Changing

The Role of Technology in Business: Examples of Ways It’s Changing the Workplace

Almost half of all businesses plan on increasing their technology expenditures in 2020. The reason being that many have identified tech as the most efficient way to get out ahead of the competition and ultimately, boost profits.

If you’re a business owner that’s looking to make key technological investments, you may find yourself quickly overwhelmed by all of the options you have.

“Which technology in business investments make the biggest impact?” “Where would I be best served to invest my limited capital?”

These are questions we hear all the time as owners of small, medium, and even large companies fumble through how technology is being applied to today’s marketplace and what that could mean for them. To help bring some clarity to your technology questions, below, we walk you through key ways technology is being integrated into company settings in hopes of inspiring you!

1. Improving Accountability

Whether you mean to or not, it can be easy to get complacent when you’re working 5 days a week, 8 hours per day. That complacency often leads to falling behind on projects and costly overtime requests.

As a business owner, it behooves you to know how efficient your team is being and where improvements need to be made. Companies are investing in tools like time tracking software that can analyze employee’s activities throughout a shift and share detailed reports on what’s working and what isn’t.

These reports are instrumental in determining who needs assistance staying on task and who is providing the most value to your organization.

2. Enabling Collaboration

Business success rarely emanates from a single individual. Success almost always comes from a collective of talent that has been assembled and allowed to work together to do incredible things.

Technology in business has made that kind of special collaboration much easier over the last decade.

Several cloud-based applications let employees work on the same files at the same time. Furthermore, sharing files has become as easy as directing team members to a communal “share folder”.

That has eliminated the need to email attachments and manually track updates.

3. Keeping Data Safe

Imagine if all of your company’s key documents, intellectual property data, and customer information were saved on a single computer. Now, imagine that computer was destroyed in a fire.

How would your company recover?

For many, that question is one they’d prefer not to answer and as such, they’ve invested in technology that automatically backs up their systems to on-site and off-site servers. Today’s best backup technology automatically runs backups across all of your company’s machines so team members don’t have to bother with engaging backup mechanisms manually.

4. Getting Paid Made Easy

Sending out invoices can be a hassle. A lot of that hassle comes from having to manually itemize charges in a template, emailing that template to clients, and hoping to receive a response.

Today, companies can integrate with bookkeeping software that lets them invoice straight from within the application. Those invoices are pre-generated per charges you enter into the system and can be tracked to see when they’ve been opened.

Even better is the fact that clients can pay your invoices with their credit/bank cards straight from your digital invoice!

5. Paying the Government Made Easier

No matter how much technology you throw at filing taxes, managing that task is likely to remain a headache. Still, technology has made accurately filling out and filing taxes more streamlined.

Technology in business has integrated bookkeeping and tax filing solutions into all in one systems. That has allowed businesses to use tools like a receipt scanner to automatically track expenses and deduct those expenses from tax documents as well as manage other typically time-consuming tasks.

Even filing your taxes with federal and state authorities can be as simple as pushing “send!”

6. Breaking Down Commerce Barriers

Brick-and-mortar operations used to be limited to selling to people in their immediate vicinity. That’s no longer the case!

eCommerce makes it so even the smallest of businesses can develop a robust online presence and sell to customers all over the globe.

That reality is becoming increasingly important to a company’s bottom line as competition gets to be more global and local consumer saturation starts to be a problem.

7. Engaging Customers Like Never Before

Imagine a world where you’re able to market to a customer based on what they purchase, where they live, and their spending habits? This kind of customized, high conversion marketing is 100 percent a reality.

Over 60 percent of the customers you engage expect personalization to be part of their shopping experience. By investing in technology that enables that end, you’ll meet expectations. You’ll also give yourself a great chance of heightening consumer engagement.

8. Your Office Everywhere

Never before has being able to access your office remotely been more important. Several tools that allow chatting, file sharing, accessing desktops remotely, and more work together to make your office available to your team members no matter where in the world they are.

If you want your company to make it through today’s challenges and tomorrow’s, you’d be well served to have an excellent work from home plan in place. That plan should be powered by cutting edge digital tools.

Technology in Business Defines Success

Companies that embrace technology in business give themselves a much better opportunity of growing and surviving adversity. Keep that in mind as you juggle what your technology budget might look like this year and beyond.

Technology solutions are in a constant state of evolution. Feel free to keep up to date on all things new by browsing the content available on our blog!

Many of us have heard that there are benefits of positivity. But do we all know what the benefits are? And more importantly, do we believe in the power of positive thinking and understand how truly life-changing it can be? How we think impacts all aspects of our physical and mental health, our relationships, even our overall success in life.

How we think about life has a direct impact on our reality, for better or worse. And a multitude of scientific research has proven that there are countless benefits of thinking positively. A study published in Emotion analyzed the current research surrounding positive affect and mental and physical health outcomes. The authors determined that “prioritizing positivity predicted a host of well-being outcomes.”

They found encouraging results, including “less depressive symptomology, higher-quality relationships, improved physical health, and better work performance.”

Plus, it concluded that people who prioritize positive emotions have more considerable mental resources.

The broaden-and-build theory explains how people who lack positive emotions become stuck in many facets of life. Furthermore, their feelings of not being able to move forward in life can cause a lot of mental health issues. Conversely, people who have an abundance of positive emotions truly “take off” in life. Positive people “become generative, creative, resilient, ripe with possibility, and beautifully complex.” Each of these things helps positive people reach optimal well-being.

MYTHS PERPETUATED BY THOSE WHO REJECT POSITIVITY

Unfortunately, there are misunderstandings about positive thinking that can lead some people to believe that it is not practical. Thinking positively isn’t a useless nicety. And it doesn’t mean being fake or pretending to be okay when you are not.  That thought process is a dangerous trap.

However, what thinking positively does mean is trying your best to remain positive about current and future situations. It is a deliberate, conscious way of thinking that has a direct impact on reality. You can find 30 life-changing benefits of positivity, below.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind. –William James

MENTAL HEALTH BENEFITS OF POSITIVITY

1) Increases Happiness and Life Satisfaction

Much scientific research has suggested that having a positive attitude and outlook on life is a predictor of happiness. Individuals who see the positive aspects of life are more likely to be happy and have higher life satisfaction. It is often the case that positive people have more friends, which can be an important factor in happiness as well.

The authors of a recent study examined whether positive emotions, alone, mediate the relationship between positive affect and happiness. Their results revealed that happiness was fully mediated by a person’s ability to be positive. Specifically, showing that “positive beliefs about the future, the self, and the life account for personality-happiness relationships.”

2) Positivity Increases Resilience

An abundance of research has shown that individuals who think positively have better coping skills, which leads to increased resilience. Psychological resilience can be defined as “the ability to bounce back from negative events by using positive emotions to cope.” So it makes sense that having an increased ability to think positively would, in turn, increase your resilience.

This study demonstrated that having more positive emotions plays a critical and direct role in enhancing coping ability and resilience. Researchers revealed that higher resilience makes an impact on a person’s physical health. They state, “those with higher trait resilience evidenced faster cardiovascular recovery from negative emotional arousal.”

3) Reduces Risk of Depression

Thinking positively about your current and future outcomes has been shown to increase happiness and decrease the risk of depression. Individuals who suffer from chronic health conditions have an especially high risk of developing depression. Much research helps counselors and therapists to better understand how they can minimize the risk of depression. More importantly, that is essential for those who treat chronically ill individuals.

One study examined “positive affect and optimism as mediators of the relationship between improved depression” among multiple sclerosis patients. Results demonstrated that the relationship between improved depression and benefit-finding was significantly related to increased positive affect and optimism. This effect has been observed in individuals who do not suffer from a chronic illness, as well. This study revealed that high levels of positive affect reduced the risk of depression in healthy participants by nearly 50%.

4) Decreases Anxiety

Anxiety is a common and persistent mental health condition that impacts nearly 300 million people, reports the World Health Organization. Suffering from anxiety can have many negative impacts on a person’s life, causing them to feel hindered in countless ways. There are a wide variety of treatment options for individuals who suffer from anxiety.

One treatment option involves receiving training in how to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. This study examined alternative approaches to reducing anxiety and worry in participants diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Outcome measures showed that individuals who received training to improve positive thinking had significant decreases in anxiety and worry.

5) Positivity Increases Mental Clarity, Focus, and Concentration

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions explains how increasing positive emotions lead to many beneficial outcomes in an individual’s life. Among the many benefits, there is evidence that positive emotions “broaden the scopes of attention, cognition, and action.” Barbara L. Fredrickson, the creator, and developer of the broaden-and-build theory explains how and why this phenomenon occurs.

“Positive emotions promote discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds,” describes Fredrickson. She goes on to state that this “in turn, builds that individual’s personal resources.” All of which results in improved mental clarity, focus, and concentration.

6) Increases Gratitude

Practicing gratitude has been proven to result in improved overall well-being and mental health in several scientific studies. Defining the mediating factor between improved gratitude and improved well-being and mental health is also important. The authors of one research review analyzed eight studies examining the role of positive emotion and positive reframing on gratitude. Study results revealed that “positive emotion mediated the relationship between gratitude and (fewer) depressive symptoms.”

Each study’s results indicated that experiencing more positive emotions led to experiencing more gratitude and, consequently, less depressive symptoms. These study results “demonstrate that gratitude is related to fewer depressive symptoms.” Researchers go on to state that positive emotion and positive reframing serve as the mechanisms that account for this relationship.

7) Increases Self-Esteem

When you think positively about yourself and your ability to accomplish things, you naturally increase your self-esteem. A variety of scientific studies have evaluated the relationship between thinking positively and having higher self-esteem. This study demonstrated that the more a child thinks negatively about their own abilities, the lower their self-esteem becomes. The opposite is true, as well. The more positively you think about your abilities, the higher your self-esteem will be.

8) Decreases Risk of Mental Health Problems

Practicing positive thinking and optimism prove protective against developing mental health problems in countless scientific studies. The authors of a review of recent research analyzed studies that evaluated the impact positive thinking has on mental health. They reported findings of numerous studies. Each study revealed that optimism and positive emotions improve overall well-being and mental health.

One of the reviewed studies assessed how the attitudes of individuals who had coronary bypass surgery impacted their mental health. Results demonstrated that individuals who were more optimistic and positive had lower levels of hostility and depression while preparing to undergo surgery. And in the week following the operation, the optimistic and positive people felt greater relief and happiness than pessimists did.

9) Decreases Levels of Stress

When you think positively, you have far fewer things to become stressed about. Consequently, you won’t have to worry about experiencing the multitude of negative outcomes caused by stress. Among the negative effects of stress are high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, headaches, ulcers, and more. Increases in positive emotions, which lead to decreased stress levels, have even been shown to help heal physical wounds more quickly.

This is likely due to the stress-buffering model of positive affect and health. The authors of this scientific study published by Health Psychology assessed the impact that positive affect had on wound healing. Remarkably, the skin wounds of individuals who had higher levels of positive affect (i.e., more positive emotions) healed faster. This amazing result makes it clear that thinking positively can literally heal your body. Indeed, it may save your life one day.

10) Positivity Improves Coping Skills and Stress Management

One aspect of the ability of positive thinking to decrease stress involves positive people’s ability to better cope with stress. A multitude of scientific research has proven that a person’s “affect plays an important functional role in coping with stress.”

Positive people are able to see the bigger picture when a stressor comes their way. And are therefore able to respond in ways that allow them to overcome the harmful consequences of stress more quickly. A positive person has the ability to maintain a healthy perspective on the situation at hand. And does not let the stressor that they are facing send them into a panic or downward spiral.

However, negative people are more likely to focus on problems instead of solutions and have a narrower perspective, in general. This results in a negative person having a poorer ability to cope with and manage stress.

11) Increases the Meaning a Person Sees in Life

Seeing meaning in life is a key factor in living a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life. Previous research surrounding this topic has shown that seeing meaning in life is associated with better overall psychological well-being. The authors of this research report evaluated the findings of six separate scientific studies that aimed to better understand this concept.

Each study “examined the role of positive affect (PA) in the experience of meaning in life (MIL).” The outcome measures of the studies consistently showed that positive affect was a strong predictor of meaning in life.

Additionally, priming and manipulating positive moods in participants both resulted in higher reports of meaning in life. And “the most consistent predictor of the experience of meaning in a day was the PA experienced that day.” Researchers concluded that experiencing positive moods and emotions can predispose individuals to see more meaning in life.

12) Improves Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is an incredibly important aspect of having a healthy and successful life. A person’s emotional regulation ability directly impacts their coping, problem solving, relationship quality, as well as mental and physical health. When you’re able to focus on the positive aspects of all things, you’re better able to respond to any situation, especially when faced with stress.

If you think negatively and see everything like a catastrophe, your emotions are more likely to spiral out of control. One study showed that individuals who had more positive than negative social interactions had better emotion regulation. With their improved emotion regulation likely mediated by the fact that they experience more positive than negative emotions.

13) Increases Mental Flexibility

Having mental flexibility is important in a person’s life for a variety of reasons. Mental flexibility affects an individual’s learning rate, memory formation, error correction, and allocation of attention resources. With advancements in neuroimaging technology, brain research scientists are now able to physically see differences between different human brains.

This technology also allows researchers to determine what is causing those differences. The authors of a recent study published in Scientific Reports evaluated what, exactly, leads to a more flexible brain. Their results revealed that more incidences of positive mood states predicted a more flexible brain, or in other words, more mental flexibility.

14) Improves Overall Mental Health

As we can see, thinking positively offers a wide range of mental health outcomes. As such, positive thinking and emotions can improve a person’s mental health, overall. But how much positive emotion is needed in a person’s life to achieve these mental health-benefiting effects? Thankfully, two researchers had this very question and discovered the answer.

Their recent study predicted that a higher ratio of positive to negative emotions would “characterize individuals in flourishing mental health.” The data that researchers collected proved that the researcher’s prediction was true and revealed a precise ratio. Individuals who had a mean ratio of positive to negative emotions that were above 2.9 had flourishing mental health. And individuals who were below the 2.9 ratios of positive to negative emotions did not have flourishing mental health.

PHYSICAL HEALTH BENEFITS OF POSITIVITY

15) Improves Sleep

Insomnia is a common and persistent health concern that can negatively impact many aspects of your life. Suffering from insomnia is very serious and can lead to obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, anxiety, and depression.

Research shows that utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to increase positive thinking benefits sleep quality for individuals with insomnia. CBT improves mental health outcomes by challenging and changing unwanted, negative thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. Replacing unproductive and frequently harmful ways of thinking with positive thinking. In fact, the authors of this study assessed the outcomes of 15 scientific trials to determine the effectiveness of CBT for insomnia.

The results of the study revealed that CBT is effective in improving sleep in adults who have insomnia. If you struggle with insomnia thinking positively throughout the day can have a beneficial impact on your quality of sleep. In addition to thinking positively, you can try breathing exercises to relieve insomnia and help you fall asleep.

16) Positivity Decreases Blood Pressure

Having high blood pressure affects nearly one billion people worldwide, and increases the risk of numerous negative health outcomes. High blood pressure can even lead to an early and unexpected death. Consequently, a multitude of scientific studies resulted in order to better understand how people can effectively lower their blood pressure.

One of these studies tested the hypothesis that “high positive emotion would be associated with lower blood pressure in older adults.” Researchers revealed that increasing positive emotions had a significant impact on lowering diastolic and systolic blood pressure in older adults.

17) Improves Immune System Functioning

Several scientific studies have revealed that optimistic expectancies and thinking positively are related to having higher numbers of immune cells. Having improved immunity can save us from a lot of strife and missing out on life due to being sick. Increased immunity can also help to keep us from developing much more serious illnesses than the common cold. This study published by Psychological Science showed that having optimistic expectations was strongly related to having increased cell-mediated immunity (CMI).

18) Increases Lifespan

Decades of research have proven that positive emotions have a beneficial impact on both physical and mental health. It, therefore, makes perfect sense that you can increase your lifespan by simply increasing your positive emotions. This longitudinal study evaluated the impact that positive emotions had on the lifespan of Catholic nuns. Researchers revealed that positive emotions linked strongly to a longer lifespan. The nuns who expressed positive emotions regularly during journal writing activities lived an average of 10 years longer.

19) Reduces Pain and Increases Pain Tolerance

Living with chronic pain is one of the worst things for a person to endure. Being in constant physical pain can have a negative impact on nearly every aspect of your life. There are certainly some types of pain you should never ignore. But there are also other types of pain that can be helped by positive thinking. Previous laboratory research has shown that producing positive emotional states increases pain tolerance and reduces pain.

To add to that body of research, scientists evaluated the impact of positive activities online has on pain reduction. Their results revealed that participating in online positive activities reduced bodily pain in adults with mild to moderate pain.

20) Reduces Risk of Death from Cardiovascular Disease

Many people understand that having higher stress levels increases your risk of developing cardiovascular disease. When a person is under stress, stress hormones release into body. Over time, this causes damage to their cardiovascular system. Conversely, research has shown that dispositional optimism and positive outcome expectancies correlate to a lower risk of cardiovascular complications.

The authors of a consequential longitudinal study evaluated whether optimism and positive expectancies were independently related to reduced cardiovascular mortality. The data that they gathered over 15 years proved that optimism and positive expectations reduced the risk of cardiovascular death.

21) Improves the Outcome of Serious Physical Health Conditions

We now know that positivity can help to prevent you from becoming ill. And that being positive can also decrease the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Additionally, positive attitudes have been shown to improve outcomes in individuals who are already suffering from a serious medical condition. Therefore, researches also studied the impact of interventions that increase positive emotions in individuals diagnosed with breast cancer and HIV.

Individuals who think more positively and optimistically frequently have better health outcomes. On the other hand, having negative attitudes surrounding survival seem to increase the chance of death from a serious medical condition. The authors of one study that demonstrated this assessed whether attitudes toward illness are associated with survival after a stroke.

Results revealed that a person’s attitude regarding their illness was associated with the survival rate in stroke victims. Patients who thought negatively and felt there was nothing they could do to help themselves had a lower survival rate.

22) Positivity Improves Cholesterol and Triglyceride Levels

Having healthy cholesterol levels improves your health immensely and can help to protect you from developing cardiovascular disease. Most of us know that having a healthy diet and participating in regular exercise are important aspects of controlling our cholesterol levels.

However, having an optimistic and positive attitude also connects with having a healthy lipid profile (i.e., healthy cholesterol levels). The authors of one study assessed the impact that optimism and positive affect had on an individual’s cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Their results revealed that having higher optimism and positivity was correlated with healthier cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

23) Decreases Risk of Heavy Substance Use

Heavy use of any addictive substance can lead to long-term health physical health problems and can even result in death. Not to mention the negative impact that heavy substance use is known to have on mental health and relationships. Young people are at a particularly high risk of experiencing negative outcomes due to heavy substance use.

Fortunately, research shows us that having a positive attitude and outlook on life decreases adolescents’ risk of heavy substance use. One longitudinal study assessed the impact of optimistic and positive thinking on 5,634 adolescent’s emotional states, substance use, and behavior. Their data showed that high levels of optimism and positive emotions had protective effects against heavy substance use.

24) Decreases Risk of Frailty During the Aging Process

The term frailty describes a person’s impaired strength, endurance, and balance. Frailty increases an individual’s risk of experiencing physical trauma and other stressors, including disability, morbidity, and mortality. Preventing or delaying the onset of frailty is an important aspect of improving a person’s physical health and increasing lifespan. This study published in Psychology and Aging assessed the long-term association between positive affect and the onset of frailty. Results revealed that high positive affect (i.e., positive emotions) significantly lowered the risk of frailty.

25) Improves Athletic Performance

We now understand the many ways in which positive thinking and attitudes can improve our physical health and abilities. It, therefore, makes sense that optimistic and positive thinking can also improve athletic performance. Several scientific studies have demonstrated this effect, including this study about the impact of positivity on an athlete’s performance.

Results demonstrated a significant relationship between an athlete’s levels of optimism, positive emotions, and athletic performance. Specifically, soccer players who had more optimistic and positive attitudes showed better athletic performance than pessimistic soccer players.

Another study assessed the ability of a positive psychological development program to improve the swimming abilities of national-level swimmers. The program aimed to increase the professional swimmer’s ability to think positively, including optimistic disposition and positive affect development. Results revealed a significant improvement in the swimming strokes of those who participated in the program that included positive thinking.

HOW POSITIVITY BENEFITS RELATIONSHIPS AND OVERALL SUCCESS

26) Improves Leadership Skills

Positive thinkers have an improved ability to make the right decisions in high-pressure situations, as compared to pessimists. This is because positive thinking allows a person to focus on solutions instead of the problem and potential obstacles. And as explained above, positive thinkers tend to have more mental clarity, concentration, and focus. Therefore, positive people make much better leaders. Furthermore, positive leaders are perceived as more trustworthy and competent.

27) Increases Chance of Career Advancement and Financial Success

As explained above, positive thinkers have improved leadership skills and the ability to remain positive, even in stressful situations. Consequently, companies are much more likely to hire a positive person for a leadership role. This increases their chances of career advancement and financial success. Dr. Martin Seligman conducted more than 30 years of research that demonstrated this outcome with over 1 million study participants.

The analysis of Seligman revealed that a person’s optimistic expectations and positive attitude led to superior achievement in sales. Salespeople who are confident and positive have been proven to sell more and have higher incomes than negative salespeople. Seligman concluded that this is because a positive person has the persistence that they need to overcome adversity.

28) Increases Productivity and Work Performance

There have been many changes in the economy and workplace over the past few decades. A lot of these changes are not for the best and have impacted both employees and companies in negative ways. One aspect of positive psychology is understanding how you can use positivity for better employment outcomes at work.

The authors of this article evaluated how utilizing positive psychology could improve the workplace, including employee productivity and job performance. Results revealed that when motivation is externally controlled, increased positive emotions are likely to be associated with increased motivation. The data demonstrated that enhancing experiences of positive emotions result in increases in productivity and better performance outcomes.

29) Increases Success Rates in Relationships

A multitude of scientific research has shown that positive people are more successful in marriage and friendship, among other things. The authors of this review of research analyzed numerous studies that assessed whether or not positive affect increased relationship success. The results revealed, “that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success.”

Additionally, the evidence showed that positive affect, a critical factor in well-being, directly impacts a person’s increased happiness and relationship success. This is because positive emotions and attitudes increase satisfaction. And happy people have more fulfilling and satisfying marriages. generally. Researchers state that these findings “generalize to other romantic relationships” and also to friendships.

30) Increases Ability to Forgive

Forgiveness is an essential aspect of any successful relationship. Furthermore, forgiveness has a direct impact on mental health. Previous research links a person’s ability to forgive and improved mental health. Additionally, a connection between positivity and forgiveness resulted from the study.

The authors of a study published by The Journal of Social Psychology state that affective states mediate the relationship between forgiveness and mental health. Specifically, having more positive emotions allows someone to be able to more easily forgive which leads to improved mental health. Researchers state that “forgiveness involves replacing the negative emotions associated with unforgiveness with positive, love-based emotions.” They go on to explain “that it is through this transformation of emotional states that forgiveness affects physiological functioning.”

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE BENEFITS OF POSITIVITY

Positivity works wonders.

Decades of scientific research have made it strikingly clear that positive emotions and attitudes lead to a plethora of benefits. Thinking positively proves to benefit our mental and physical health, as well as our relationships and careers. With so many studies demonstrating how powerful positive thinking is, who wouldn’t want to cultivate and practice using positive thinking today?

Like any skill in life, learning how to think positively consistently will take time and practice. But as this article has demonstrated, it is worth doing for countless reasons. Of course, nobody expects you to be positive every single second of every single day. No one can do that. Even the happiest and most positive people have moments in which they feel and express hopelessness and negativity. That is a part of the human condition. But the more that you can incorporate positivity into your daily routines, the more beneficial outcomes you will see.

Furthermore, it seems impossible not to be convinced that positive thinking has an impact on our reality.  But if you still aren’t sure, here’s an experiment that demonstrates how the power of positivity alters our physical world.

Here at the Power of Positivity, we want to do everything we can to help everyone to live happy, healthy, and prosperous lives. And as the research featured in this article proves, having a positive outlook can help you to accomplish this.

10 Ways Veterinary Apps Are Changing the Medical Field

Veterinary Apps are changing the veterinary world for everyone.

Pet owners can now schedule appointments in a matter of seconds, veterinarians can keep track of important information easily, and students have unlimited information on their phones.

But let’s backtrack. What are veterinarian apps?

Take a look at this quick veterinary app guide and find out how they’re making a difference.

What are Veterinary Apps?

There are a lot of veterinary apps out there, and they all do different things.

For example, some apps are created for veterinarians specifically and help them keep track of and complete their day to day tasks. Others are designed for customers looking for veterinarian help.

There are even apps out there tailored to veterinarian students. These apps provide them with valuable information that gets them through school and prepares them for their career.

Each of these apps takes a lot of stress out of veterinarian life and animal health. In case you don’t know about all the benefits from these veterinary apps yet, we’ll break them down for you below.

1. Schedule New Appointments

With an app, scheduling an appointment takes just a few minutes.

Instead of calling a veterinarian clinic or pet hospital and maybe getting put on hold, you can make the appointment yourself on your phone. You don’t have to go back and forth about what dates work for who. You can just pick a date and time yourself.

All you have to do is open the app and press a few buttons.

You can even get reminders for your pets check-up appointments, something that is otherwise dangerously easy to forget about.

2. Get Important Information Easily

If your pet gets sick or has some other medical emergency, you don’t want to waste time Googling what you should do.

Many veterinarian apps will keep emergency information available for you. If you need to rush your pet over to an emergency appointment, they’ll have their address and contact information somewhere easy to find.

3. Order New Medical Supplies

If your pet is on medication or has a special prescription diet, this feature is especially useful.

When you notice your pet is running out of food or needs a refill of medication, you can just hop on the app and make the order. Instead of finding a time to sit down and call them or drive to the vet in person, you can just order the supplies right as you notice you need them.

4. Use In-House Call Veterinarians

This is perhaps the best part of veterinary apps. You can schedule appointments with different veterinarians for in-house calls, taking a lot of stress out of your vet appointments.

These in-house appointments can be very flexible because they are available anytime between eight in the morning and eight in the evening. (Some apps may be different.) When you book an in-house appointment, the vets can usually see your pet that same day.

Some of these in-house services even include grooming.

Unfortunately, these types of apps are location-based, and only a few cities have them. For example, Treat.co is a veterinary app that is based in San Francisco while VetPronto also covers places like New York and New Orleans.

However, due to their popularity, these apps will probably keep being made for other places.

5. Keeps Your Pet healthy and Calm

Obviously, taking your pet to the vet or refilling their medicine keeps them in good condition, but some animals have a hard time going to the vet.

A lot of animals are afraid of going to the vet, either because they don’t like the traveling to the vet or because they don’t like being handled by the vet.

Cat’s especially have a difficult time at the vet.

Roughly 85% of cat owners don’t take their cats to the vet because they are afraid of being put into a carrier. A lot of pet parents have a hard time taking their pets to the vet because they have to spend a great deal of energy trying to find ways to calm their pets down (learn more).

In-house visits make vet appointments easier for the animals, the owners, and the vets. The animals will be calmer in their natural environment, and the veterinarian won’t have to inspect a worked up dog or angry cat.

6. Helps Manage Clients

With an app, a veterinarian can easily keep track of what pets they are seeing on any particular day. They can check the time for each appointment, look at the details of the visit, and stay on track with all their clients.

7. Keeps Everything They Need to Know Close

Some veterinarian apps work just like a desktop computer. Everything that’s stored on the computer is now available for the vet on their phone, making looking things up easier and faster.

8. Gives Vets More Flexibility

Like Uber, veterinary apps allow veterinarians to find extra work alongside their normal jobs. This benefits both them and their customers because they are able to make in-house visits when they aren’t working at a clinic.

9. Provides More Job Opportunities

It can be hard to find a job in a pet hospital or clinic, so these apps allow vets struggling to find a job a way to work.

10. Keeps People Learning

Students going through vet school now have the ability to keep all the information they need on their phone.

Some of these apps are expensive, like Merck Veterinary Manual and iDEA, but they let students find information whenever they need it, not just when they are in class.

Veterinary Apps Making the World Easier

Veterinarian apps help students, veterinarians, and pet parents alike. They make keeping track of appointments, scheduling new appointments, ordering new medical supplies, or studying for the next test as simple as pressing a few buttons.

Interested to learn more about life-changing apps? Take a look at how these online medical apps are changing the medical world.

How Technology is Changing the Industrial Manufacturing System

Today technology is the force that is radically transforming the industrial manufacturing system.

The transformations taking place are so radical, in fact, that sources claim we’ve entered a fourth industrial revolution. And, at the center of this revolution, is the rise of manufacturing technology.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways that tech is disrupting the industrial manufacturing system.

3 Revolutionary Manufacturing System Tech Trends

1. 3D Printing

3D printing has made it possible for innovators and inventors to broaden their reach and manufacturer their products globally.

Products are first created using 3D technology, which allows for greater precision, less waste and shorter lead times. 3D printing has quickly escalated and is now able to produce using complex materials without depending on complex machinery.

Its abilities include using human tissue, acrylics, stainless steel and even human tissue.

It has also given consumers greater control and input by fostering co-creations with manufacturers.

3D printing is now revolutionizing processes in a variety of industries. Its abilities are changing everything from how toys are made, to giving the medical industry ways to advance surgery and make diagnoses earlier than ever before.

2. Injection Molding

Injection molding is a process that was first patented in the late 1800’s. It was tweaked and grew in popularity after World War II.

But today’s manufacturing advances have made it more popular than ever before. Not only does it have the ability to create complex shapes, but it’s cost effective, economical and exact.

The trend towards sustainable manufacturing methods has made it even more popular. Because the process produces little scrap, and what scrap it does produce can be melted and reused, there is a minimal environmental impact.

High precision plastic injection molding has become a preferred manufacturing system. It produces practically no waste, can be molded into a wide range of forms and is efficient and less expensive than alternatives.

3. Robotics

Robotics has long been a revolutionary force in the world of manufacturing. For example, the use of robotics has revolutionized the auto industry for years. But never has robotics been as prominent as it is today.

With the rise of more precise and efficient smart robotics comes a rising concern over job security fueled by notions of machine learning. However, some believe that those fears are sensationalized to some extent.

Although it is true that robots can work for more extended periods than people, reduce human error and have greater precision, and are more cost effective, they don’t eliminate the need for humans altogether.

Smart technology is dependent on humans, but it relies more on our intelligence, rather than labor. And this is why education has become an increasingly competitive necessity to building your value in the workplace.

Robots are making many jobs, in the home and the workplace, easier and more efficient than ever before. And because of this, you are likely to see the reliance on robotics continue to thrive.

What’s Next for the Industrial Manufacturing System?

Although so much growth has taken place in the manufacturing industry, we are still on the edge of even more booming transformations.

As human and technological intelligence continues to pair up, there is no limit to the possibilities in manufacturing.

Click here to learn more about how technology is changing industries all around us in amazing ways!