If you really want to be more profitable and improve your business operations, you need to shift your focus from the following limiting thoughts about technology.
- If I buy the latest production software we’ll be in good shape
- we don’t do that here
- We are unique, we have no competition that uses technology to help them generate profits
- The plan is in my head, people will steal it from the computer
- All I need is more sales for more profit
You need to get in the right mindset by removing restrictive thoughts, and then you’re ready to improve people, processes, and profitability.
Have you ever wondered how a company can start with a single idea, passion and vision, and after 10 to 20 years have thousands of employees and millions in sales?
- What did these companies do to be so successful?
- Are the owners smarter than you?
- Do they work harder than you?
- Did they have better teams or people than you?
No. But they use better technology tools to drive the operation (the people and the process). Operations account for about 60-80% of all your overhead costs, but are the least understood by American businesses.
For decades, the Japanese have focused on operations that have driven innovation and a culture of continuous improvement. In the right hands of a small business owner, operations and technology can be a competitive weapon.
Now ask yourself how your small business, with only a handful of employees and limited resources, can turn operations and technology applications into a powerful weapon for beating the competition and learning how to grow and prosper.
Why invest in technology / What are the benefits
The bottom line is, if you have tight cash flow, depleted credit lines, and top-line growth, then you have weak operations and have underutilized on-premises or off-the-shelf technology applications that can help you.
The first step to rapid profit improvement is to start by questioning your employees. They usually know where expensive blockages and bottlenecks are hiding.
The technology can store the results of employee surveys that help you plan for profitability.
Employee Questionnaire (Sample)
- Are your interests and ambitions being challenged?
- Does each department in this company have a measurable standard designed to increase profitability? Does each area have documentation of process flows and procedures on how it should work?
- Does everyone in this company share the goal of improving the company’s profits? Does the CEO hold town hall meetings on “planned earnings”?
- Are you regularly told when you do a good job?
- Do you get the help you need to do a good job?
- As an employee, do you feel that you can trust your direct supervisor/manager?
- Are the owners/managers open and honest with the employees?
- Does the company provide you with ongoing training in areas that will make you a better employee? Have you been trained on how to reduce operating expenses or increase revenue to improve profits in your area?
- Are your responsibilities generally explained, well planned and organized?
- Does management tolerate poor performance? that is, worker performance, bottlenecks in operations, and customer relations.
The following are other ways business productivity software drives business processes more efficiently for optimal results:
Create an open and communicative environment.
By storing appraisal information within a formal database, managers can more easily communicate business strategy and create measurable goals for their employees that will support overall company objectives. By allowing employees to see the bigger picture and better understand how individual goals fit into the company’s business objectives. This can create energized and engaged employees, thus increasing the business productivity of the company.
Motivate your employees using technology.
Based on information collected in an online performance appraisal, managers can compare current skills with those required for advancement or other recognition or reward opportunities as the manager tracks progress on goals. of employees throughout the year. He may also find that he needs to redirect employees to different departments if he thinks his business productivity could be increased elsewhere. If there are impediments to better performance, the company should review why this is happening and try to remove them through better resource allocation or additional training.
Monitor business productivity and employee progress on goals.
Business productivity software solutions enable managers to more easily track progress during each phase of goal achievement and offer immediate reinforcement or training to keep performance and timelines on track in daily operations, using metrics performance for strategic planning.
electronic commerce
There are many business applications related to eCommerce, from setting up your online store to managing your supply chain and marketing your products and services. These technologies fall into three main categories:
Business to Business (B2B)
- Purchase of indirect supplies
- Look for catalog-based websites offered by vendors for corporate purchasing, similar to business-to-customer websites, to buy indirect supplies like office furniture, pens, paper, and general office equipment.
- Leveraging your existing web presence
- Enhance your existing business-to-customer eCommerce website. Further sophistication can be added to your online store to target your business clientele.
Business to customer (B2C)
The global reach of the Internet has allowed many companies to sell their products and services online, both at home and abroad. An e-store is a website with many pre-built e-commerce components, such as electronic shopping carts and secure payment gateways, that you can use to set up an online store.
internet marketing
Everything you do to promote your business online is internet marketing. For example, Internet marketing strategies include (but are not limited to) website design and content, search engine optimization, directory submissions, reciprocal linking strategies, online advertising, and email marketing.
How to implement technology to increase profits
IT implementation can be a valuable tool for increasing productivity in the workplace, but without careful selection of the right technologies for your specific industry and comprehensive employee training, it can also reduce productivity, profitability, and productivity. employee satisfaction. The return on investment will depend on whether the technologies implemented are suitable for the needs of a given business and how prepared employees are to use them.
Step 1
Brainstorm a list of business process improvements you could make from a technology implementation. Your list should include three categories: improvements that you know are possible and are basic requirements for your spending; a wish list of things you would like to have, but may be future development efforts; and a list of things that would transform the way you do business, but may not be possible. These three goals give you a current implementation goal as well as a future development goal, and your transformation goals may be much easier to achieve than you expect.
Step 2
Determine if you intend to develop these technologies using internal resources or through external consultancies. Almost all of the major workflow technologies require extensive customization, implementation procedures, and training. Sometimes small businesses can get by cheaply using technologically competent staff members, but mistakes made early in the process can add to costs later when professional outside support is called upon.
Step 3
Avoid specifying particular technologies if you do not have the technical expertise to properly evaluate them. The purpose of the managerial process at this stage is to define goals and budget constraints; Non-technical managers who marry specific technologies too early can miss out on substantial cost savings and choose a technology that is not the best fit for the job.
Stage 4
Circulate your request for proposals to external consultants and implementers, or set up an internal process to do the same to your staff if you keep the work internal. Major technology implementations will not succeed if they are added to an employee’s existing workload. Proper technology implementations can be more than a full-time job in itself. Staff members transferred to technology implementation should transfer their existing functions to other staff resources.
step 5
Negotiate a time frame, budget, and implementation benchmarks with your external or internal staff resources. If you’re working with an outside consultant, your contract should include protections against over-budgeting and over-scheduling. Similarly, the consultant will protect his own business by setting specific terms of the work to be completed and charging you extra if you change them during the course of the contract.
step 6
Develop a deployment schedule, including the following steps: test deployment to review work; training, if necessary; a transition phase from the current workflow to the new technology; and production deployment of the complete technology. This last phase is usually followed by an iterative process, in which improvements to the technology are gathered from personnel who have direct experience working with it. When budget and time allow, cycle your technology again to ensure you get the most out of it.
