Reducing Your Small Business Costs in 3 Steps

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article | Reducing Your Small Business Costs in 3 Steps | Reduce Costs | Entrepreneurship | Managing Your BusinessTo take your small business to the lofty heights of being a market leader in the foreseeable future, you’re going to have to start turning over a major profit sooner rather than later. To do this, you have to treat solidifying the money that you do make just as seriously as actually making it. It’s quite simple – if you continue to waste your profit, you won’t be able to invest it into further growth going forward.

One way you can solidify the revenue that you earn is to cut down on your overall expenditure. To find out how you can reduce your small business costs in only three steps, be sure to read on.

Rent equipment for short-term projects… don’t buy it

If you have a short-term project on the horizon, don’t squander the potential profit that you stand to make from it by buying tools specifically for it. It may be tempting to invest in a shiny piece of brand new equipment, but buying something that you aren’t realistically going to use going forward isn’t good business practice whatsoever – it’ll just be a waste of money. Instead, what you should do is rent the equipment that is essential to your work for the duration of the project only. Doing so will see you spend far less in the long run without having to sacrifice the tools that you need to do a good job.

There are plenty of ways for you to rent the equipment that you need to optimize your next project, not just complete it. If you’re in need of I.T. tools, for instance, you could turn to Smart. As stated at Smart.uk.com, this leasing company can offer your business everything, from short-term laptop rental to website hosting to a complete I.T. infrastructure that can be loaned for 12 months plus. Whatever tech you need to complete your next job, this rental service will be able to provide you with it.

Ditch your traditional landline

The days of the landline being the be-all-and-end-all of business communication are well and truly over. Today, using this kind of communicative tool will do nothing but see you pay out unnecessarily expensive annual costs. If you do anything to cut your business expenses, then, let it be to ditch your office’s traditional landline.

There are plenty of alternative ways to keep communication alive within your business, some of which include:

Switching to the VoIP phone service is a wise move. Its functionality will help you to reduce the phone bills and to improve your interaction with customers. You just need to find your VoIP provider match in terms of a plan and options and Nextiva reviews will be helpful in while making your choice.

Go paperless

The amount of money that you spend on paper, ink, toner, and all of your other printer accessories may seem minimal at the time, but it will soon add up. Before you know it, you’re spending way more than you should be spending on printing… and way more than you need to be spending, as well. There is something that you can do to cut this kind of cost right down, and that is to go paperless. Whether you decide to get rid of your printer completely, or whether you resolve to only print when necessary, transitioning to, say, a digital invoice service will no doubt see you save a lot of money going forward.

4 ways to future-proof your business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Future-proof your business|4 ways to future-proof your businessThe business landscape is highly volatile. New developments both economic and social can have a massive impact on how your business functions. This sometimes makes it seem difficult to plan ahead, exposing you to problems further down the line. Future-proofing a business isn’t as difficult as it sounds, though, and these tips should help.

1. Invest in automation and artificial intelligence

Automation and artificial intelligence go hand in hand and they’re both set to play a big role in the future of business. You can start today by automating simple tasks like answering emails, setting automatic software updates for your network and even your social media profile. Artificial intelligence is everywhere, too, and easy to implement. Chatbots can streamline your customer service department and they can even be used to build mailing lists and work on customer outreach programs. Adopting these technologies early will ensure that your business is well equipped to face the future, whatever it holds.

2. Hire an advisor

No matter your intentions, your knowledge of future tech can never really match up to that of a professional advisor. These people spend every day of their lives learning about how businesses will develop. They specialize not just in predicting business trends, but in telling you how best to leverage them. Advisors like https://www.gioletellier.com/ are well placed to make predictions and ensure that your business never falls behind the curve. An additional benefit of hiring an advisor is that they take the strain off you and your staff. Future-proofing demands an enormous amount of data crunching and analysis. Having somebody else do this for you frees up staff to concentrate their energies elsewhere.

3. Research

Research and development is a key component of any healthy business. Continual innovation ensures a steady flow of ideas that can be transformed into products and cash flow. Future research is slightly different, however. It pays to research what your competitors are doing and how bigger businesses in your sector are embracing change for the better. Keep a continual eye on your customer base, too. Demographics might change as time goes by so it’s important never to lose sight of who you’re selling to. A continuous cycle of research and implementation ensures that you’re never taken by surprise if a sudden change occurs or market conditions shift.

4. Gather data

Following on from the previous point, translate themes into data. If your identify shifts in the market, customer base changes or the mass adoption of a new technology occurs, translate those trends into raw data. This makes change more easily quantifiable and gives you something to compare, month on month, year on year. Data allows you to trace not just the trajectory of your business, but that of the business world as a whole. Too many companies are taken by surprise by sudden market shifts, but if you continue to amass and monitor data, it shouldn’t be a challenge to identify potential disruption before it happens.

How to Successfully Relocate to a New Office

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Office Relocation|How to Successfully Relocate to a New OfficeWhen your business starts to grow to a good size, it may well be the case that you would like to move to a new office. Whether you are moving out of your bedroom or simply to new premises, it makes sense that you do everything that you can to ensure that the move goes smoothly. Here, we will be looking at some of the key ways that you can complete this goal successfully.

Start the Planning Stages Early On

The more time that you give yourself to plan the office move, the more likely it is that you are going to make a success of it. This gives you the maximum amount of time to find the right office location, as well as get all of the logistical headaches out of the way. You can also think about some of the smaller details, such as how to pack a portable storage container. The other main part of the planning stages is letting all of your employees know about the move. They may all have personal changes that they need to make – particularly if you are moving over a significant distance.

Appoint a Person to Oversee the Move

When you are entirely involved in running the business yourself, it can be a massive challenge to try and manage the whole move by yourself. Therefore, it is certainly worth appointing the right person to oversee the move right from the start.

This should be a person who possesses all of the right qualities to make a success of it. To begin with, this means having great organizational abilities. As well as this, they should be able to communicate well too. Ideally, the person that you choose to entrust will have had experience in dealing with other major projects in the past. This way, you have a much clearer idea of whether or not they are up to the task.

Conduct Your Research in Finding a Moving Company

When you are engaged in a professional office move, it is often the case that you are going to need to find a moving company to help out with the job. There are a number of different factors to take into account. Obviously, the bottom-line price is one of them. Not only this, but you also need to know what sort of reputation they possess. If you are able to get a personalized recommendation from a company that you have worked with closely in the past, this can help out significantly, as you know that you can trust the moving firm.

Get Your Staff to Help Out

You should entrust your staff members to help out with the individual aspects of the move, such as clearing out their own desks. After all, you do not want to be put in charge of all their possessions. Make sure that you give everybody enough time to take care of their own packing. This way, stuff is less likely to get lost or damaged along the way.

Make Sure That Your IT Systems and Utilities Are Set Up

When you arrive at your new office, you want to get up and running as quickly as possible. In the modern world, this means getting the IT systems working. Again, you should make sure that you give yourself enough time to get them working.

Otherwise, there can be a significant business interruption that you have to deal with. This can be potentially harmful to any future profit margins that you would have otherwise been able to achieve. Not only should you get the IT facilities and Wi-Fi sorted, but you also need to think about establishing the utilities. These include all of the electricity and gas suppliers. This presents you with a good opportunity to switch suppliers if this is something that you need to do, and you may even be able to get a better deal somewhere down the line.

Ensure You Let Your Customers Know

As well as all of the logistical challenges that you have to deal with along the way, it may also be worth letting your customers know that you are moving to a new location. This is particularly the case if you run a customer-facing company that relies on people coming into the business directly. However, even if you run a B2B business, it is still worth informing them. Not only does this help to prevent any logistical challenges along the way, but it also shows that your business is on the rise, which may help to retain their custom for an extended period of time.

Make Sure You Have Done All the Measurements Accurately

There is nothing more frustrating than arriving at your new office building, only to find that you cannot even fit the sofa through the front door. Therefore, it is certainly worth measuring everything up properly and working out where it is all going to be put. You should also think about this from the position of expansion. If you only get an office space that is just big enough, you will not have anything that you are able to grow into. If you think through the small details now, you will save yourself plenty of headaches in the future.

Celebrate Your Office Opening

When you have been through the whole process of moving to a new office, it is worth taking the time to celebrate everything that you have accomplished. It may even be the case that you would like to have a launch party and invite some of your clients along to the event. This is particularly important if you are trying to establish yourself in a new neighborhood, which can be tough when you are a new business.

Relocating to a new office has more than its fair share of challenges. However, if you are properly prepared and follow the advice listed in this blog post, it is much more likely that you will be able to do it successfully.

4 Straightforward IT Solutions To Improve Your Small Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Small Business IT Solutions|4 Straightforward IT Solutions To Improve Your Small BusinessIf you are running a small business, IT will be an integral part of your day-to-day operations. Do you face any issues within your small business when it comes to IT management? Would you know what to do if there was a potential data breach? Are your systems secure? IT is consistently evolving, but there are several straightforward solutions to help your small business. Follow these steps and watch your business thrive like never before.

Asset Management

You will already be well aware that no business can run successfully without its assets. As this is so, it also cannot run proficiently without an asset management process successfully implemented.

This will ensure that you are using the assets you have to their full potential. Once you have prepared to replace an asset that is approaching the end of its life, you will be able to maintain a schedule and ensure assets are functioning for their entire life cycle. This will ultimately save you money, ensuring that your needs are met with available but unused resources, rather than opting to purchase something new.

Backup and Disaster Recovery Systems

Losing data can prove to be detrimental to a business, and small businesses often suffer worst. Disaster cannot always be averted but having a plan in place can help if the unexpected is to happen. This will save you time, as these issues can take hours or even days to restore, as well as saving you money in the long run.

Implementing a Proactive Process

Being proactive is often overlooked. If you are aware of details such as how quickly servers take to come back once they have crashed, how long support issues take to be resolved and the time it takes to restore lost data, you will be in a proactive, positive position.

Being aware of this is one thing, but if your server never goes down, you may not even need to know. Proactive measures can include:

  • Software updates
  • Hardware audits
  • Preventative maintenance

Apply Security Measures

Managed security services are essential for any small business who wants to keep their data safe. By applying security best practices, you can avoid data breaches. This can be easily implemented by controlling who views sensitive in formation, by having effective password policies, and safeguarding customer information.

Additionally, you should also bear in mind that your company could well get audited. This will mean that you must have the ability to clearly show that there is a process in place that will ensure your company’s critical information is secure. If you can show it can be restored easily at a later date, you will be in the clear. You should keep these 4 process in mind on a day-to-day basis, and always have an IT plan in place. When determining the best processes for a driven and successful small business, explore the many options available.

Having an in-depth plan in terms of IT will help you run your small business efficiently, effectively and with ease.

7 Key Benefits of Trucking Dispatch Software

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Trucking Dispatch Software|7 Key Benefits of Trucking Dispatch SoftwareFleet operators are now confronted with a slew of difficulties. Managing drivers who are continuously working long hours and traveling from one state to another is problematic. Ensuring the safety of your drivers and assets while reducing operational expenses is a tricky balancing act—and that’s on top of guaranteeing all of your deliveries happen on time.
The operational problems of maintaining a fleet necessitate the use of the proper tools, which includes trucking dispatch software for many firms. Trucking dispatch software may make fleet management appear as simple as a stroll in the park by simplifying routing and driver assignments.

The appropriate tracking software offers many benefits to fleet operators, including;

1. Operations that run more smoothly

Trucking dispatch Scheduling software has grown in popularity in recent years because of its convenience for fleet management. Fleet managers are better prepared to plan with the help of simple dashboards that provide essential information on a single screen. They can easily organize the flow of cargo between hubs, cities, and borders. End-users may communicate more easily thanks to the live chat functionality.

AI and machine learning capabilities are frequently included in trucking dispatch software. As a result, it may assist in determining the most effective routes, planning truck loading schemes, mapping out a courier delivery schedule, and planning maintenance. With such responsibilities handled by transportation dispatch scheduling software, your company may sail past all of the bumps in the road.

2. Improved reaction time

Unforeseen situations are a common occurrence in field operations. You have no influence over external conditions. It might be bad weather, car breakdown, blocked roads, or a variety of other factors impeding your operations. There are only two options in such instances: either you allow it to damage your entire business like a domino effect, or you are well equipped to deal with the difficult conditions.

The latter is only achievable with a sophisticated dispatch management system. It can immediately devise an alternate route in the event of a blockage, dispatch a rescue team in the event of a car breakdown, employ live chat features for immediate help, and plan with the weather in mind. One example of how these technologies are excellent for rapid response is the flexibility of an emergency medical dispatch scheduling system.

3. Manual Labor Reduction

Matching drivers and vehicles with delivery assignments is a time-consuming operation that takes significant time away from dispatchers and other back-office employees. You may enable your team to focus on other higher-value activities if you can minimize time spent on the manual job of allocating drivers through automation.

4. Increasing Agility

Improved visibility, as a result of GPS integration, real-time order status updates, and interactive mapping, may also assist your business in responding to problems more rapidly. After all, a lot can and will go wrong when drivers are on the road, and real-time data on your fleet helps management spot issues before they become unsalvageable. Real-time data also helps fleet dispatchers and management make proactive, well-informed decisions when dealing with a situation. As a consequence, both exception management and incoming customer call volumes are improved.

5. Greater transparency

One issue you typically face as a field service business owner is a lack of clear information about what is going on in the field at any particular time. When you send a team of employees to the field, there is no way to know if they are executing their duties correctly unless you send a supervisor with them. That cannot be an efficient approach to deal with such circumstances.

Trucking dispatch software has features that allow you to manage scattered crews easily. Remote time stamps, resource monitoring, and workflow tracking provide a clearer picture of what is being done regularly.

6. Increased scalability

Growing a firm has its own set of problems. Managers find themselves in uncharted terrain when they are required to handle more resources and employees than planned. If you’ve been utilizing manual dispatch management methods, the issue becomes even worse.

A trucking dispatch software, on the other hand, makes expansion your business’s second nature. You may easily grow the number of your fleet, your region of operations, the size of your crew, and even the type of services you offer.

7. Automation of tasks

Automation is becoming more widespread in organizations, and trucking companies are no exception. There are several jobs that a trucking dispatch application can and should do.

For example, if we talk about a company that delivers orders for an eCommerce website, barcode scanning can be automated. Another important activity that may be automated is dispatch scheduling. The program would consider the due dates of goods waiting at the hub and then send couriers accordingly.

Conclusion

The sooner you transition from manual and old systems to sophisticated software, the better your bottom line will be. Whether you manage 15 or 500 trucks, trucking dispatch software is a must-have for every field service company. When compared to traditional methods of dispatch management, trucking dispatch software makes considerably more sense!