Being a business owner means taking chances on your ideas, yourself, and your team. You have faith that the company you’ve founded or acquired will make its mark. Each day you’re prepared to face challenges, including finding ways to streamline ops and keep a lid on costs.
Expenses may be a part of doing business, but as a shrewd owner, you’re constantly seeking ways to cut waste. You’re on the hunt for the unnecessary kind, such as hidden redundancies and tech that isn’t delivering value. Like a good employee, you want the technology you invest in to create short and long-term efficiencies. Here are four tools to help your company get there.
1. Content Software
Promoting your products and services is something your team probably does every day. Whether it’s a conversation with a prospect or a piece of online content, you aim to engage and convert. Nonetheless, creating an effective mix of high-performing content is another beast altogether.
It starts with analysis and brainstorming before you move into execution. During the analysis and ideation stages, it’s easy to get pumped up. You’re excited about what your content can do and who it can reach. Yet, these steps in your content marketing plan are also some of the most challenging.
The process can become inefficient as your team gets stuck in analysis paralysis. Utilizing an AI platform can improve efficiency by reducing overall costs. There are tools that will identify what content you have and what’s missing, saving the team time. You can create research-backed content clusters to organize your materials, and your team won’t have to wonder what might rank or build your brand’s topical authority. You’ll also discover which subjects to expand on, creating more value for your company and audience.
2. Project Management Tools
Keeping a to-do list and checking it twice sounds simple enough. When you scale this concept to your operations though, you’re setting the team up for failure. Without some form of overarching tracking system, tasks of all urgency levels will fall through the cracks. After this happens, the qualitative and quantitative costs can show up in unexpected ways.
Your top client might forgive you for a missed deadline once or twice. But your team’s morale and the customer relationship you’ve worked so hard on will weaken. The negative effects are likely to emerge as fewer projects, hesitancy, and more mistakes due to a loss of confidence.
Project management tools ensure everyone maintains the big picture and granular view of all initiatives. You also don’t have to spend a lot to get robust software with features like time tracking and calendar integration. Some platforms, such as Trello, offer free versions. If you own a small business, entry-level options can be a cost-effective fit. And if you operate on a larger scale, trying a free version before upgrading is less expensive or risky.
3. Sales Gamification Apps
If your sales team isn’t closing deals, it’s a drain on your business. There could be numerous reasons for the inefficiencies, such as unpersuasive presentation material and insufficient negotiation training. Sometimes it’s a lack of reasonable incentives that dampens motivation.
Say you offer an adequate base salary, but the commission structure isn’t up to par. Sales reps also don’t receive any form of recognition for a job well done. They frequently aren’t aware of how they measure up in terms of the company’s goals. These are problems you can fix with sales gamification apps like Ambition.
Yes, you can use technology similar to Duolingo to incentivize your sales team to boost efficiency. Within the software, employees will see their progress toward group and individual goals. These apps also recognize excellent work and virtually reward team members for their achievements. Gamification software communicates objectives, motivates progress, and recognizes wins in a fun, streamlined way.
4. Supply Chain Tools
Imagine being the owner of a candy company. Your peak season is from October to January due to the holidays and your themed product lines. You operate year-round, but your ramp-up periods typically comprise the third and fourth quarters. The business’s supply chain consists of multiple vendors for several key ingredients, manufacturing facilities, and warehouses.
Lately, you’ve been noticing the ROI on one of your main products is trending downward. Due to competitive market dynamics, raising the price isn’t feasible if you want to move the product. You need to target supply chain costs by identifying improvement areas in raw materials, distribution, or manufacturing.
Supply chain software can optimize logistics from start to finish. With these tools, you’ll determine whether you’ll boost efficiency by switching vendors and modifying your inventory practices. Maybe you can increase ROI by sourcing ingredients from a different supplier without compromising quality. Consolidating your distribution network could reduce storage time, cutting down on expired products. Supply chain management tools like SAP Integrated Business Planning can provide end-to-end visibility into your supply chain, helping you anticipate demand fluctuations and optimize inventory levels. By using predictive analytics and real-time data, you can make informed decisions that minimize waste and reduce costs
Using Tech to Cut Costs
Technology is integral to business operations. Still, it isn’t usually the first place leaders look when aiming to trim expenses. Those initial thoughts typically focus on headcount and entries on the balance sheet. Cutting costs doesn’t have to mean axing expenses until you’re left with the bare minimum.
Instead, you can create efficiencies through technology that reduces or eliminates ineffective processes. Content cluster, project management, sales gamification, and supply chain management software represent some of the tools at your disposal. Once you adopt them, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do so sooner.
