A company looking to optimize costs across key business processes and improve operational efficiency needs a clear efficiency strategy. Check out proven strategies to help your business grow and prosper.
Strategy 1: building a management system
In order not to find your company in a situation where it doesn’t have enough money, not only for development, but also for keeping afloat, you need to build a management system. First of all, define goals and KPIs, fine-tune management accounting and financial plans. All business processes of the company must be planned in a single paradigm, namely, to automate them and link them together. This will allow you to more accurately track the achievement of goals.
Strategy 2: reduce fixed costs
Often an organization is faced with a problem when the share of fixed costs is growing, and the share of variables is decreasing. The bulk of the costs are for marketing, logistics, general production and management costs. Various methods can be used to reduce fixed costs: for example, a company that sells its services via the internet needs not only the development of gambling websites (variable costs), but also technical support (fixed costs). Choosing a profitable and qualified soft provider will help reduce the ongoing cost of maintaining a website.
Strategy 3: outsource helper functions
Specialized companies tend to perform support functions for your business more efficiently than you do. In order for outsourcing to be not only effective, but also profitable, it’s necessary to evaluate the cost of the process and the real contribution of the outsourcing company to the savings strategy for your company.
Strategy 4: standardize employee actions
The lack of a system for standardizing operations in the company leads to critical errors when rotating or replacing personnel, as well as to lengthy training of new employees when they are forced to ask “old-timers” to let them know the specifics of the necessary actions. To maintain the required level of quality of operations and minimize operational risks during the growth and development of the company, the manager needs to form a system for standardizing operations by creating operational or job descriptions.
Strategy 5: increasing customer focus
Try to look at your business processes through the eyes of a client by surveying them or using the “mystery shopper” service, because it’s on the basis of the “voice of the client” that you can determine what needs to be changed in an existing business process, service or product to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In conclusion
But the most important strategy of all is the coordinated work of management and staff, because the team is a decisive factor in improving business efficiency. With a clear understanding of the organization’s goals, the team can work together to achieve them.
