What is business efficiency?
Making your business more efficient is a vast and challenging process. The first question that most companies have to face is what efficiency mean? You can describe efficiency in a variety of ways. Firstly, it can refer to making the most of your working hours in the office. Additionally, efficiency also relates to your equipment, and more especially IT and technology as decisions in this field can impact dramatically on your profitability and productivity. Thirdly, your team remains your most valuable asset; therefore, efficient team management can make a huge difference in boosting performance, productivity, and achieving high-quality results. Finally, in the 21st century, it has become unthinkable to maintain your business positioning without considering sustainability, aka making the most efficient use of natural resources. If efficiency isn’t yet part of your business strategy, it’s time to make it a priority for 2020.
Interruptions cost you 70% productivity
The office environment is a world of interruptions. We live in a culture of meetings, which can disrupt day-to-day work dramatically. Additionally, it’s not uncommon for co-workers to disturb each other throughout the day. The typical “have you got a minute?” last-minute appointment can eat up your productivity by up to 70%. Limiting interruptions in the workplace can be hard work. However, by encouraging your team to block out time to focus and reducing meeting frequency, you can transform your productivity.
Slow and ineffective IT waste time
How long does it take to manage shared projects when you don’t use a common platform? While it can be tricky for small businesses to maintain their in-house IT services, dedicated partners such as Networx IT Solutions are a vital ally to increase access to information, and speed up team projects. Ultimately, a slow network can not only cost you a lot of time, but it leads to frustration, impatience, errors, unsatisfied customers.
Heavy workloads affect health and performance
When the typical day at work turns from 9-to-5 to 5-to-9, it’s a strong indication that something is going wrong somewhere along with your resource management strategy. Indeed, overworked employees are at high risk of burnout. The accumulated fatigue can cause a loss in concentration and quality. Unfortunately, too many businesses fail to plan appropriate resource management, allocating tasks to encourage balanced team work and personal work. Task management expert, Wrike, notes that investing in a software tool to spread work allocation evenly can protect your staff and your productivity.
Make the most efficient use of natural resources
You can’t afford to ignore your impact on the environment any longer. If we are to reduce our carbon footprint and reverse the climatic crisis, everybody, including companies, has to work towards a greener future. Developing strategies for the most efficient use of resources such as energy and water can transform the climatic situation in a matter of years. Reducing waste and pollution and generating sustainable solutions should now become on top of your strategy for the years to come.
How efficient is your business?
The most honest answer is that it isn’t efficient enough. But you can seize the opportunity to improve your strategies and processes to boost your productivity, sustainability, performance, and profits in the name of efficiency.