Tips For Managing A Business Expansion

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | Tips For Managing A Business Expansion
 
Expanding your company is an exciting time, and hopefully it will enable you to boost profits, establish yourself as a key player in the industry and compete with the bigger brands. Expansion can also be disruptive and hard to manage because it will have an impact on your current operation and there are often a few teething issues too. Being aware of a few expansion tips could help to minimize the negative impact that expansion can bring as well as help you to manage any troubles that you encounter along the way. Read on for advice if you are planning on expanding your company.

Conduct Research & Planning

Much like when you first launch a business, it is vital that you spend time researching and planning so that you can make an intelligent business decision. You should never rush into an expansion and have a solid plan in place so that you can minimize disruption and hit the ground running.

Create A New Workspace

One of the best ways to expand a business is to open a new office space. This can give you and your team more room for operating and allows you to scale up the entire operation. This should always be a practical and comfortable space, and you will want to find an experienced architect from your local area to design the workspace, such as a Detroit architect. This way you will get a space which allows your entire operation to thrive and create a comfortable working environment for staff.

Introduce New Technology

Technology can always be used to improve a business, and it is a smart way of expanding because it can streamline the operation, make work easier for your team and even improve the quality of the product/service that you provide.

Keep Customers Happy

Going through a period of expansion can create a few issues, but it is essential that you are able to keep your customers happy during this time. Keeping customers happy ensures that you are able to retain and attract customers and keep the business afloat during a period of uncertainty. This can be challenging when there are major changes happening. However, by making customer service a priority you should be able to maintain a positive reputation.

Manage Finances

There are a number of financial implications that need to be considered when expanding, and this is an area that needs careful planning. You may want to consider securing funding for the expansion, collect any outstanding debts and reduce operating costs for this period so that you can manage your finances and keep the business ticking over while you expand.

Expansion should always be viewed as a positive as it allows your company to grow and compete at a higher level, but it can also be a challenging period to manage. Expanding a business can be disruptive, and there are often hurdles that need to be overcome, so you need to know how to manage this period effectively, and the above tips should help you to achieve this.

5 Reasons Customer Service is Important to Small Companies

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Customer Service|5 Reasons Customer Service is Important to Small CompaniesAs a small business owner, you may at times find yourself strapped budget-wise. Operating costs, marketing, and logistics may take priority over customer service but it should never be overlooked. Customer service is crucial – especially for small businesses looking to establish themselves in their respective industries.

The following article will articulate 5 reasons why customer service is so important for small businesses.

Customer Referrals

Word of mouth referrals is very important for a business, even more so for one that is just starting. No one is going to tell their friends or family about your business if they were treated rudely or didn’t feel valued as a customer.

People are much more likely to use the products or services of a company if they heard of them through a trusted friend or family member. Keeping existing customers happy is a great way to ensure you have consistent purchases.

Encourages Brand Loyalty

According to most answering services, when customers feel valued by a company, they are more inclined to stick with that company and purchase new product lines outside of their norm. Good customer service is therefore imperative for brand loyalty.

This is how you can extract the most value from a customer since the revenue you get from them comes with much less effort than trying to convert new customers. Great customer service can create life-long brand advocates and who doesn’t want as many of those as possible. One way to achieve this is through a call center or answering service that can tend every customer that calls.

Offers Valuable Insight

Having good customer service can add a valuable resource: knowledge. Some market research can only be done via a customer’s interaction with your customer service reps – and you don’t have to pay extra for it.

For instance, you can train your reps to ask questions about why a customer likes your product or what they use your service for. Their valuable answers can be used to direct your marketing campaigns to truly resonate with your customers. A well-trained customer service team can seamlessly insert these questions into their conversations with your client and phrase them so they are simultaneously providing value to them.

It’s Cost-Effective

The initial investment in your company’s customer service may seem costly but it pales in comparison to new customer acquisition costs. Having return customers means you don’t have to spend anything on their return business. Plus, customers are likely to spend more money with a company they like. Focusing on customer service is usually less expensive than focusing on new customer acquisition.

More Margin for Error

Customers tend to be more forgiving when a company with good customer service makes a mistake. Let’s say a shoe company ships the wrong pair to a customer. Usually, that is enough for a person to stop buying shoes from that company, especially if the company has bad customer service.

As much as the person likes their shoes, one small slip up can be enough for them to abandon them if they are known for poor customer service. Having good customer service will incline a consumer to stick around if you commit a shipping error or even if you raise your prices.

At the core of everything you do you should be providing great customer service because without your customers you wouldn’t be in business and doing what you love. We hope this article has provided you with insight into why this is so important even in this digital age.

The 3 Best Ways To Implement A Leaner Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The 3 Best Ways To Implement A Leaner Business

When we are doing our utmost to create a flexible business, that embodies numerous characteristics that benefits the employees and the employer, this is when we have to start paring things down to the bare essentials. The concept of a lean business is something that has proven to be a very effective model for managing teams, in various industries like manufacturing and construction. What are the fundamental principles of implementing a leaner business, and how can we bring these about?

Look For Constant Improvement

Striving for a constant source of improvement is one of the key aspects, and after alleviating the bottlenecks in your process, and establishing a pull system, you need to find ways to continually improve your operations. This is all about enhancing the value while removing the waste. Automation is one of the main components that can help in this respect, and while there are numerous things that you can automate, you need to start simply, with some of the in-house processes that impact the employees directly. You can see more here about invoice automation, and this is one little thing that can make life so much easier all around. Automation is one aspect that you can implement to create constant improvement.

Setting Clear Goals

You have to understand what your end goal is, and you need to communicate this to everybody in your organization. What are you trying to achieve? Whatever the goal is, you have to ensure that it is clearly defined. A clear goal means that you will have a better chance of streamlining your process is accordingly. From there, you can learn how to improve your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. A SWOT analysis certainly provides food for thought in this respect, and once you realize l where your failings are, perhaps this could provide more clarity in setting the goals.

Adopting The Proper Culture

Workplace culture is crucial to improve your business continuously. As the organization demands a certain mindset, this is directly borne out of the culture of the company. Changing the culture from within is a long process, but you can make specific alterations to ensure you head in the right direction. You sure to start small, but also think about altering the mindset of the people that work for you. You can do this by hiring the right sort of people and then you can make those small alterations go further. A proper workplace culture provides ethics, the mindset, as well as the appropriate level of productivity.

A lean business is all about simplicity. This is something many of us tend to overlook. It could be a difficult thing to get started, but once we understand our set goals, this is where our inherent feelings are. And when we embrace the challenge to turn our business into a lean one, we will see the benefits, not just in terms of productivity, the culture of the organization, but we will also see the benefits years down the line. The fact is that it’s not just a process, but it is a way of life.

Finding More Flexibility For Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Finding More Flexibility For Your Business

We live in a competitive environment where the business is fueled by technology 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and because of this, we need to be flexible. The days where you could create business plans a year ahead of time and expect to be able to stick to them with nothing changing are long gone. While planning is a necessity to succeed in business, particularly for long-term vision, short-term activity and flexibility are just as important. You need to be able to move when needed and respond quickly to changes in the market.

Now that we have so much business data, there is an endless supply of information available regarding our customers, our competitors, and our business results. While this is so useful, and we have more insight than ever before, the minute you make an important decision, it’s highly likely that new data will come along and completely change your direction. Rather than seeing this as a bad thing, it’s important to see how great it is because it allows you to correct the course that your business is going and make sure that by changing strategy and adapting to new results that you get the desired results that you forecasted. This is a good thing and something to be embraced, so look at new data as a mountain of information and an endless stream of insight that will allow you to flexibly change your plan to ensure success.

Embracing these new customers from new generations who have been born with the internet and mobile phones as the norm in their lives means that you need to give them what they want and that requires flexibility in how we communicate with them. You need to be able to move flexibly with your audience and growing customer base to introduce them to your brand but on their terms, rather than how you think it should be.

Technology has also meant that there has been a huge shift in the traditional business model; just look at the number of brick-and-mortar stores which are closing each week. The way we do business has dramatically changed, so if your business isn’t flexible enough to keep up with the changing times, then it will get left behind. You need to be flexible enough to shift your business model as you need to, and you can do this by using your customers and their needs as your guide. As things change, you have to get used to the fact that your old habits probably won’t work anymore, so it’s important to change them in order to create new ways of driving your business forward. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, as a change in the business model just means a new opportunity for growth. To succeed in business, it is more important to be flexible right now than it ever has been and what this means is that you may just have to make newer and bigger decisions on a daily basis to keep your business fresh and up to date as you gather new information. It might seem like a lot of hard work, but at least it makes things interesting, and if you get used to this way of working then you will easily attract new customers, and find it easier each time you need to refresh your business model for continued success.

Flexibility in the way businesses operate can take many forms, but adaptability and agility are increasingly becoming key attributes in competitive enterprise scenarios. There is a real need for flexibility at a strategic level, both in terms of the way in which businesses operate and from the perspective of individual employees. Here’s a look at some of the essential ways in which businesses can look to make their operations and their workforces more flexible:

Remote working

Through technological advancements, remote working has been made increasingly possible over the past decade or so, and it’s now an accepted part of the way many organizations operate. Different roles bring particular demands on individuals, but virtually all businesses stand to benefit from giving members of their workforce the chance to function as normal from almost anywhere.

Deploying new solutions

Equipping staff with the smartphones, tablets, and laptops they need to operate seamlessly on the move or wherever they might be is vitally important in the context of enterprises becoming flexible. But new software solutions and cloud-based business applications can be crucial too in giving businesses the best chance to be flexible and more efficient in a variety of valuable ways. There are also more physical ways to ensure flexibility, for example, if your business manages a fleet of vehicles then look at getting a Watchcard which allows you the convenience and flexibility to fuel anywhere in the U.S. with the control and security to monitor and limit purchases, track suspicious activity, and access fuel data about your fleet. This flexibility means you can manage your fleet effectively while saving time and money and gives you the power to drive your business forward and save.

Flexible hours

The advance of communications technologies of different sorts has opened up the prospect for employees of working from home and in patterns that suit their individual needs. Businesses that embrace flexible working are seeing benefits in terms of employee morale and staff retention but also from the perspective of meeting customer needs. Companies of all sizes increasingly need to be operational around the clock and having resources’ out of hours’ has become an integral part of how service providers deliver what their customers want without disruption.

Cash Flow Options

As we all know, cash flow is the lifeblood of businesses big or small and ensuring financial flexibility can be the difference between a company remaining operational and biting the dust. For small to medium-sized operators, in particular, financial margins can be tight and unforgiving. So, being aware of, and having in place, a number of emergency financing options can often be essential in keeping companies afloat during times of acute pressure on cash flows and income streams.

Be Flexible With Flexibility

While many think of being flexible in business as offering flexible hours and working from home, there is actually a lot more to making a business a flexible one. Have a look at where you can make differences to your employees, for example; you could introduce secondments, career breaks, and volunteering opportunities. All of these opportunities will make you a far more attractive employer for the new generation of employees to work for. You have to be flexible in adapting to what prospective employees are now looking for in the workplace and take these needs and wants into account. If you are good to your employees then, in turn, people will be loyal to you as an employer. If you can be understanding that your employees need breaks; they might want to explore, volunteer and travel and shouldn’t have to lose a job they love and are good at just because of having interesting outside of work. If you are the employee then again, speak out and tell your employer what it is you want, they either want to lose you, or they don’t, but any career break or secondment will only be good for your career and experience so they’d be silly not to offer you the chance to come back.

Flexibility is something of a buzzword in business at present, but it isn’t necessarily worth pursuing its own sake. What flexibility really means and why it’s important is that it makes businesses more robust, more adaptable, more competitive, and better prepared for whatever opportunities and challenges the future might bring.

4 Big Benefits of Using Managed IT Services

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More and more businesses are utilising managed IT services to assist with their tech infrastructure. But is this the right move for your business?

Big IT problems have huge financial repercussions and can waste a lot of time and resources if not dealt with quickly and efficiently. Out-of-date or badly maintained technology is more likely to fail, and it can be difficult for a small IT team to keep on top of the latest trends.

But managed IT service companies make it their priority to stay on top of the most cost-effective and efficient tech to fit your needs, and to keep the operation running as smoothly as possible.

So if you haven’t considered switching to managed IT services, here are a few reasons why it might be time to give it a little thought.

Return on Investment

Frequent IT problems take up a lot of time, break concentration, and can cost your business a lot of money.

Slow computers, lost files, poor security – these are commonly occurring inconveniences that arise from a poorly managed IT service.  And every second that your system is down, your employees aren’t working and your business is not operating at its full capacity.

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More than this, a small in-house IT team can struggle to keep up with the needs of a larger company. And whilst they are dealing with everyday issues, they can’t focus on big-picture strategies which could really make a difference to your business.

Managed IT services focus on the everyday maintenance of these issues to limit the costs of small inconveniences, and avoid big disasters. This improves the reliability and efficiency of IT operations in a way which will inevitably save you money.

It will also free up your IT talent to focus on more important tech strategies, the wider benefits of which we’ll come back to in a moment!

Keeping Up With Tech

Technology is evolving faster than ever before. The ways we communicate, the ways information is analysed, shared, and protected – if you’re not in the loop you can get left behind and struggle to catch up.

And whilst your small in-house IT team are wasting time recovering lost passwords, locating lost files, and trying to work out why the system has frozen, they aren’t keeping on top of the latest technology or concentrating on how to integrate it into your business.

But one of the biggest advantages of managed IT services is that they are always on the cutting-edge of business technology, they know what will work for your system, and can implement upgrades quickly and efficiently.

Security

How much of your critical data is stored on tech devices? Computers, tablets, smartphones, servers? Do you live in constant fear of a security breach?

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IT security is absolutely critical and should be a major priority for every business. Unsurprisingly, out-of-date software, old passwords and unmanaged email accounts are some of the biggest risks to the security of your data and information.

So if you’re not up-to-date on the latest security risks, making sure your staff are informed, and constantly updating software, you could be more vulnerable than you think.

But managed IT services conduct research with multiple companies, and make it their business to keep track of security issues and their solutions. They will dedicate the time and effort needed to maintain these security protections so that you don’t have to worry.

They will also have a full grasp of compliance standards to minimize the risk of related to client data, credit card numbers and sensitive information.

Free Up In-House IT Staff

Another huge advantage to utilizing a managed IT service company is freeing up your in-house IT staff and applying their talents to the right areas.

In the same way you wouldn’t waste a Michelin star chef by asking them to wash dishes, you don’t want your most creative and innovative IT talent taking the elevator three floors to restart a frozen laptop.

If your in-house team are forever wrapped up in small technical issues that aren’t necessarily their specialism, they are not excelling in what they’re best at. And these smaller issues are unlikely ever to find a permanent solution if the inhouse team are too thinly stretched to focus on big-picture tech development strategies.

Outsourcing the maintenance of your IT service to a company who specialises in the small details will give your inhouse team the freedom to elevate the whole operation.

So there we have it. There are just a few of the benefits of outsourcing IT maintenance to a specialist company, and freeing up your in-house tech team!