Business Automation: 4 Ways To Become More Efficient

Business automation can play and should play a big part in your business. So much more can be achieved for less cost by using technology and business automation tools.

“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives, but the one that is most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin Origin of Species

I love this quote by Charles Darwin because it’s also so true for businesses. Just look at the last ten years and the number of brands that have disappeared because they didn’t change and evolve to their environment or market place. And these weren’t small companies; Comet, BHS, C&A, Woolworths, Blockbuster, Austin Reed, Staples, Maplin and Toys’R’Us, at their peak were all £100m-plus per year companies.

And I see this so much in small businesses. They get stuck in the “but we’ve always done it this way” syndrome, particularly when it comes to their business processes.

As businesses grow, they can become fat and lazy. In the beginning, they were slick and lean, the business owner was at the heart of everything. But as the business grows, more people get involved in the processes, bad habits form with poor disciplines and over-complexity. There’s a strong belief that the only way to improve is to throw more staff at it.

This leads to increased overhead costs, poor customer experience, and frustration for all staff. The Business Owner gets really frustrated: “ahhhhh, business used to be so much easier.”

The challenge for you as the business owner is that you’re a control freak and a perfectionist. Yep, sorry, unfortunately it’s a by-product of being an entrepreneur and here’s why:

• You’re really, really passionate about what you do.
• You also care about the services you provide for your customers.
• You believe everything you do should be top quality because it has your name on it.
• There are many jobs you believe only you can do in your business and you don’t trust others to do them.

Do some of these sounds familiar? The mindset you have has got you a long way and to where you are today. Getting your business over £1m in turnover and employing more than three people put you in the top percentile of business.

But I’m here to enable you to fall back in love with your business. One of your major frustrations is:

“The harder I work, the less money I make.”

The mindset and approach which got you here were great, but to grow beyond it something has to change. I want you to rekindle that entrepreneur’s mindset and, as we’ve already discussed in this book, you need to start looking at your business in a different way.

Many business owners spend lots of time trying to save money, entrepreneurs spend money to save time.

There’s a big difference.

Many modern-day Wizz kids have used technology to solve a problem for themselves, and this ends us being so great others want to buy it. They monetise it and boom, they have a million-plus business.

Technology can play and should play a big part in your business automation. So much more can be achieved for less cost by using technology, digital applications and business automation tools such as customized dashboards and app modernisation. Your customers will increasingly be wanting more, faster, and with less complexity. Retail shopping habits are increasingly crossing over into our business buying habits. Businesses are getting more and more comfortable and confident about buying services and products online or with reduced complexity. You’ve got to change with the times. Only three things in life are guaranteed, death, taxes, and CHANGE. Through technology and ever-changing digital applications, the world has gotten significantly smaller and that rate of change seems faster than ever.

The good news

There is a better way. But it’s going to take a lot of courage and time. I know you haven’t got any extra time, you’re far too busy.

But I’ll give you a really strong reason why you should…

Because if you don’t your competitors will, and you’ll get left behind, and at a great rate of speed.

In the next articles, I’ll take you through how we enabled businesses to take hours out of their processes, saving time, cost and improving the service delivered to customers.

There’s a simple four-step process to follow:

1. Map your current processes
2. Review
3. Map New and Add Technology
4. Test & Implement

How can we be faster, slicker, and more efficient?

Follow me in the next article.