Improving your Productivity is easier than you may think!
According to Close Brothers, in terms of productivity – something assumed to be one of the largest challenges facing business – the UK lags behind the rest of the G7 by 16%. And, nearly half of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) say new technology would increase overall productivity by 46%, improve staff efficiency by 50%, and help up-skill staff by 43%. In this context, only 45% of UK small business have recently invested in technology, with three out of four businesses having no plans to invest in technology. So, with this in mind, below are 3 ways to improve productivity for your business.
1. Take your Accounting to the Cloud
The filing of VAT returns online – under the UK government’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative – requires ongoing management of your company accounts, from invoicing and payments to expenses and payroll. Subsequently, you have plenty of platform options to help you do this, with each platform having the relevant tools to effectively manage your accounts. However, not all solutions on the market have been finalised for Making Tax Digital. We recommend you use QuickBooks Online, with the company suggesting that by filing your VAT returns online, your company will have a better overview of cash flow in real time, and you will be able to better manage your human resources – thus freeing your time for more productive activities such as sales, marketing, and training. This is why you should know that MTD has the power to catalyse an immediate annual £6.9 billion net gain in productivity for the UK economy, or £46 billion over five years, according to Intuit QuickBooks.
2. Manage your Customer Journey through CRM
As a modern business, you need to digitise your customer relationship through CRM, customer-relationship management. This will, in turn, strengthen your understanding and management of your customers’ journey, so as to increase your revenues and reduce your costs. Whether you accomplish this by winning new customers, finding new ways to deliver more value to your existing customers, or improving efficiency and productivity, it’s crucial you have good visibility of what’s happening in your business – and effective control over your key ways to improve performance. CRM can give your business that visibility and control. In addition, CRM can provide you with improved communication and collaboration, automation of everyday tasks, and better reporting capabilities. All of these are invaluable to upping your productivity – but potentially your biggest advantage is centralisation: having all your information in one place. Lastly, make sure CRM is integrated into your cloud accounting package, to drive a more effective and integrated front office back office approach.
3. Automate and Socialise your Marketing
Did you know that automated marketing amplifies what you’re already doing in marketing? It automates all your digital channels through which you push messages out. A decade ago, this meant scheduling emails. Today, automated marketing systems have become more sophisticated and broader, handling all your online marketing campaigns whether it’s through Twitter, email or online advertising. In fact, marketing automation strengthens your customer relationships, scales your marketing campaigns, and makes it easy to integrate your lead generation efforts into your sales cycle. Through this, it enables your company to be more creative and saves you time, harnessing your hard-won marketing leads to sales, and measuring your campaign’s success. In turn, this allows your marketers to quickly and easily profile and target customers, gather business intelligence, and run email campaigns and events.
