Adobe Acrobat is a versatile software suite that offers a wide range of benefits for small and local businesses. From document management to collaboration and security features, Acrobat is an indispensable tool for organizations of all sizes for many reasons:

Efficient Document Management: Acrobat provides robust document management capabilities, allowing businesses to create, edit, organize, and archive documents seamlessly. With features like merging, splitting, and indexing PDFs, businesses can streamline their document workflow and reduce paperwork clutter.

Cost Savings: Acrobat offers cost-effective solutions that eliminate the need for expensive printed materials, courier services, and physical storage space. By going digital with PDF documents, businesses save on printing and shipping costs, reduce paper waste, and lower their overall operational expenses.

Enhanced Collaboration: Collaboration is key in today's business landscape, and Acrobat facilitates this through features like commenting, annotation, and real-time co-editing. Small businesses can collaborate with remote team members, clients, or suppliers, allowing for seamless communication and feedback on documents. This collaborative approach can significantly improve productivity and the speed of decision making.

Professional-Looking Documents: For small and local businesses trying to make a mark in a competitive market, the presentation of documents matters. Acrobat offers a wide range of formatting and styling options to create professional-looking documents. From customizing fonts and colors to adding watermarks and headers, businesses can enhance their brand identity and create visually-appealing materials.

Secure Document Handling: Acrobat provides robust security features, including password protection, encryption, and digital signatures. Small and local businesses can ensure the confidentiality and integrity of their documents, especially when handling sensitive information like customer data and financial information.

Mobile Accessibility: In today's fast-paced business world, being able to work on the go is crucial. Acrobat offers mobile apps that allow small businesses and local businesses to access, edit, and share documents from their smartphones or tablets. This mobility ensures that critical tasks can be addressed promptly, even when employees are not in the office.

Compliance and Legal Benefits: Acrobat helps businesses maintain compliance by providing tools for digital signatures and document tracking. This is especially valuable for businesses that need to meet stringent regulatory standards, like healthcare and financial institutions.

Streamlined Workflows: Acrobat integrates seamlessly with other popular software applications, including Microsoft Office and various cloud storage services. This integration streamlines workflows, making it easier to convert documents to PDF format, collaborate on documents, and access files stored in the cloud. Small and local businesses can save time and reduce errors by using these integrations.

Electronic Forms: Acrobat allows businesses to create interactive electronic forms that can be filled out online, reducing the need for paper forms and manual data entry. This simplifies the customer experience and ensures accurate data collection.

Just take a look at how Acrobat revolutionized the way The J. Morey Company runs its business. As an insurance agency, J. Morey handles a lot of paperwork — all of which was physical documentation until 2015, when president Joshua Morey digitized the firm’s paperwork with Acrobat. Because they no longer rely on wet signatures that have to be scanned into the computer system or sent via snail mail, the process of signing, password protecting, and sending signed documents takes only a minute instead of 20 minutes, freeing up as much as 10 hours a month per employee.

Acrobat’s features and tools allow The J. Morey Company and more than 500,000 other organizations worldwide to reduce costs while scaling their businesses. In fact, when Joshua took over the company in 2015, it had four offices with a total of 18 employees. After just three years of implementing Acrobat into its workflows, the company grew to 150 employees across 11 offices.

When you’re a small or mid-sized business (SMB), you have significant challenges to overcome. Some common examples are difficulty generating leads, lack of proper marketing, struggles with time management, difficulty maintaining an online presence, and problems engaging customers. On top of all that, your budget is likely limited and the competition stiff. 

New-age innovations are your best bet in overcoming the challenges you’re facing. Not only are they effective and affordable, but they also level the playing field when it comes to the competition – you can go toe-to-toe with bigger businesses on a comparatively-minor budget. 

Here, the Dunn Area Chamber of Commerce gives you some practical examples of how you can leverage new-age innovations to solve common business problems:

Web apps for a stable online presence 

Your web presence is critical in this day and age. An impressive 97 percent of consumers use the internet to research products or services in their area, reports Qualtrics. 47 percent will visit the company website before making a purchase. You can build web apps or mobile apps to maintain a stable, credible online presence. Not only would it make you more approachable, but if you play your cards right, it can also boost revenues. Web development companies can create a mobile-optimized website that promotes brand awareness, connects with audiences, and generates more leads. 

Business process management for a more efficient workflow 

Your business is a collection of workflows, from product development to after-sales and customer support. With business process management (BPM), you can automate and optimize processes, eliminating delays and reducing resource use. You may want to learn more specifically about digital process automation – the practice of using digital solutions to automate workflows. By streamlining previously laborious business operations, you can more readily secure employee buy-in, which will make it easier to integrate digital technology. If you’re creating a BPM framework, ensure you constantly monitor its effectiveness and then act on the info to take steps to improve the process and output.  

Tools to protect business and client information

Technology can do amazing things for our businesses, but it’s important to use these tools alongside cybersecurity practices. Your data and your client’s information can be put at risk by phishing schemes and malware, so train your employees to identify and avoid these scams. You can also implement dual factor authentication to add an extra layer of security to your processes.

You should also adopt the practice of password protecting PDFs through email and other digital document systems, like Dropbox. To begin, use a tool to help you merge PDF files easily. Simply add any files you want to combine into the drop zone, organize them, and select “Merge.” Then enable password protection by following these four simple steps: 1) go to “Tools,” 2) select “Protect,” 3) then “Encrypt and 4) “Encrypt with Password.” You can now create a password and send your documents without fear of tampering.

Time-management solutions for more productivity

Time-management solutions are an excellent way to prioritize tasks and minimize time wastage – for both you and your employees. A good example is a calendar app that can track meetings and deadlines, allowing you to coordinate meetings and tasks conveniently with employees. Some advanced solutions come with project-tracking and automatic time-keeping features, which can help your teams meet deadlines, accurately track their hours, and generally get paid on time. 

Better lead generation with digital and email campaigns  

Digital marketing is one of the best ways to find new customers or clients for your company. According to Statista, content marketing, marketing automation, big data, and AI-based marketing are the most effective digital marketing strategies out there. Regardless of which strategy you use, you need a memorable and standout logo to help you make a powerful impression. You can use online logo makers to create an appealing and creative logo by yourself. It’s as simple as picking a style and icon, adding in text, and customizing the color.  

Personalization for stronger customer engagement

Customers prefer personalized experiences. They’re more likely to favor the company that can remember their previous interactions, for instance, and offer customized recommendations or provide a more thoughtful service. According to Google, 59 percent of consumers expect brands to personalize experiences based on their reported preferences. Chatbots, digital self-service tools, machine learning apps, video tutorials, and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions can all be used to offer your customers a more personalized journey.  

Technology can be your best friend when you’re trying to gain traction in the market. Time-management tools, business process management optimizations, and the other solutions we mentioned above are all high-performance, low-cost ways to overcome common problems and achieve your business goals. 

To see how other local businesses are using technology to their benefit, consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce.