How to Get the Computer Skills Your Business Needs

How to Get the Computer Skills Your Business Needs

How to Get the Computer Skills Your Business Needs

If you own a business, you may already be feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of computer skills you need to make it work. Staying in business today requires business owners to do more than just send emails and update online bookkeeping software occasionally. These days, you need to be able to develop your business’s website, build mobile apps, promote your brand on social media and maintain a solid online presence, collect and analyze data, optimize your pages for search, optimize your online conversion rate, and more. All of this means that, increasingly, today’s entrepreneurs need to know how to code – and more than that, they need to be computer scientists.

You see, learning how to code, in and of itself, isn’t that hard. But being a good developer requires much more than simply knowing how to code. You need to understand the foundational theories and systems on which the code is built. You need insight, experience, skill, and discipline – but there’s good news. Thanks to online learning, you can develop the computer skills you need to get ahead, while still having time to focus on the day-to-day demands of running your business.

Tech Skills Give Entrepreneurs an Advantage

If you’re running a tech startup, chances are you already understand the value of good developers. But even if you’re running a business outside of the tech sphere, solid computer skills can give you a strong advantage over the competition.

That’s because your computer is one of your most important business tools, and you need to fully understand its capabilities, so you can make the most of it. As a small business owner, you probably won’t have a dedicated IT department, so it’s up to you to know your computer’s basic functions, how to troubleshoot problems, and how to make the most of its capabilities by hacking it to make it do what you need it to do.

But, the entrepreneurial advantages of studying computer science extend far beyond simply knowing how your computer works. You’ll learn to use SQL queries to analyze data in Microsoft Excel and Access; you’ll learn how to set up and run higher-level analytics software and what to do with the data it produces. You’ll learn HTML, CSS, and Javascript coding, so you can build and maintain your own website and make it mobile-responsive. You’ll even have the chance to learn Ruby, Java, or Python so you can build your own apps, which can be hugely beneficial from a customer-service perspective – wouldn’t it be nice to let customers collect and track loyalty rewards points, monitor their personal accounts and spending, or even place orders through a custom app?

You’ll also learn more than you may have thought possible about applications you may already use, like email. Wouldn’t it be nice to understand features like filtering, labeling, auto-forwarding, auto-responding, and inbox keyboard shortcuts so that you can zip through your inbox instead of spending all morning on it?

Even if you end up hiring developers, your background in computer science will make it easier for you to work with them. You’ll understand important concepts like wireframing. You’ll speak their jargon. They’ll appreciate that you can interact with them on their level, and projects will go more smoothly for it.

But, perhaps most importantly, a background in computer science will teach you how to learn new technology. You’ll never again have to worry about not understanding a new piece of technology, because your background will have given you the mental models and conceptual framework to grapple with it.

online education business skills

Develop Computer Skills Through Online Learning

As a business owner, it can be impossible to find the time to drop everything and go back to school to learn computer science. It can even be hard to find the time for a programming boot camp. But, by enrolling in a computer science bachelor’s degree online, you can build the skills you need without sacrificing your business.

Online degree programs are designed with busy, working adult professionals in mind. Professors and administrators understand that students in these programs have jobs or businesses, families, homes to maintain, mortgages to pay, and other responsibilities. That’s why online courses are designed with flexibility in mind. Students can go through coursework on their own schedule, at their own pace. And you can do it from anywhere – there’s no need to move closer to campus or commute to classes.

Computer skills, or your lack of them, can make or break your business. If you’re a business owner looking for a way to beef up your computer skills, an online degree in computer science may be for you. With online learning, you can learn the skills you need – while still finding time to keep your doors open during business hours.

Author: Damian Davila

Ideas and concepts from Damian Davila, Ecuatoriano thriving in Hawaii. Pro marketer and blogger. Find him at @idaconcpts on Twitter.