Starting a business is almost always a high-risk venture. According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, around 50% of start-ups fail 5 years after their establishment. Everyone starts with the best plan they can muster up. 

But going forward, they don’t always work out. Whether a business venture succeeds or fails does not depend on one’s intelligence but rather their preparation.

Regardless of the nature of your business, you will need a strong support system to help you manage different aspects of it. This help can come from a good team and in the form of the right set of software that sharpens your analysis and informs your decision-making. 

When starting your business, you need a lot of applications and tools to help you grow and stay afloat. There are many different solutions available on the market that provide solutions for every aspect of your business. 

In this article, we will discuss four essential tools that will help you manage different parts of your company. 

Martech Stacks

Before you get started, it’s essential to understand what exactly martech is. The term refers to a combination of marketing software and technology. It’s a blanket term that encompasses everything, from email and social media marketing platforms, like MailChimp and Hootsuite, to analytics tools, like Google Analytics, that help you track how well your campaigns are performing in terms of leads and conversions.

The benefit of using martech stacks is multi-dimensional. On the one hand, it can help you understand how rewarding your investments have been. You can use this understanding to double down on the areas where they have been successful and reconsider where they have failed. On the other hand, it can help you streamline your system to make it more efficient. 

However, data collected by Gartner shows that the average marketer only utilizes 42% of the capabilities offered by their martech stack. Therefore, it is always recommended that you spend some time discovering their full capabilities to get an edge over your competition. 

Demand Forecasting Software

After you have established your business, you must start planning ahead. But to do that, you need to understand the situations you might face in the future. After all, you don’t want to increase your production just before market demand goes down. The tool you need to help you with that is demand forecasting software. 

But what is demand forecasting? It is exactly as it sounds. Demand forecasting takes into account different data sets, including your sales records, market trends, and seasonal fluctuations, to predict how the market demand might shape up in the future. You can take this data into account to plan your business strategy accordingly. 

Different types of demand forecasting are used in different situations. From short-term to long-term and active to passive, they vary in what data sets they take into account and what they are used for. Therefore you need to know what you will be using the data for before you ask your software to make any predictions. 

Customer Relationship Management Software

Customer relationship management software, or CRM for short, is a tool that helps you manage your customer relationships. It’s an essential part of any modern business and can help you stay in touch with your customers, create better marketing campaigns and build better products or services. 

To be fair, CRMs can be included as a part of martech stacks. But they are important enough to deserve a separate mention.  According to InvespCRO, you are 60-70% likely to sell to an existing customer, while the probability of selling to a new one is 5-20%. Therefore, if you want to keep your sales as high as possible, you must ensure your customers are happy and address any concerns they might have. 

CRMs are generally divided into cloud-based or on-premise software. The former is usually more convenient because it allows you to access information from anywhere with an internet connection. However, if the company goes out of business or closes down its servers without warning, there could be serious repercussions for you as a user. Therefore keep this in mind before choosing one over another.

Internet Security Software

The internet is a fast-paced, ever-changing landscape. Businesses that don’t keep up with the latest trends are at risk of falling behind.

But many start-ups don’t realize that cybercrime is a bigger threat than ever before because it can happen to any business on any day. You might think you have what it takes to prevent these attacks, but the truth is that no one is 100% protected against hackers, viruses, or malware.

These days most businesses rely on their computers and smartphones as much as they do their employees. Even more so when you consider how many customers interact with companies through social media websites like Facebook and Twitter daily. This makes them susceptible to hackers who want inside information about their business. 

In 2021, there were, on average, 270 cyber attacks against an average company, according to Accenture. To make sure you don’t suffer the same way, you need to upgrade your internet security as soon as possible, as well as possible.  

This article has discussed four business tools to help you take your start-up to the next level.  They will save you time on tasks like future-proofing your business plan or safeguarding your data while also giving you access to unique features that can turn heads in today’s crowded marketplaces. All you need to do now is get started.