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How to Maximize Your Team’s Performance When Working from Home

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Team Performance|How to Maximize Your Team’s Performance When Working from HomeHow can you make sure your team continues to perform while working from home?

This is a question many leaders have had to ask in recent times, and it’s an area that can make a big difference to your business performance. If you can get your team working at 100% while at home, then it’s going to benefit everyone.

Make a Plan & Create a Good Working Environment

If your team is going to work coherently when working from home, then everyone has to be on the same page. They have to understand the requirements, the goals they need to be working towards, and how you plan to achieve them.

You want to make the transition between office based, and work from home as easy as possible, so it’s important to decide on the procedures that are going to help you achieve this.

It can be difficult for people to adapt to working from home. It’s a different environment that presents different challenges, and you need to be able to help your team with this.

Give people guidance on how to set up a good working environment within their homes and make sure they have the resources to get the most out of their time. Office spaces have been optimized over many years to provide the best environment to work in, so it’s natural you will need to take time to figure out how to get the most out of people working from home.

Ensure You Have the Right IT Solutions & Focus on Security

You’ve got to have the right IT set up that allows you to work to the best of your ability. If you’re not using the right cloud software, or you don’t have a good internet connection, or any number of issues, then it can seriously impact your ability to function as part of a team.

This is where it’s important to be working with a good IT solutions company such as VentureNet to help make sure there’s a smooth transition between office and home-based work.

Security should be paramount for any business, and having staff members working from home presents different challenges in this area.

While your office environment should be optimized to maximize security, when people work from home, they can potentially be accessing important information with a lower level of security. Again, it’s important to work with your IT solutions company to make sure you’ve got the protocols in place that protect your business.

Remember : Balance Is Key

One of the difficulties with work from home is that it can completely change the balance people have between their personal life and their work life. The line becomes blurred, and this can be difficult to manage.
If your team is going to perform to the best of its ability though, people need to be able to make that distinction between work life and personal life. Rest is a key component of productivity, so make sure you’re giving your team plenty of help in this area and encourage them to maintain a healthy balance.

Why AI Can Revolutionise Healthcare Possibilities

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StrategyDriven Editorial Perspectives Article |AI in Healthcare|Why AI Can Revolutionise Healthcare PossibilitiesAI and machine learning are technologies which come with many promises. They are still advancing but, with the rate of development seen in recent years of numerous technologies in various industries, what it could look like in the very near future is potentially more impressive than we could imagine now. The promises are wide-reaching. They describe improved efficiency of information streams which will optimise, for example, urban planning and traffic management and financial services will benefit from improved data storage and modelling. Those are just two examples. The final promise is that AI will achieve a human level of intelligence. However, its more immediate impact is on human life.

For Healthcare

AI is making grounds in many industries. Recently, in the entertainment industry, YouTube used AI to organise an ‘infinite music video’ for Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’, in celebration of it hitting one billion views. One notable area for AI and machine learning’s application is in healthcare. The use of data in healthcare is widespread: its collection, entry, use, and modelling. AI and machine learning is and will continue to improve the process and product of this practice.
Data collection is constant. Patients are tested and retested regularly and their medical data is, therefore, updated. If – the more appropriate word is probably ‘when’ – instruments and machines are linked with each other and to databases – especially with the introduction of 5G wireless technology – data entry will be much easier, automated, and AI will have much more effective access to it.

This access will enable – with other data inputted from other areas, such as lifestyle choices and habits, to flesh out the profile (should that be permitted) – AI to make better and faster diagnoses and prognoses than the average doctor. This could help in two ways. One is that having better and faster diagnoses and prognoses is never bad. Two is that this could lighten the workload of human doctors and specialists, and mean that their presence can be prioritised elsewhere.

Patient Care

London tech entrepreneur Tej Kohli pours $100m into AI & machine learning ventures, which will help advance his humanitarian initiatives. His foundation is widely known for its commitment to curing corneal blindness, with other efforts including Open Bionics (a bionics and prosthetics company), Aromyx (who measure and digitises taste and scent), and Seldon (an open-source platform that allows developers and organisations to share data and train models and systems). This means AI and machine learning isn’t just about the data collection which aids diagnosis and prognosis. They will have a direct impact on patient care. Robotics and other advanced technology is making its presence felt already – for instance, in surgery (inspiring the ‘they did surgery on a grape’ meme).

The discovery and development of pharmaceuticals is an expensive and time-consuming process. The consequence of this falls to patients. AI will streamline this whole process: analysis of literature and molecules, simulations for theoretical human test subjects and real animal test subjects, and testing during the clinical trials. Moderna are another example of this, as they have used AI and cloud computing to develop personalised cancer treatments in short periods of time.

AI’s and machine learning’s steady implementation has begun to accelerate with recent developments and will only continue to find itself more often in the health sector now it’s being used more readily, as use breeds improvement.

5 Secrets to Building an Effective Team Strategy

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Team Strategy|5 Secrets to Building an Effective Team StrategyDoes your business have a team strategy? How engaged are your employees? A recent study found that 70 percent of U.S. workers are not engaged at work!

What can you do to strengthen your team? It all starts with team training and creating a culture of caring and pride in your company. Keep reading to see how you can create an effective team strategy.

1. Establish Leadership

Before you can build a team, establish proper leadership. This person sets the tone for the entire group, so you need to make sure you and your managers establish trust with all team members. The leader needs to be loyal, trustworthy, empowered, and have integrity, or else the team will not follow.

Employees need to trust their judgment. You also need to be transparent to build trust with your employees. Employees should be able to work effectively whenever management is not around because they know and trust the direction of leadership.

2. Have Core Ideas

You need to clearly define and also communicate your company’s values, mission, and vision. It is essential to get employee buy-in and alignment.

This helps empower your employees, so they know what to do when faced with a decision.

Let’s say you pride your company on delivering products on time. If an employee is faced with a decision, they know that they should come up with a solution that ties into this mission and delivers a product in a timely manner, even if it is an excavation project.

3. Establish Relationships With All Employees

It’s important to learn more about each team member. What are their skillsets? Likes or dislikes? And what motivates your employees?

Answering these questions is valuable knowledge and it lets you match each employee with the right role. You can set up employee training to help team members reach their goals. This will help increase production along with job satisfaction.
Include your employees in decision-making when possible. You should also give your team open-ended projects instead of telling them what to do. You may find a better solution, and you should also encourage cooperation and the development of problem-solving skills.

4. Foster Teamwork and Team Strategy

When you establish relations with your employees, it’s time to have them work together. Encourage employees to share information with the organization and amongst themselves. This means you also have to communicate more with your team.
This is more than just holding meetings and saying you have an open door policy. You need to be honest and communicate with your team. You can also offer assistance if needed and ask about each team member’s work.

5. Adapt and Learn

High-performance teams usually don’t get stuck in stagnant work processes. They are able to spot and stop potential errors before they happen. This means you have to be willing to adapt.

You should encourage experiments with your team and not be afraid to try new ways. Listen to your team. They may have good ideas to help you move forward.

Execute Team Training Today

Ready to implement a team strategy? You can. Listen to your employees and create an honest, open working relationship.
Set the stage for how you want your employees to act by showing effective leadership to gain your team’s trust. Set some training goals, so your team can continue to learn and adapt.

Looking for more ideas? Keep checking out our site for more effective leadership advice and learn more strategies to drive your business forward.

Increasing In-Store Visits In A Growing Online World

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Physical Store|Increasing In-Store Visits In A Growing Online WorldOnline shopping has become a massive new market in just the past twenty years. So much so, that now many businesses are purely online, with no physical stores.

But for those who balance both online and physical stores, how can you convince people to visit in-person? Surely, with the ease of access and greater range associated with online shopping, the prospect of coming in-store would seem unnecessary.

Yet your physical store or stores are great investments of capital and staff and can be a great source of revenue. To dismiss them could bring greater losses.

So how can you increase in-store visits in the online world we find ourselves?

Promotion

Customers aren’t going to come to your store if they don’t know where it is, and even if it exists! Depending on the location of your store, you might have to do more or less promotion.

If you find yourself on a busy high street, less promotion will be needed compared to if your store lies out of the way. But in both cases, a little promotion can’t hurt.

Window displays are a great way to catch passer-bys’ eyes. You can get really creative with these, so do some research into the kind of window display that will tempt the right demographic into your store.

Consider making yourself known within your community. Sponsoring community activities – like this company sponsoring the local football team – to promote goodwill, and advertise both place and purpose of your business.

Website

On a similar track to physical promotion, consider the promotion of your physical store on your website. This is a great place to promote, as you already have customers who are considering buying with you there.

Tactical SEO can actually bring customers into physical stores, so signing up for live SEO sessions will help.

The question lies around how to convince those already on your online store to shop physically. There are several options available to you in regards to this:

Quality and Price of Products

When customers shop with you, you want them to shop again—basic business strategy. To even consider tempting customers into your physical store, you first need them to want to shop again.

Therefore, focusing on both affordability (in relation to your target demographic) and quality across all products is necessary.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Physical Store|Increasing In-Store Visits In A Growing Online WorldRewards & Incentives

Another option for bringing customers to a physical store is to implement incentives. Physical stores can’t offer the range or ease of access that online stores can, so they must offer something else exclusive.

Try using offers like 3 for 2, or discounts on products that cannot be achieved online. Advertising these incentives on your online store has the potential to move customers away from online shopping and into the physical store.

By making these offers bright and eye-catching, it will be impossible for buyers to miss.

Presentation

So you have customers into your store with your promotions and incentives. How do you make them want to come back? The answer is simple: their shopping experience must be excellent.

Focusing the presentation of your store – from basics like wall colour to key details like store layout – can massively impact the shopping experience for consumers. You want everything to be clear and understandable, whilst also being a pleasant place to be.

Presentation isn’t just physical attributes, however. Your store is also presented either positively or negatively. Top-quality customer service is key to incentivising customers to return to your store to buy again.

Health & Safety

Right now, there is an extra level of importance when it comes to in-person stores. With the pandemic, fewer people are shopping in-store than ever before.

When people do come to shop in-store, they need to know that they will be safe. Depending on your location, there will be different regulations, but the inclusion of some general safety precautions can only serve to help you.

Safety precautions to follow:

  • Hand sanitiser upon entry to the store
  • Workers in masks or visors
  • Limited capacity depending on store size
  • One way systems

By following these safety precautions, customers are likely to feel much safer, and return to your store, as they know they will be protected.

Given the increasingly online world business must operate in now, it can seem like physical stores are growing to become dead weight. But a flourishing physical store can boost a business. All it takes is a willingness to focus resources onto enticing people into the store.

How to Make Your Money Grow in Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Growing Your Business|How to Make Your Money Grow in Business Making money as an entrepreneur has so much to do with your ability to identify opportunities and make the most of them. If you’ve started a business in the first place, then this means you’ve found a gap in the market that you can fill. In light of this, you should always be thinking about how you can grow beyond where you are and ultimately increase your reach and income further. There are several ways to achieve this, and all require you to get out of your comfort zone. If you consider that being uncomfortable is typically where all of the magic happens, then you’ll be more enthusiastic about exploring new territory. Below are practical ways to make your money grow in business.

Be Frugal

Just because you’re making money as a business, it doesn’t mean that you have to spend it at the same pace. It is crucial that you learn to manage your money and be frugal if you want to see your money experience steady growth financially. To be a frugal CEO, here are three approaches you could take.

Budget on Office Set Up: When setting up your office, it can be tempting to go all out. However, spending exorbitant amounts on furnishing isn’t necessarily going to give you the best return on your investment. Instead, look for ways to furnish on a budget such as by getting furniture that is slightly used or on clearance. The charity shop often also has fairly used or even new furniture that you can get at an affordable rate. Ask around to see how you can find affordable functional furniture so that you save space and money.

Control Legal Fees: Every business needs a lawyer but be careful not to spend too much on legal fees. These fees can eat out of your finances if they aren’t carefully managed. Focus on setting clear expectations with your lawyer before meetings, especially when their cost per hour is high. In some cases, you may even find that it’s better to pay on a per project instead of an hourly basis.

Monitor Cash Flow: As above use a fixed monthly fee accountant to keep your cash flow up to date on a monthly basis. 3 in 4 startups who do not monitor cash flow fail whilst 3 in 4 who do monitor their cash flow succeed. Be sure to shop around to find an accountant at the right cost.

DIY Marketing and PR: Aside from the mentioned, you should also make the most of the cost-effectiveness of digital marketing. Instead of hiring a PR firm in the early stages, try doing the pitching yourself to begin with. Doing this could also help build both trust and a good rapport which are tools that will get your business far. Social platforms are also ideal ways to get your brand out there without spending thousands on advertising too.

Consider Mixed Use Development

Mixed-use development is a way to grow your money as an entrepreneur. In case you’ve never heard about it before, in summary, it refers to buildings that have multiple units that are used for different purposes which are usually residential as well as commercial. You may be wondering how exactly this could benefit you as an entrepreneur. How it would work is that you could buy one or more mixed-use buildings and run your business in the commercial area while you live in, lease out or sell the other units. This could serve as a great business opportunity so read more here to find out how you could go about doing it.

Offer New Products and Services

Another straightforward way to make your money grow when running a business is to offer new products and services. Learn from the performance of your current range meaning you should do more of what’s working and improve on what isn’t. If, for instance, your customers seem to love a certain product, take the feedback and see how you can create something even better. Here are a few tips to consider when you want to launch a new product or service.

Ensure it Solves a Problem

Whether you’re launching your second or tenth product or service, you want to be certain that it solves a problem. If you look at some of the most successful ones you know, you’ll notice that they make people’s lives easier in one way or another. Creating a product that sells is about making something that’s simple, interesting, meaningful, entertaining, and long-lasting. The more value that it adds, the more likely it will do well in the market.

Build Buzz

Before launching a new product, it’s so essential that you first take the time out to build buzz. This is key as you want to build excitement and get people to anticipate this product and the value it could add to their lives. By doing this, you’re more likely to get the kind of response you want form customers and prospects.

Devise a Strong Strategy

A product launch strategy will help you map out how to launch your product from start to finish. Start by doing this as it will work as a guiding force to help you execute your plan. When you have an effective strategy in place, you’re less likely to miss out on important elements of a product launch and also more likely to prevent major mistakes. With that being said, there are several templates you can use online to help you flesh out your strategy.

Have a Growth Strategy

Earlier on, it was mentioned that you should have a strategy for launching a product, but you should note that you also need one if you want to grow. When you have a growth strategy in place, you’ve got a better idea of where you’re going as a business and how you’re going to get there. You may decide that you’re going to start with one product for the first year and then diversify your income as a business in the second year of operating, for instance. It’s essential that you think through what direction you want to grow in, so you put measures in place to ensure that you get there.

Every business has to steadily grow if they want to remain in business and expand on to do bigger and better things. However, in order to see the growth you want, you’ve got to commit to learning and trying new strategies.