NQF 4 Archives

The Importance of IT Support for Business

The need for businesses to constantly adapt and change has been present for many years and typically the successful businesses have been those that became used to adapting to change in their environment and continuously monitored competitors and trends to remain relevant.

Keeping up with technological trends and updates can be tough, especially in between managing your business and catering to clients. Once you start to adapt, it can be difficult to maintain it.

Having a team within the business that’s dedicated to IT support ensure that your business functions smoothly by immediately making repairs to your systems or identifying potential issues before they arise.

In addition to safeguarding your operations, a reliable IT support team keeps your business competitive and helps develop more streamlined operations. This leads to higher productivity for your business and more room for increased revenue.

It has been shown time and time again that customers prefer businesses with efficient and reliable systems and platforms. If a business is still using outdated and ineffective technology in their Products or services then they are bound to lose customers.

Let’s take a look at the main benefits of having an effective in-house IT Tech support team:

Effective Management of Data

Data management is necessary for any business. With Product inventory, incoming orders, unique customer data, and other important information should always be stored and managed efficiently and safely. With the help of a IT support team, managing your data becomes a streamlined process that can otherwise become very time consuming.

Improvements in decision making.

Some of the most important decisions within the business will be based on data backed insights. By conducting solid research and planning to gather useful data your team will need to use various technologies and tools to gather and store this data.

Expertise to solve technical problems

Errors and technical glitches are inevitable when it comes to using technology. Even in its most up to date version, a software can still encounter troubles along the way. If software essential to your business runs into an issue, it could spell disaster for your day-to-day operations. This is where an IT tech support team can help. They can save you valuable hours, instead of looking for online solutions for the fix, they’ll handle it for you as they are equipped with the expertise and ready solutions.

Extensive monitoring and analysis

Monitoring at every stage of the business is critical to success. Being bale to keep tabs on all internal operations and through analysis work towards the business objectives. The value of an IT support team is that they improve your overall quality control and internal auditing. As they are closely monitoring your systems and website, downtime is prevented or recovered immediately, minimising possible profit loss.

Top quality security and cyber security

As we have seen in the past with companies like Facebook it can be disastrous if your customer’s personal data is compromised or if any confidential technologies you have are jeopardised. IT support teams guarantee that your business’ online front and computer systems are secure from viruses and other online threats. They protect these by setting up antivirus systems, encrypting your data, and providing other security measures.

Top quality customer support

A major benefit of the IT tech support team is providing an improved customer support experience. With rapid response a customer’s query can be handled in a fast and professional manner. The support team can setup multiple channels such as phone calls, emails, social media bots, or even automated answers in your website. If you’re able to answer their queries immediately and on point, customer satisfaction goes up.

The IT technical support team is one that many businesses overlook the importance of, however having looked at the benefits they bring to a business and their operations, having an in-house Support team can be a big advantage to your operations. In this fast paced-world of today customers want responsiveness and effectiveness in their communications with businesses when facing issues.

Put your best foot forward so to speak and allow change for the benefit of customers and for the sake of your businesses future.

Building New Talent in Real Estate

The COVID-19 pandemic has rattled human communication, the core of the commercial real estate business. Industries were challenged to digitalize as many aspects of work possible while realigning employees in the now often virtual work environment. Companies had to plan and provide an infrastructure that would enable employees to work effectively from home in order to priorities health and safety. Looking ahead, what does this tell us about talent needed in real estate?

The industry of Real Estate is undergoing a change like many other industries. With labor and skill shortages around the globe, now more than ever, agencies need to attract, develop and effectively train new recruits to succeed in the long term.

Technology in the future of Real Estate:

One key change that is taking place in the real estate industry Is the rise of technology. More and more real estate companies are going to have to become tech companies that happen to be in real estate.

With the way customers and prospects are researching and communicating with Real Estate Agents technology has become the backbone of this entire process.

According to the PwC report Talent Trends 2019, “organizations desperately need tech-savvy leaders and employees … who can harness innovative thinking, form the right strategies and apply the systems and tools that best fit the needs of the business.”

This need to train and recruit new talent effectively is creating a demand for skilled agents as well as those with the soft skills we often see in real estate agents:

Communication.
Active Listening.
Negotiation.
Patience.
Problem-Solving Skills.

These skills are typically what would make a successful Real Estate Agent. However while these skills are important Tech skills are rapidly becoming necessary as well. These skills can be taught early on in their careers to ensure that they under-go rapid growth and represent themselves and their businesses as a high quality professional.

Investing in the next generation of talent:

Investing in young talent is about imagining and building a more sustainable and connected city, with interconnected processes and procedures when dealing with clients.

The Real estate industry needs to start the process of training new skilled recruits as soon as possible however this is not the only change that is needed for the businesses in the industry to stay competitive.

With the Covid-19 pandemic it forced the Real Estate industry to undergo an adapt or die mentality. With many commercial real estate agencies closing down and the added difficulty of needing to solely communicate with prospects and potential buyers through digital means.

This shock of Lock-down and social distancing was an important lesson for those within Real Estate. Technology has enabled us to understand that ‘work is something you do, not somewhere you go’ is actually true. Hundreds of millions of people working from home, actually works.

Simply put the real estate industry needs to transform from being one that sells a product to one that delivers a service. It means that our customers no longer need what we have to sell. They don’t need an oﬃce to work.

The shift caused by the Pandemic:

The pandemic has shifted focus towards that of technology but it is important to note what technology lacks – this is where effectively trained recruits come in. The need for tech-savvy agents who have the soft skills of your typical agents are most valuable.

Being able to communicate effectively across many platforms and having the understanding of when to press a response from a potential buyer or let them think on it. All of these are very human skills and can’t be overlooked with these changes in the status quo.

Agencies that retain or hire agents who are not properly trained, well-versed in real estate rules and regulations may facilitate bad housing deals. This may lead to costly insurance claims.

The reality is that the real estate business is no longer just about real estate. That is just the starting point. Yes strong real estate soft skills are needed, but we need all the skills, talent and knowledge within our grasp to reach success.

The real estate industry needs to up its talent game, and deepen their talent pool. It needs to start with the customer, and work back from there. What does our customer really want, what represents added value to them, and how we can give them want they want.

This starts by asking what mix of skills, talent and technology do we need, to create, and run this process. Let’s start by training the right people with the needed skills. To ensure the industry grows and its people grow with it.