Reginald Chan

Category: Productivity

Productivity is something every leader cherishs — and here, you will learn the best productivity tips to become a great leader and to have more time.

  • How Businesses Can Benefit From Artificial Intelligence in 2021?

    How Businesses Can Benefit From Artificial Intelligence in 2021?

    When it comes to the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), there’s a lot of controversies. Many believe that these “robots” will steal people’s jobs and increase unemployment rates worldwide. However, this is just a myth; in fact, if used wisely, artificial intelligence can improve your business by leaps and bounds. Implementing the full range of AI technology, including language processing and machine learning, into your business has many incredible benefits. On that note, read on to find out how artificial intelligence can benefit you in 2021.

    Simplify and Improve Your Hiring Process

    Embedding artificial intelligence in your business can simplify and improve your hiring process. It can increase the efficiency of your recruitment process through the automation of the otherwise slow and arduous steps. Instead of having a dedicated team of personnel to go through all the applications and screen calls, you can speed up the reviewing process through AI. Moreover, involving AI in those preliminary steps can eliminate potential human bias, which is great for the diversity of your workplace. AI can also aid you in spotting talented individuals using generated data from detailed questionnaires. This can apply to both existing employees and prospective recruits.

    Improve Communication with Customers

    Following up on the previous point, artificial intelligence can also improve communication with your customers. Implementing AI solutions in customer service tools, such as your chatbox, your automated messaging service, and your automated calls service, can enable your organization to provide customer support 24/7, personalizing your clients’ experience. You can arrange this kind of service through a custom ai development service, which will develop your AI with your customer-specific algorithms. Implementing AI technology will make the customer experience you offer unique and more effective, increasing your customer satisfaction levels and business revenue.

    Related: Learn more on patent lawyer and why it is important for your brand

    Personalized Experience and Brand Loyalty

    Did you know that 60% of customers expect a personalized experience when interacting with a brand? This poses a big challenge for most businesses, as the personalizing process takes a lot of time, effort, and money. To develop a customized experience, companies need to map out their target audience, their wants and needs, and their personal journey with the brand. They need to have an in-depth analysis of their customers to ensure that they’re targeting the right moments with the right content to increase engagement and customer satisfaction as well as drive sales. This proves to be an arduous task that can luckily be substituted with artificial intelligence.

    Usually, businesses use data collected from different platforms such as social media to predict the service or product customers would like to interact with. This process can be fulfilled by AI technologies, which automates this process, and can grant your brand with specific personas, their data, and their journeys; it identifies the behavioral patterns your customers act out when interacting with your brand.

    Save Costs and Increase Revenue

    One of the much-needed benefits that AI technology can offer to your business is the increase in revenue and the saving of additional costs. Deploying AI technology can increase your business revenue through its ability to identify the sales opportunities that can maximize your profit. As for its ability to save costs, this is because implementing AI in some departments can improve the efficiency of your office’s back-end procedures as well as reduce the costs of salaries and benefits. This is most effective in the field of customer service due to its ability to fill the gaps in the field.

    More Accurate Forecasts

    In any business, one of the essential things you need to do to succeed is forecasting. Forecasting in business is essentially a tool that helps a business make planning, budgeting, and growth decisions. There are many types of forecasting used to achieve this, such as sales forecasting, general business forecasting, and cash flow forecasting, and they are all important. However, forecasting procedures are very time consuming, which incidentally makes them prone to human error.

    Implementing AI technology into this type of procedure can transform your business by reducing this issue and automatically creating objective forecastings without any human involvement. This will give businesses a clearer understanding of their future governance and finances, allowing them to make better decisions and achieve their goals.

    These are just some of the benefits artificial intelligence can offer your business. Embedding AI technologies in your organization can help you face 2021 with new tools that will ensure the success of your business. Moreover, with the uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic brings, AI technologies can make sure that your business will still run smoothly, even with the lack of personnel on-site.

  • How to Facilitate a Law Firm’s Daily Tasks?

    How to Facilitate a Law Firm’s Daily Tasks?

    Running a law firm means ensuring every part of the process runs smoothly, However, this doesn’t mean your daily tasks have to be complicated. It’s possible to do these quickly and efficiently, without cutting corners or making mistakes.

    Focusing on the Details

    Getting all the points of an important case in a readable format can be crucial, but how many of us recall everything said to us, however important it may be? And few people want to spend hours writing up recordings. That’s why legal transcriptions are essential and can save time and problems later on. The information can be referred to as and when required. It can be the difference between winning or losing a case. Transcribing can also be done in other languages for the benefit of those who aren’t fluent in the recorded language.

    Have a Good System in Place

    Searching for lost files and other vital information is not the best use of your time. Having a system in place can prevent that from happening. Whether files are stored in alphabetical order by case name, type of case, or some other way, everyone should follow the system, to avoid confusion and time-wasting. It should be one of the first things taught to anyone joining the firm. Having access to the information within a short time frame can reveal any missing information which can then be chased up.

    Try not to overcomplicate the way files are stored for each case. For example: if a document contains bills, pleadings, or witness lists, it’s best to label it this way, perhaps with the addition of the case name it refers to.

    Having important information in more than one location will reduce problems, if you have computer problems or if the worst happens and paper files or computers are destroyed in a flood or fire. You should also back up your files in a location, one which doesn’t require access to your main place of business. The cloud is the ideal option here because it doesn’t involve having to physically remove sensitive files and risk losing them, or risk them falling into the wrong hand. It should go without saying a secure password is needed to protect your files.

    Assigning Work

    You could also distribute cases to those with the most suitable expertise within the firm. Playing to their strengths and knowledge base is the best way to increase the law firm’s successful case rate. For example, it makes little sense of giving a car accident case to someone whose specialty and biggest successes have come from negligence at work. Assigning tasks that play to your team’s strengths will speed up the time taken on your law firm’s daily tasks. Freeing up time has the additional benefit of more time for learning how to improve on any weaknesses.

    Tasks requiring little or no specialist knowledge can be assigned to staff such as secretarial or administrators. This leaves those qualified in legal matters to focus on the more complex tasks.

    Using a List

    One way to avoid omitting information is to follow a list. While it may seem like unnecessary paperwork, it can save time and mistakes long term. Crossing off all the things that need doing ensures nothing is forgotten. If anything needs following-up on, such as acquiring further details, it will be easier to spot this. The lists may have to be adjusted slightly on a case-by-case basis, but many things will be the same or similar. This could include anything relating to post-trial proceedings or preparations for the trial, if relevant. With so much to do, it’s easy to let something slip your mind.

    Following Up

    It’s best to follow up on information requests or other details that might take some time to process, early in the case. This means you can get on with other tasks while you’re waiting for a response. If you have a short deadline, this is particularly important. When your schedule is hectic, it can be easy to forget if a reply hasn’t been received by the required date, or to miss other important deadlines. Setting a reminder can prevent this. If you check your diary regularly, then write it in there. Otherwise, use an alert on your phone or computer, so you receive a reminder.

    Even when you have finished working with the client, you can follow up by requesting feedback and asking for permission to quote from that feedback, to gain more clients in the future. This is the most efficient way of securing work, compared to the time and costs of advertising your services.

    Saving Time on Correspondence

    Having to personally contact large numbers of people involved in the case, or for other reasons can be time-consuming. Although it’s important to address each one individually and tailor your letter or email to their specific case or request, a template can save a lot of time here. Using the template, and altering it to each email or letter will not only save time but once it’s proof checked you’ll only have to prove the altered text. This makes sending out error-free correspondence much easier. Errors can reflect badly on you and the law firm and may even lose clients.

    Regular Meetings

    It might not feel like the best use of your time to stop work for a team meeting, especially if you have a heavy workload. However, this is the best time to air any problems, make suggestions to anyone who has hit a stumbling block, and generally share expertise to offer and receive help and support. Someone may be able to find a solution to a problem you are too close to see.

    Sharing Information

    It’s often necessary to share information with others. Usually, this is sensitive, so ensuring you use the correct email will avoid complications later. You should also consider the most secure and quickest way of communicating. Using secure software that allows you and others to create electronic signatures and track receipt of documents, will alert all parties they have been received and save time on waiting for physical post or meetings to sign documents.

    So, it is possible for a successful law firm to save time without cutting corners. You can find ways to be efficient while still providing the best service to your clients. It’s just a matter of finding a good system that works for you and your team.

  • Why You Need to Backup Your Business Data (and How to Do It)

    Why You Need to Backup Your Business Data (and How to Do It)

    Losing data is always a conundrum, let alone how damaging it can be for a business. As a business owner, you are not responsible only for your staff’s data but also for your customers. This makes data loss or corruption a pitfall you must avoid at all costs.

    Technology is a capricious thing; one moment, your systems may all be up and running, and the next, you might find that your local data copies have been lost. Luckily, creating another copy of your important files is not as hard as it sounds. Check out the following points to learn why backing up data is vital for businesses and how you can make the process a breeze.

    Why Are Data Backups Important?

    Access Files Remotely

    Long gone are the days when employees had to be on-site to access business data. Nowadays, most people take work back home with them or rely on their smartphones to finish up tasks. This makes having a cloud copy of your company’s data a must, not only to improve workflow but also to allow employees to set their own work hours, which is extremely important in the COVID-19 era. So, if you want to have full control over your files even when you are not in the office, definitely invest in data backups.

    Decide Which Files to Keep

    Realistically, not every file is worth backing up. However, finding out which ones are can be challenging, especially if you have thousands of files to go through. Because the amount of data you want to create a copy of directly affects the cost of the process, particularly when it comes to cloud backup, you have to make sure that you are not just copying all the files you can find. To make the process a bit easier, ask the head of every department to find the data that is worth keeping. This way, you can keep important files protected without going over your budget.

    Avoid the Woes of Power Cuts

    Even if you have the best generators on the market, they may still not be enough to power up your systems during blackouts. This is especially the case if your business is based in an area that experiences wacky weather and frequent power cuts. Why go through all the trouble of finding a professional to retrieve important data when you can always be sure that your files are safe and sound? Creating backups can help you avoid the worst-case scenario and allow you to get some peace of mind.

    Add an Extra Layer of Protection

    To blindside you, hackers are getting increasingly craftier with the way they plan their attacks. They exploit any security loophole that your system may have to assume control of your data. By gaining access to sensitive files, they can also employ extortive means to sell them back to you for thousands of dollars. Because you certainly do not want to give these nefarious individuals that much power, backing up your data often will help you prevent these sticky situations from ever happening.

    Free Up Space

    If you own a startup, you may not have enough money to invest in expensive storage solutions, which makes destroying old data a necessity. However, by sacrificing this data, you may end up making things harder for your staff. After all, you never know when you might need to retrieve a certain file. Instead of continuously getting rid of files to free up space, why don’t you create another local or a cloud copy? Most solutions do not even cost that much, so you will not have to break the bank to keep your data protected.

    Keep Customers Satisfied

    Losing your staff’s data is one thing, but losing your clients’ information is a different story altogether. Customer satisfaction is always most business owners’ top priority, so it only makes sense that you may want to go above and beyond to keep your clients happy. This is particularly important if you have an e-commerce business where storing credit card information and other sensitive data is mandatory. Even if a power cut happens and you lose your local copy, you can ensure that your clients will never be cut off from your services as you try to fix the problem. 

    How Can You Create Data Backups?

    Set a Budget

    You can try many solutions if you want to create data backups for your business, but not all of them cost the same. This is why you need to set a budget before choosing a method. Generally speaking, the fewer data you need to back up, the lower the cost will be. However, this cost can go up if you decide to hire professionals to handle this process. For this reason, startup business owners who have enough tech knowledge or a strong IT team are advised not to seek a professional company when creating backups to keep the cost down.

    Find a Method

    As we’ve mentioned, you can choose from a plethora of options when it comes to data backups. The easiest way is to purchase a few external hard drives and USB sticks. Although this is usually seen as an outdated method, it still works pretty well, especially if you have a limited budget. Just make sure to keep these storage devices off-site in a safe place. You can also go for cloud storage. Yet, when picking a cloud storage provider, make sure that they have an intricate security system because you definitely do not want hackers to get to your data. Moreover, to guarantee that you will be able to access your business files anywhere, cross-platform support is a plus.

    Follow a Schedule

    Routine backups are very important. That said, you do not have to create one every day. Experts agree that backing up files once a week is usually enough. Nevertheless, if there is sensitive information you are afraid you might lose or your area experiences frequent power outages, it is best to incorporate this practice into your daily routine. 

    Business data loss is a nightmarish scenario. However, you do not have to spend thousands of dollars on fancy professionals who claim that they can retrieve lost files when you have a more straightforward solution at your disposal. By investing in creating several copies of important information, you can rest assured that your business remains on top of the food chain and give your customers the best possible experience.

  • How Workplace Design Can Impact the Success of Your Business

    How Workplace Design Can Impact the Success of Your Business

    When it comes to running a profitable business, what do you think of? Most people will answer with productive employees, smart business models, and competitive pricing. While all of these answers are correct, they forget one major area that impacts success. This is your workplace design. While it might sound strange, studies have shown that a good workplace can greatly increase the profitability of your business. In what ways can it do this? Here is how your workplace design can impact your business and make it more successful.

    Open Layout Boosts Morale

    The first thing to look at when it comes to workplace design is the overall shape of the office. Are you having your workers work in cubicles? Are they segregated off from everyone else? While you might think this is a great way to minimize distractions and increase productivity, statistics have shown the exact opposite. Offices that are more open concept allow employees to feel more free to get their work done. Instead of feeling imprisoned, they can move around and work. Having the ability to speak with one another will greatly boost morale, which will keep your workforce happy.

    However, accomplishing these goals might be difficult as there is plenty of furniture in the office along with desks and files that will have to be taken care of. In certain situations, a lot of this stuff might even be destined for the garbage. If you are unsure what to keep and what to get rid of, you can get some experts to assist you in the matter. Replacing this furniture and equipment is a great start, according to the experts at Vestra Workspace fitouts, who continue to add that clearing everything up is the first step to achieving the design that you are looking for. The best part about bringing on a team is that they can help fulfill the vision that you have. They will consult you every step of the way and work with you, so the space that you are creating is one that you will truly be happy with. An open concept will be great and will increase the morale of your staff.

    Better Productivity

    The next best thing about improving your workplace design is that you can expect better productivity as a result. As morale gets boosted, so does your employees’ drive to work. They will complete their tasks that much faster, and the quality will be higher as well. A properly designed workplace will also have a breakroom, which will help with this.

    How does a breakroom help with workplace productivity? Employees are not mindless workers who have the ability to slave away all day. They will burn themselves out if they work too hard, and their productivity will greatly decrease. Having a breakroom will give them the chance to step away from their desk and refresh themselves mentally. It will also give them the opportunity to catch up with their coworkers and have a conversation. After their break is done, they will return to work and jump right into things. The break will do wonders for their brain, and they will once again operate at high efficiency for the rest of the day.

    Improved Communication

    When it comes to running a business, you have to make sure that all departments are in constant communication with each other. If there are any setbacks, people have to know early so they can react accordingly. A well-designed workplace allows people to communicate easily with each other, allowing for important information to be delivered quickly and effectively. The faster information can be conveyed, the better it will be for your business.

    A Safer Environment

    Worldwide, there are hundreds of thousands of work-related injuries each year. A lot of these are caused by the workplace being designed improperly. Taking the time to come up with a design to make things safe will allow your employees to feel much safer when they are working around the office. You’d be surprised at how much more success a safer business can bring.

    What are the repercussions if you do not do this? If your employees are nervous about their work environment, they will not output work at an acceptable rate. An even worse situation would be if an employee were to get injured at work. You will be held responsible for the injury and will have to pay a large sum of money to the employee, putting your business in a financially dangerous situation. Safer workplace design is a better workplace design for both you and your employees.

    Better Mental Health

    An office that is full of clutter takes a mental toll on those around it. A mess creates stress, and as it continues to build up, it will affect your employees more and more. By taking the time to clean your office, you can keep all of your employees relaxed and feeling good. What are the other benefits of this? Employees who feel healthy and fit are much less likely to take sick days. This means that you will be operating at 100% each and every day instead of having to worry about who is going to call in sick. Proper workplace design will enrich your employees’ mental health and keep them in the office.

    Drive Sales

    If you deal with customers who come to your business, you want to ensure that it is presented in a way that is conducive to the business that you are doing. If your customers are unhappy with your layout, they might end up taking their business elsewhere. Everything matters when it comes to closing a sale. Find a design that is welcoming towards your customers so that they are more willing to speak with you and purchase from you.

    All of these are great reasons as to why you should improve the design of your workplace. By taking the time to implement some of these tips, you will notice that the productivity and morale of your employees will improve greatly. A final recommendation is to speak to your employees about what changes you can make around the workplace. As they are the ones working in it every day, they will know what is best for it. What changes do you plan on making to the workplace?

  • How You Can Easily Make Logo Online With DesignEvo

    How You Can Easily Make Logo Online With DesignEvo

    Brand awareness is on the rise. A good-looking logo is often impressive. For example, the Apple logo is an apple that has been bitten. The Nike logo is presented in a swoosh. What if you need to make a good-looking and impressive logo? DesignEvo is a practical logo tool that allows you to design a good-looking logo without hiring a designer.

    What is DesignEvo?

    DesignEvo is a logo design software developed by PearlMountain. This software allows everyone to handle logo design easily and get the best design experience.

    DesignEvo’s Key feature in briefly:

    • 10,000+ Logo templates are available for reference
    • More than one million searchable icons
    • Hundreds of file fonts and shapes to choose from
    • Powerful editing tools: crop, resize, rotate, layer management, copy, cancel/redo, etc.
    • Most Element in the template could be edited

    To have a better user experience, you might need to register a DesignEvo account.

    Register Account

    DesignEvo account registration is straightforward, as long as you use your Facebook or Google account to log in. Even if the registration is completed, of course, you can also enter your email and password to register. After registration, you will be asked about your group identity and occupation and a confirmation will be sent. Register to the email address you filled in. After verification, press the “Free Design Logo” button to start your design.

    And since you have registered the account, and click Make a Logo,  then you would be directed to the logo selecting page. So here, you can choose a template to customize. Also you can start from scratch.

    Choose a template

    Choose A Template With DesignEvo

    Choose A Template With DesignEvo

    Designing a logo from scratch is a headache for the average person, and DesignEvo provides intimately and categorizes more than 10,000 templates. Just select the template according to the theme you want to create and start designing your own logo.

    The operation guideline

    When entering the editing page, DesignEvo will jump out of the guide interface to guide the icons and fonts you can use and the location of the download button after the design is completed.

    Add icon

    Click the Icon tab on the left bar, and some popular search icons will be displayed. Click one of the sample: Circle circles to have many styles for you to choose. Tap and hold the desired icon and pull it to the right You can add icons in the editing window, and you can set the color of the icon, horizontal and vertical flip and transparency, and you can zoom in or out.

    Choose font

    Choose A Font With DesignEvo

    Choose A Font With DesignEvo

    How can a good-looking Logo get fewer fonts, DesignEvo has hundreds of fonts, including Classic and Art, to choose from, click the text on the left side to find the font you like, then select the text in the editing window Then press the font you like on the left.

    Add shape

    The operation of adding a shape is the same as adding an icon. Select the shape you want and add it. It is also a good choice to put a beautiful frame on it.

    Choose background

    If you think the set background is not good for your logo, then you can consider changing the background too.

    Download your logo

    After going through the above difficulties, the logo is finally designed. Finally, press the green download button on the upper right to download the file back, but the free version only provides 300 x 300 size and transparent background image files to download. If the pixel is bigger, you need to buy the paid version, and if you want to apply for a trademark or copyright, you should purchase the Plus plan.

    To sum up

    The advancement of technology makes people more and more convenient. In the past, designing a logo required spending money to ask an art designer to design. Now DesignEvo is really convenient. Go to the website and simply edit the logo to get. The free version is easy to use if you want to use it for yourself. However, if you have a large image output, it is better to buy a basic package to download a large-size image.

    The logo represents the brand symbol of your personal or company identification. If you have a budget, please ask the graphic designer to design. If you don’t have too much budget, consider using DesignEvo.

  • Remote Working Made Easy

    Remote Working Made Easy

    Working remotely is becoming more popular, and in some cases, a requirement. This means that many companies are learning how to enable their staff to work from home – and produce almost identical results to office based working. 

    The global work culture has shifted in recent years, and there are more online businesses and freelancers than ever before. What does this mean? 

    There are now a plethora of services and tools to help us maximise our working hours and our output. 

    Here are some ways that you can make your remote working life easier to manage. 

    Systems & Software

    If you manage a team, then this responsibility falls to you. While you might have access to a working laptop, high-speed internet and the files you need. It would be wrong to assume that everyone has the same access. When it comes to files and data, then a cheap VPS is the ideal solution. A collaborative and secure way to work in a team. Zoom or Google Meet are both great options for group meetings. Make sure you equip your team with the tools they need. 

    Communication

    Following on from the last point. Keeping in touch both in a group and on a one-to-one basis is essential. Much of how we communicate is by reading body language and tone of voice. We need to work harder on remote chats to get those across. You should have meetings scheduled once a week to keep everyone on track.

    Goal Setting

    Have clear weekly and monthly goals set so that everyone knows what they are doing. Collective goals mean that your team will all want to do their best to meet the targets and expectations. 

    Expectations

    A remote team will usually consist of a range of people. Some will be morning people, others will be night owls. And while you won’t have too much control over their working hours, you can set expectations. You expect them to be around for group calls, checking in with emails and delivering their work on time. Be clear. 

    Structure

    If you are new to working from home or have had an online home business for a while, you still need structure. Routine is still essential. A considerable perk of working from home is the ability to work around other parts of your life, but some routine is necessary. Without that structure, you will find tasks take longer (Parkinson’s Law). You will not be able to give defined hand-in dates and may need to rush. Create a good routine as soon as possible. 

    Rest

    There is a temptation to burn the midnight oil, wake up very early and get started again. The enthusiasm is impressive, but you will burn out. It is essential to set yourself some rest breaks during your working hours too. Pomodoro timers will give you focused periods of working and designated breaks also. Use the breaks to hydrate and walk around. 

    If you find that you get stuck on something, then use the opportunity to take a more extended break. 

    There is a particular dedication and discipline that comes with working from your own home. Once you have the basics laid, running a home business, or managing your team from home is a rewarding experience.