In all business, efficiency is important, but in the world of small business, the losses caused by inefficient processes are felt even more.
By mourgfile (mourgfile.com) [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
There is enough riding against you and your company without you adding to the difficulties by allowing easily fixable things to sap you of growth and profit.
There is plenty you can do to increase productivity for you and your staff.
However, efficiency is all about structure and your business model. Below are a few key ways that you can make your business more efficient, thereby boosting your profit margins, allowing you to grow.
Software
We are in a technology-rich age, and whatever your business needs there will be a service or software program out there designed to help you streamline your business model.
You could look into using Contract Management Software – Symfact is industry leaders in this field – or any other software that might be specific to your needs. There are even companies that make software solutions specific for pest-control companies or telemarketing agencies.
Whatever your niche, there are ways of improving your business model.
Many technologies work by allowing you to better monitor your input and output processes, thereby giving you a greater scope of analysis and optimization.
By being able to view all the relevant data easily, you can gain a better understanding of the bigger picture for your business, meaning that you can get to work altering the finer details to aid in your objectives.
Outsourcing
Just like SEO firms to improve your website, outsourcing is the most talked about the way of improving your business efficiency. Not only is it a fantastic way of saving on staffing costs (you don’t have to account for pension contributions, sick pay, and other benefits), but it also allows you to expand and hone your business strategy by freeing you up form the more mundane tasks.
You could outsource your IT services, meaning that aside from not having the ongoing cost of a computer expert (who won’t really be needed much of the time), you can benefit from a secure and quicker operating network.
If you are a computer-based business, the last things you need is a virus or network error stopping you from operating. If you are a particularly small operation, you can even outsource your secretarial duties to a certain extent.
It can be hard work to deal with the daily duties of your business, deal with customer queries, manage your social media accounts, and take phone calls.
There are companies that offer a service to answer your calls for you if you are busy or out of the office.
You can even invest in a service that will manage your social media accounts, meaning that your followers feel connected to you and valued when they have queries, complaints, or general praise to offer on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Training
It’s an often told story: You hire a new worker, they make some sort of simple error, and it ends up taking someone hours, or even days, to put it right again.
Training someone properly is expensive, you have to pay them and pay the person who is taking the time to train them up, but neither one of these people are earning your business any money.
You might want to get them ‘on the floor’ and working as soon as possible, but rushing your training process could end up costing you a lot more in the long-run.
Taking the time to put together a systematic and well-researched training methodology will help you to ensure that your training is consistent. By doing this, you are able to make certain that all your staff are at a particular level, meaning that you aren’t left with any surprise situations arising because your new employee didn’t know.
You can also factor in refresher courses for your more long-standing employees. They may feel like it is belittling to be taught what they already know, but it is easy to develop bad habits over time.
A recent study found that well over half of experienced drivers would fail their driving test if they had to retake it now, so it makes sense that your workers would need a little refresher on company protocols and operating procedures every now and then.
There you have it, three simple ways of increasing your business model efficiency and allowing your company profits to grow. The relentless pursuit of an absolutely efficient business methodology is not an easy path to journey, but every small change you can make will add up to a huge difference in the way you run your company for the better.
