As a business owner, you already know that running a business is no easy feat. You’re always juggling things like keeping up with customer demands, handling your finances and looking at new business prospects, all while making sure everything else behind the scenes is running smoothly. Have you ever considered that you might be able to make things run more efficiently? Being able to save time and money while being more productive than ever is the dream, right? Well good news - it’s totally possible! Essentially, you need to optimise every single aspect of your business to run side by side for your desired outcome. Want to know how? Keep reading.
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When we say all, we mean all. Take a step back and really look at the way you’re currently doing things. Do you need to do things that way anymore? More often than not, businesses get stuck in their old ways because that’s the way things have always been done. Either that, or streamlining the process would cost them money. Well, now is the time to stick your hand in your pocket and invest into your business.
You should start by picking out the key areas of your business that take the most time or are really inefficient. Are you still using paper and relying on manual data entry? If so, that’s already an area that you can streamline. You should lookin into software that can dramatically reduce the amount of time you’re spending on tasks. Not only that, you can automate repetitive tasks, which will save time and the chance of any human error.
Once you’ve freed up some time, look out for any areas of your business where there are bottlenecks. This is when there are points in your workflow where things start to pile up or dramatically slow down. Look at those bottlenecks and think about ways you can rework things so that you don’t have certain departments waiting on others. As an example, a car manufacturing company might have a bottleneck in the paint department, meaning other departments are waiting for the painted bodywork before they can move on. In a situation like this, employing someone else to help get the job done faster is the ideal solution. Rinse and repeat for any other areas that have bottlenecks too. Again, it might mean some sort of investment, but it will pay off in the long run.
In this day and age, technology is going to be your best bet when it comes to improving efficiency in your business. Whether you’re looking for a simple tool to organise your tasks or you need something larger like digital plant management, having the right technology and software will make a huge difference.
Take digital plant management as an example, if you implement technology to help you monitor everything from machine performance right down to energy use in real time. Not only does this save time for your business, but it also allows you to make data-driven decisions that will also save you time and money in the future.
Automation is also something to take into consideration. You should be looking to automate as many tasks as you can! It could be something as simple as responding to emails, processing payments, or even scheduling social media posts for you. Whatever it is, it will free up much more of your time and leave you to deal with other important aspects of your business. And, it doesn’t have to be expensive either. There are lots of free and cheap automation tools that will help you streamline yet another area of your business.
As you already know, communication is important in every single business. Without it, you can quickly find that information is misunderstood, there’s lots of confusion, and there are delays in your process. If you’ve got different departments working in different locations, you really need to make sure that it’s easy for your team to communicate.
Rather than letting them choose whether they want to send an email or shoot a quick phone call away to another department, insist that they communicate using a collaborative platform like Slack. Not only will you have records of conversations to look back on, but you can either send a message or call other people with the click of a button. There are loads of different platforms that you can choose from, so make sure you check out the features that are going to work best for your business.
Another side of communication that’s often overlooked is making sure that everyone knows their role. More often than not, people will take on more than they should in terms of taking leadership in their department. If you haven’t asked them to do that, other members of the team could feel pressured into doing tasks that weren’t assigned to them. When people are clear about what tasks they’re responsible for, it helps them avoid making any mistakes or causing any delays. Not only that, it helps avoid any workplace conflict too.
Lots of businesses find that their inventory and supply chain management is always a hassle. If you’re finding that things are always out of stock or certain items are being over ordered, then it’s time to do some work. Your goal is to make sure you always have the right amount of products or stock without the risk of running out.
This is where technology comes into play again. Look into inventory management for your inventory problems. This will help you track products in real time and also automate reordering too. If the system detects that you’re low on a certain product, it will automatically reorder it, meaning you won’t ever disappoint your customers. Not only that, you will always be certain that you have enough space for everything too.
You should also look at your suppliers and see how you can make things more efficient. If you find that you’re waiting a long time for delivery from a certain supplier, speak to them and see how you can speed things up. Or, you could look elsewhere to see if you could get a better deal! Either way, streamlining your inventory and supply issues will help save you a lot of money (and stress!)
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Your employees are a big part of your business, so you should consider them as an area of investment too. After all, without them, your efficiency would be non-existent. Look into areas where you can train your employees further so that everyone has the skills you need to keep your business running smoothly.
The great thing about employee training is that your employees will be more than willing to do it because it gives them another skill under their belt. And while you don’t want them to leave, if they were to ever leave your company, they have something else to add to their resume. You, on the other hand, now have someone with the skills you need to make things more efficient. And, if you treat your employees well, there’s a good chance they won’t even be thinking about going anywhere else!
So, look into providing your employees with training on new pieces of machinery and equipment, and consider sending them on courses that can help other aspects of your business. For example, if your web developer goes on an SEO course, they can implement that into their day to day actions!
Take a step back, assess where you can improve, and start making those changes today.
