In business, time is money! Like most clichés, this one has enough truth to it that it is worth remembering. Whenever you or your business wastes their time, you are, in a sense, throwing money away. When a business ceases to operate with efficiency and purpose, it begins a slow and lumbering descent to irrelevance.
That inefficiency is your enemy, and can pose a serious risk to your business, which cannot be overemphasized. Whenever you identify inefficiencies, you need to work quickly to rectify them. This is one of those cases where it is much better to be proactive rather than reactive.
New startups are particularly vulnerable to the effects of inefficiency. By putting efficiency using Office Answers at the heart of your management decisions, you will rapidly foster the same attitude amongst your employees. Once you have a decent, well-oiled, system in place, you will find that efficiency breeds more efficiency. Here are some simple ways of encouraging your business to behave more efficiently.
Always Have a Plan
If you are a particularly cautious entrepreneur, you may well be reading this article before your startup has begun operations. If so, good for you! This means that you get to put things on the right track from the very beginning.
You should always have a plan of action. When you are preparing to open your business fully, you should be producing a detailed business plan which lays out your objectives and how to achieve them. If you are unsure how to do this, check out this business plan template.
If your business is already trading, think about what your short and long-term goals are and begin planning how to achieve them.
Lead by Example
As you set about putting your plans for the business into action, you need to be thinking about efficiency at every stage. If you can demonstrate to your employees that efficiency is something that is important to your business, they will feel more inclined to prioritize efficiency themselves.
Little things like decreasing paper usage and general wastage around the office can make a very big difference to how your employees behave.
No More Pointless Meetings
Team meetings should occur regularly, but they shouldn’t be a chore. There’s no reason why a team meeting should be a tedious affair. It’s one thing to have an unproductive team meeting when corporate has sent you a bunch of memos to read out, it’s quite another when you are in charge of the business.
Use team meetings to discuss any issues in workflow. For example, if the work of one department is regularly being held up because another department is missing deadlines, this should be flagged, and a solution found.
Visualize Your Workflow
A great way of picking up any inefficiencies in your workflow is to map out simple processes, such as sending a message from one department to another. Write out the steps involved in such a task and think about whether there is a more efficient way of approaching it, perhaps by eliminating or merging different parts of the process.
Efficiency is an important performance indicator for any business. When a business is running inefficiently, this usually indicates an underlying problem. As the business owner it is up to you to take control and ensure that time is well spent.
