Millions of jobs are reentering the economy as consumer confidence is beginning to slowly recover from shutdowns.
With that, businesses that have managed to weather the brunt of the storm are thinking about optimization. Optimizing one’s business means trimming the fat around processes so organizations can maximize returns.
If you feel your company could stand to undergo a round of business optimization, keep reading. In this post, we share five of the best strategies companies of all sizes can start with that produce real results.
1. Productivity Tracking
As employees settle into their roles, falling into time-consuming, non-productive meetings, habits, and tasks is all but guaranteed. That has been further exacerbated in today’s work from the home environment.
To keep your team on track and to get a sense of where time is being spent, consider having your personnel self-track what they’re doing, hour by hour, over two weeks. You might also consider software solutions to help with tracking.
After tracking how time is being spent, cut back on bloated, non-valuable activities.
2. Adoption of Automation
Automation is, in our opinion, the best long-term business optimization solution. It enables companies to offload repetitive tasks to machines rather than taxing team members.
Advanced automation tools can represent a significant investment. Fortunately, there are free solutions that can get your company started automating activities. Check out programs like Zapier or IFTTT to explore the possibilities.
3. Migrating Out of Spreadsheets
Does your organization rely on Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets? If you answered yes, while you may feel like you’re saving money by working in free spreadsheet tools, you’re almost certainly losing money on the back end.
Manually managed spreadsheets are inaccurate. They’re also prone to data loss and need ample user input when compared to sleeker, cloud-based solutions.
No matter what tasks you manage at work, chances are, there’s a low-cost software solution that can make tackling those tasks more profitable.
4. Auditing Costs
Non-essential spending is a plague that works its way into just about every company. You must stay mindful of that and audit your costs on at least a bi-annual basis to make sure you’re not drowning in unnecessary expenditures.
Whether it’s having lunch catered bi-weekly or working with an expensive vendor because you have a long-standing relationship, get unemotional about cutting bloat so you can reinvest your money in things that improve your products and services.
5. Creating Security
No matter how much you champion business optimization, if your company is not insulated from adversity, you could lose everything in a heartbeat. That’s why we always close our optimization advice by letting businesses know they must invest in insurance.
It can be captive insurance (which you can click here to learn more about). It can be interruption insurance. It can be any number of other umbrella policies. Just make sure you never put being covered on the back-burner.
Business Optimization Will Help Your Company Ride the Rough Economy
Just because economic conditions are improving doesn’t mean you’re likely to see the same traction you saw a year ago. By investing in business optimization strategies, you can help offset losses.
We wish you the best as you push towards your goals. If you need additional advice, explore more content in our digital, business-focused publication.
