By: Kevin Faber
Making your company operate more efficiently can improve your bottom line, while also making it easier to run and to manage. Fortunately, there are a lot of simple things you can do to boost efficiency. It’s a good idea to frequently take a critical look at your processes to analyze how they can be made more efficient. Then, you can take advantage of new techniques and technologies that will easily and conveniently boost your efficiency.
If you aren’t yet doing all of the following, you might want to start taking advantage of these five ways to make your company more efficient:
Take advantage of automation wherever possible
Every possible form of automation has the potential to improve your company’s operations and make your life easier. Don’t assume that a particular automation option is too simple and non-essential to make a difference.
In particular, you should focus on automation when processing and shipping orders of product or responding to customer inquiries. You should also focus on automation options when it comes to your website. You can set up automatic posting of news events and blog posts on your website to make your life easier.
Pinpoint and address bottlenecks and other inefficiencies
Probably the number one thing you should do to get started making your company more efficient is find any everyday scenarios that are detracting from efficiency. If your production process tends to run into particular bottlenecks frequently, address those bottlenecks and do away with them where possible.
Some possible causes of production bottlenecks could involve supply chain challenges or personnel shortages. Whatever the cause of your bottleneck, you need to find a way to correct it to get things more efficient.
Grasp digital technology and do away with hard copy documentation where possible
Unfortunately, a lot of companies are still sticking with hard copy documentation because it’s what many staff members are used to. However, it’s best to start transitioning to digital as soon as possible. Once everyone is used to dealing with documents and paperwork online, you will probably find that it is much more efficient to organize and send where you need it to go instantaneously.
Make it as easy as possible for staff members to get the information they need
Information is one of the most valuable resources at any company. You need to improve the efficiency with which information is accessed if you notice that staff members spend a lot of the workday looking for the information they need.
You may be able to make information more accessible by putting customer and company data on a computer rather than in filing cabinets. You may be able to improve the efficiency of information access by simply organizing a little more around your workspaces.
Find some good solutions for making information more widely available and you may find that your company’s productivity improves. One great method for potentially increasing the availability of information around the workplace is by using an IT help desk software that will allow your employees to be more independent and to require less IT assistance.
Minimize travel time
One big consumer of time at a lot of companies is transportation. This could include a lot of different forms of transportation. It could involve staff member commute to and from work. It can also involve transporting supplies or traveling between different work stations throughout the work day.
The more you can cut down on any type of travel time, the faster things are going to get done at your company.
By Kevin Faber
About the author
Kevin Faber is the CEO of Silver Summit Capital. He graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Business/Managerial Economics. In his free time, Kevin is usually watching basketball or kicking back and reading a good book.
Follow him on Twitter: @faber28kevin
Featured image via Unsplash.