Over the past several months, we have seen a dramatic change in the way that people work. Many businesses have scaled back or even closed, while others have found innovative ways to continue to change in the face of growing challenges.
While the future is still uncertain, we know that it’s important to prepare for whatever the next few months hold, so there’s no better time to assess your digital strategy and innovate your business practices.
Businesses are being put under constant pressure to find new and more efficient ways of doing things, and technology can often provide the largest gains. If you’re a business owner trying to manage your business through a myriad of excel spreadsheets, post-it notes and whiteboards, now is the time to start your digital journey. Embracing new solutions can free up your time so you can focus on steering your business through the next 12 months.
An effective digital strategy matters now more than ever. The use of modern technologies gives businesses the opportunity to access real time information across each section of their organisation, from their product or service profitability to organising their teams shift patterns. This saves time in the long run by helping you to budget more effectively and make adjustments to your business as needed.
The app market continues to grow too, and the creation of app stacks by sector means that nearly every sector has the opportunity to transform. The rise in subscription-based pricing also presents companies of all sizes with huge opportunities to innovate, increase productivity and boost efficiency. However, the app marketplace is a digital minefield and having an effective strategy in place is essential to ensuring that your business is navigating safely through the implementation process.
In many ways, the rise in cloud-based apps has levelled the corporate playing field. Cloud services are giving smaller businesses the computing power that was once too costly for them to consider, while giving larger businesses a unique opportunity to streamline their processes and reduce long lead times.
Knowing where to begin can be the biggest stumbling block in this journey, but taking practical steps will ensure you can start to move forward.
Consider mapping out how much time you spend on administering your business activities, processing the same information in two or three places and your biggest problem areas. This process can be really helpful to start to quantify the cost of these activities. It can be easy to forget that your time holds value, so assessing how much time is spent on processes that can be automated and digitised can help you see how much income you’re missing out on because of manual processes. When we start to think of costs in this way, even some of the pricier pieces of software seem more affordable.
As we take stock and look ahead, now is the time to look at your digital strategy to streamline your business so you can be as future proof as possible. Putting software in place will help you to manage your business, organise your team, produce your products more efficiently and embrace this new world that we now find ourselves in.
If you would like professional advice, guidance or support about digitalising your business, please get in touch with our team today.
