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As a small business owner, it feels great to open your business and see it start to succeed.
Once the doors are open and you have a solid product, it’s time to streamline your operations to make the flow of business more efficient.
We have seven ways you can get started with making your operations more efficient:
1. Start with what isn’t working.
Before you change anything, think about inefficiencies in your business model and what isn’t working, according to Entrepreneur. After you identify what is wrong, you can start to work backward and find out what’s causing it. Sometimes it’s redundant processes, or there’s information that’s hard for customers or employees to access. Fixing these things helps streamline your overall processes.
2. Provide employees with a secure way to access information anytime.
Now that your business is ready to streamline operations like a big company, an easy way to act like a big company is to enable secure employee access to company information, anywhere, anytime, according to Information Week. Create a company network that allows your team to see schedules, access reports, and communicate with each other even when they’re on the go. You can offer your team a virtual private network (VPN) that allows them to log in from home and protects your business at the same time.
3. Get a new point-of-sale system.
Square point-of-sale (POS) software has built-in analytics to help you make more informed business decisions based on your sales reports or tender type.
With the Square POS, you can track customer habits and communicate with customers via text or email. By having this data at your fingerprints, you can streamline your marketing plan by using key information based on customers’ past behavior.
The Square POS also lets you keep stock of your inventory. You know what’s running low, what items are selling, and what’s not. This helps you make efficient decisions about which items to restock and when, saving time and money.
4. Outsource your IT tasks.
Now that your business is booming, it’s time to outsource your IT tasks to the pros. Don’t take your employees away from the key functions of their role by having them try to fix a computer or network that is down. It may seem like a small task, but if you overload your employees, they quickly become disgruntled, which can affect customer care.
5. Improve your forecasting.
Now that you’ve been operating for awhile, you can use historical data from your operations to improve your forecasting. Improving forecasting helps you manage your demand, supply, and cash flow, according to The Middle Market.
6. Go paperless.
Eliminating paper from your business not only eliminates waste and helps the environment but also streamlines business processes, according to the AMCS group. Use handheld devices or email receipts to keep things efficient.
7. Train your people.
Now that you’ve streamlined all operations, it’s time to train your staff on the new processes and systems. Software doesn’t work by itself — your team needs to be up to date on how things work and what is expected of them. Continuing to train your staff shows your team you’re invested in them and keeps things efficient and productive in the long run.
