How To Transform Your Small to Medium-Sized Business with Knack

One of the biggest challenges leaders of small or medium-sized business (SMB) face is effectively managing all the aspects of a growing operation – often with limited financial and IT resources, and lean staffing. Building an operational tech stack that addresses the unique requirements and team dynamics of a SMB, and scales with the business, is also a challenge.

To continually adapt, innovate, and stay ahead of the competition requires a holistic strategy – a data-first strategy. Adopting a data-first approach means putting data at the heart of your small business to ensure that accurate, complete, and relevant information is at your fingertips when and where it’s needed.

This move to a more comprehensive, 360-degree view of business operations using online database apps, makes it possible to derive insights to make better decisions, improve efficiency and, ultimately, fuel growth.

Why Traditional Software Solutions Fall Short for SMBs

When starting a business, it’s common to adopt tools like the Microsoft suite or a Google workspace environment because they’re so easily accessible. The problem, however, is that even for a startup this type of operating environment quickly unravels into inefficiency and a host of other problems that come from disconnected and siloed data, and users saving and updating local copies and then transmitting out-of-sync files via email.

While the components of these solutions work together, they aren’t interconnected enough to provide the necessary role-based permissions for data security, data collaboration or process automation. Instead, they become a cumbersome collection of disconnected Excel or Google sheets, and workflows that cut productivity and restrict much-needed business insight.

Traditional software solutions also have pitfalls. In this case, SMBs are typically offered little more than lower-cost, stripped-down versions of platforms designed for much larger enterprises. Even SaaS solutions can lead to inefficient sprawl. Too many point solutions result in low utilization rates and siloed data and processes that don’t support a SMB business model.

Taken together, these constraints stretch already thin resources across critical functions, making it difficult to manage across the organization effectively.

Embracing a Data-First Strategy with Knack’s No-code Apps for SMB Success

Making the switch from these traditional solutions to Knack’s no-code apps, provides a powerful and flexible solution to rebuild, restructure, and reorganize processes and workflows with easy app development that doesn’t require writing a single line of code.

And because it’s a cloud-based database, team members can leverage the apps and work collaboratively and securely from any location or device. The role-based access and other security capabilities ensure that only those who need to see and interact with the information can do so. Data silos that result from each department or team using different Excel spreadsheets to manage critical data, are eliminated.

The intuitive nature of visual programming simplifies the process of creating applications. And this simplified process enables small business owners with limited IT or programming skills to build customized solutions that increase efficiency and agility, including:

Quickly respond to customer and prospect inquiries: Building and retaining a loyal customer base takes focused attention and responsive action. By embracing a data-first approach with no-code apps, businesses can better understand customer needs and automate key processes – even triggering notifications to improve responsiveness and build stronger customer relationships.

Establish performance benchmarks: Without proper tools in place, it’s hard to monitor and evaluate performance, making it difficult to identify areas for improvement and drive healthy, sustained growth. Using a data-first strategy, data from multiple sources can be consolidated to gain real-time insights for benchmarking and analyzing KPIs.

Manage vendor communications: Effective communication and collaboration with external stakeholders are crucial elements of strong business relationships and smooth operations. Streamlining communication through a dedicated portal for vendors and suppliers, reduces the potential for miscommunication and delays, and creates a more efficient procurement process.

Flexible Scalability To Grow With Your Business

Building a business on Knack’s no-code apps provides a clear path to start small and scale as needed, adding or modifying features or components as growth requires. This flexibility is particularly valuable when in-house IT resources aren’t available to develop custom software solutions and takes away the concern of hiring external consultants who are prohibitively expensive.

Because these apps are so easy to iterate and expand, new features, reports, and even custom views for customers, partners, or internal teams, can be added on the fly using drag-and-drop builder tools. Apps can be built and customized to streamline and automate a wide range of processes. Leveraging the API creates even more powerful Knack integrations with other key parts of your tech stack. For example:

Manage staffing activities: A Knack app can create a centralized platform for managing job postings, applicant tracking, and candidate evaluations to simplify project management. As your business grows or your hiring needs change, you can easily modify the app to incorporate new features or integrate it with other HR tools.

Read about How Small Businesses can use No-Code to Reduce Hiring Needs >>

Employee onboarding and training: Customize an app to track the onboarding process for new hires, providing them with all necessary resources, training materials, and documentation – and ensure that training requirements are consistently met. It’s easy to update the app to include new courses, materials, or onboarding processes, whenever needed.

Scheduling and timecards: Manage employee work hours, attendance, and leave management to ensure you’ve got proper staff coverage and even connect the app to payroll and HR systems.

Performance management: Create an app to track employee performance metrics, set goals, and manage performance reviews. Adapt it at any time as performance management strategies change to update with new KPIs, goal-setting methodologies, or feedback processes.

Finance/Accounting: Manage financial processes, including purchase orders, employee expense reporting, and invoices. You can even integrate these apps with popular accounting platforms and other web apps to keep all systems updated and synchronized.

The flexibility of no-code apps allows businesses to stay agile, improve efficiency, and optimize their operations for long-term success.

Using No-code Apps To Achieve Operational Agility

To transition from inefficient and overwhelming manual processes, like spreadsheets, to streamlined and automated digital solutions and at-a-glance reporting dashboards, use the following steps as a guide to move toward operational agility with Knack:

Step 1: Take advantage of easy ways to transition existing spreadsheets by leveraging a pre-built template designed for a specific departmental function or use case. These templates provide a foundational starting point to then customize features to meet the requirements of existing processes and workflows.

Step 2: Identify processes that are easy to automate, like CRM lead management. By automating, you’ll save time, reduce manual errors, and ensure that critical tasks are executed efficiently and consistently.

Step 3: Leverage forms and workflow capabilities to automate follow-up tasks. This can include sending emails or follow-up messages confirming customer service requests or appointment times. This ensures timely and accurate response to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the likelihood of missed opportunities.

 Step 4: Layer in more advanced business processes, such as contract approvals and digital signatures. By integrating and automating these processes through new digital capabilities you can further improve efficiency, reduce turnaround times, and enhance security and compliance.

This step-by-step approach provides guideposts for a smooth transition to a more agile and efficient digital environment whether you’re running a nonprofit, ecommerce, or any other organization.

By adopting a data-first strategy, small and mid-sized businesses can overcome the limitations of legacy tools and disjointed systems. Knack’s no-code platform provides a flexible, cost-effective, and scalable way to address the unique needs of SMBs and quickly adapt to ever-evolving market conditions. This data-first approach helps in identifying trends and opportunities, and also delivers the insight needed to overcome challenges and mitigate risks in a timely manner.

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