4 revolutionary ways to simplify your business
With the global economy being hit with a series of shocks this year, most business owners have learned the hard way that it is important to remain agile, and that starts by keeping your business lean and simple. Here are 4 ways to simplify your business to put you in the best position whatever happens.
- Automate where possible
Thanks to cloud technology you can now simplify many routine and admin-intensive tasks across your business. Think about the areas that slow you or your team down and see how much of this can be automated with relevant software. From automatic marketing messages to keep your customer base engaged, to automating your ordering processes with enterprise resource planning software, and accounting and tax software that can be integrated with your bookkeeping tools to input and output accurate data, you’ll find automation can save you a heap of time and can be adapted and scaled to your needs easily.
- Refine your offering
If you have a clear and streamlined understanding of what service or product you are selling and who you are selling it to, you can stop trying to be all things to all people. If you offer a range of services, home in on the areas of greatest revenue. This will help your marketing remain on brand and on target so you can start saying no to those who don’t come under your remit, or at least judge them on a case by case basis as and when you can spare the time and resource.
- Have routine, but be flexible
If you make it known to staff and colleagues that you only check your emails between 8 and 9 in the morning and again between 4 and 5, you will manage their expectations and free yourself up to concentrate on other jobs. This could even be an organisational approach where possible, so staff are more productive throughout the day. However, by freeing up the bulk of your day you can also pivot if required, staying flexible in times of need.
- Look again at who does what
If you have grown your business from a startup then likely you’re used to keeping as many of the tasks in-house or even performing them yourself. This is a real drain on your resources and will mean no one is operating efficiently. You should be running things at a strategy level, so perform an audit on all the tasks associated with daily operations. You will undoubtedly find jobs that you can delegate or create a new role for, in which case you may need to restructure so that you have a clear hierarchy and don’t just create jobs when needed, which can lead to gaps and inefficiencies. For those specialist jobs that aren’t daily requirements, outsourcing is key; for instance, hiring an accountant or marketing agency can be much more time and cost-effective than recruiting for a position.
Finding ways to simplify your business is key to freeing up your time and resources so you can look to grow and adapt when circumstances change.
