also let you bring together the apps you use to work, so you aren't having to juggle a number of different solutions.
AI-powered products like Dash, a universal search tool that works across all applications, only offer the potential to enhance this further.
Saving time
Finally, AI can save time. Reaching decisions more quickly means you can use the time you've saved elsewhere. Instant search capabilities also help democratise access to knowledge, so users immediately find what information they need.
Replay's AI transcription, for example, lets you automatically generate a transcript of your content. You can search by phrases and quotes in audio and video files and generation subtitle/caption files for better accessibility.
More democratic decision-making
Up to now, small businesses have generally been sidelined from the fastest data-driven decision-making. But digital tools that offer them the same experience as larger organisations are opening up access to information and removing boundaries.
Regardless of size or budget, cloud-based solutions like Dropbox give you a central online hub for content sharing, archiving and collaboration. You can take advantage of the vast amounts of data, available to you, transforming it into actionable insights that drive your decision-making.
Some of the world's biggest organisations use Dropbox in this way, as do many of the most innovative smaller businesses, like Myth Studio. With the power of digital tools and the capabilities of AI, your small business has an opportunity to grow. It's time for you to take it.
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