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Great Ways to Run Your Business More Efficiently

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Running your business more efficiently is all about making your business smarter, not making everyone work harder. If you are clever and look for areas to make more efficient, you will discover that there are many ways. To keep up with the times and compete, you should always be looking for areas in which to improve. Even processes that were once state-of-the-art will soon become slow and redundant. If you want to stay on top for the foreseeable future, you need to embrace change and adopt new approaches and ways of doing things. Many of these changes are simple progressive changes that can be easily implemented without disruption. If efficiency is the name of the game, you also need to become more organized too. That means you need to know what goes on day to day in your business so you can find new ways of doing things. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can become more efficient:

Automation

One of the first things you should look to do is to automate slow manual tasks. To do this, you need to know what processes are completed. So, first of all, create a task audit. Make a list of all the tasks that get completed. Talk to your employees and discover more about the running. This will help you become more organized too. You may find redundant tasks which can be stopped immediately. You may discover different people duplicating the same task. Others could be merged with larger tasks. And some can be automated entirely. Software like DOKKA’s NetSuite AP automation can save you time and effort in producing vendor bills, for example. You can easily automate email sorting and social media posting. There are a wide variety of slow tasks that can now be automated. It is n your best interests to do some investigation and look to automate immediately. This makes the tasks get completed more efficiently, and just as importantly, it frees up a staff member to do something more worthwhile for your business.

Tools

If you do not give your staff the right tools, they cannot complete the task correctly or efficiently. So you need to invest in the right tools for the job. You cannot expect miracles. The wrong tools can bring down morale and make you far less productive. Something like your system software can make or break your company. It is vital to everyday running, and if you are using outdated software, then you are going to fall behind. Old software needs to be upgraded. If you don’t, it runs the risk of not being able to perform the functions you need it to. Data can corrupt, and the system can become problematic and difficult to use, slowing down the rate at which your team can use it. Becoming less and less efficient. The new software has many more features and may save you from having to write things manually, as there are simply more fields for data capture. New software is also less prone to cyberattacks, as the producers have added more encryptions and firewalls, etc., to protect you. If you still have the same software from ten years ago, then maybe it is time you looked for an upgrade.  

Outsourcing

If you are attempting to complete every single task in-house, then maybe it is time you started looking to outsource a few. By struggling to do complicated tasks that are usually performed by a professional, you are wasting time and energy, and you are also running the risk of making mistakes that could come back to haunt you. Getting your tax returns wrong is not ideal, for example. You may be making your business appear like an amateur joke if you use unskilled in-house staff for your marketing material, for example. Small and medium-sized businesses do not have the resources to employ a full-time professional for every role. If you are pulling a staff member off their day job to complete these tasks when they come up, that is not ideal either. You will fall behind on their job, and there is no guarantee they are getting it right. To make your business run more efficiently, you should outsource these tasks. In the end, it will save you money, as well as a lot of time and stress. 

Embrace Change

Your attitude is paramount to the success of your business. If you are unwilling to compromise and change, then you are not going to succeed in the long run. Make change and innovation a core value of your business, and lead by example. You should always be on the lookout for ways to improve your business. That means you need to be proactive in your approach. Read business magazines, create alerts for certain business areas on google, and keep an eye on your competitors. Be reactive too. If you spot something a competitor does, adapt your business. We are living through a technological revolution where things are changing very rapidly. If you take your eye off the ball for too long, soon you will be so far behind you won’t be able to catch up.

Your Staff

If you want ultimate efficiency, then you need to find ways to motivate your staff. You can start by creating a great company culture that treats your staff almost as if they are family. The foundation of what your culture must be should stem from your brand. Your brand is all about your philosophy and your company personality. If you have not developed a brand yet, then you need to do this. You also need to champion open and honest communication and teamwork. Again you must lead by example. Try and learn all your team’s names and something personal about them. Have regular meetings where you inform your staff about your vision for the company and what changes you want to implement. Open a dialogue and ask for feedback and ideas. Making your team feel valued is essential to improving their efficiency.

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