Productivity is a key challenge within the UK. Only last year UK productivity widened to the worst since records began. UK workers produce significantly less per hour than the G7 average. Based on the results of the recent EU referendum, the productivity gap should be more of a concern to businesses than ever before. To compete on a global scale, now more than ever, businesses need to assess their own levels of productivity and seek to improve every aspect of their business. Digital technologies, automation and smart systems can significantly help businesses of all spaces, sizes and industries to enormously improve productivity. Essentially, achieve significantly more with less.
Below are our top 5 tips to boost the productivity of your business with digital technologies.
Boost the Productivity of your Social Media
Most businesses employ a junior member of staff to manage their social media channels for their businesses, or even teams of people or even external social media agencies to manage their social media. In this day and age, this is an extremely costly and inefficient way of managing your social media channels. Technology could automate many aspects of your social media activities while remaining relevant for your audience and continually increasing your engagement levels over time.
Firstly, start to automate a significant amount of your social media activities using a suite of technology solutions. We help organisations automate their social media activities so that it takes no longer than 60 seconds per day to manage. Stop wasting time manually posting content to social media and instead boost your productivity through automation technology.
Boost the Productivity of your Website
Most businesses are still using out of date technology for their website which is inefficient, inflexible and insecure. This ultimately results in your activities surrounding your website being more focused around firefighting opposed to building and growing the strength of your digital presence.
Firstly, start to get the right technology in place as a solid foundation for growth. These days, there are a small few recommended options for your website technologies to provide a solid foundation for growth. If your website is either a static system you build over 2 years ago and haven’t touched or it is more of a pain than a pleasure to work with, then you need to get the right technology foundations in place for your business to begin to boost productivity within your organisation.
Boost the Productivity of your Sales & Marketing
Are you still employing teams of sales people, travelling around the country to sell your products and services to potential customers? This is an extremely inefficient and expensive way to do things. In the internet age, potential customers get extremely turned off by pushy sales people. Instead, potential customers want to work with industry leading organisations who are using digital technologies throughout their organisation.
Firstly, start to change the way your sales and marketing processes work. Still printing glossy brochures which end up as a foot stool under someone’s desk? Then start to engage with your potential customers through your website with content they are interested in reading. It is this type of content that is highly valuable throughout the sales process and can add a unique twist when marketing your businesses to stand out from the crowd. Using digital platforms throughout your sales & marketing processes will significantly help to boost the productivity within your business.
Boost the Productivity of your Office Activities
What are you doing on a day to day basis that is taking you time to do? Manually inputting data from one system to another, or dare I say, from paper? Automate it. Struggling to find information between multiple systems? Bring them all together under a single unified system with technology. Still using paper based forms within your businesses? Digitise them.
Firstly, start to take some time and critically think about what you are doing throughout the day. If you are doing a task more than once, then ask an expert about how you could automate this task. You will save yourself enormous amounts of time on a daily basis, freeing you up to do even more productive activities.
Boost the Productivity of your Legacy Systems
Many businesses are still shackled to legacy systems throughout their organisation. Whether this is technology focused or systems/processes focused based on ‘how things are done around here’. The reality is that you need to bring all of your legacy systems up to date using the right underlying technologies. If you don’t you risk not simply getting left behind, but becoming obsolete as a business.
Technology startups around the world are popping up on a daily basis which are replacing entire industries. Xero has made traditional accountancy practices obsolete. TendoJobs.com is revolutionising the recruitment world by putting the power back in the hands of employers and job hunters. Along with the usual suspects including Uber, Airbnb, etc. The point being, that once your systems are up to date, it is now time to start truly innovating within your businesses to boost productivity enormously.
Summary
Boosting productivity within your organisation is an extremely efficient way to utilise the resources within your organisation in the best possible way. It is only through effective use of digital technologies that your businesses will be able to compete over the next few years, so the sooner you start the better. If you are unsure where to begin, get in touch and one of our digital experts will happily guide you through the process and show you how your organisation can begin to truly transform and embrace digital technologies.
Michael Cropper