When it comes to our businesses, we’re all constantly looking for ways to improve our levels of efficiency. One of the best ways to do this is by streamlining our companies, by cutting down on what we don’t need and making sure that we uncomplicate things as much as we possibly can. Here are some ideas on how you can streamline your business today.
What Can You Outsource?
First, consider what exactly you can outsource. As the head of a company it can be tempting to try to do everything yourself, but the truth is that you probably didn’t go into business so that you could pore over payroll or figure out what exactly HR is. If you’re more of a creative person, lean into that – it’s where your skills are of most use, after all. Likewise, if you love numbers and you’re responsible for your company’s financial planning, you don’t need to be down in the warehouse every single day. There are companies and freelancers who can handle almost any area of your business that you don’t want to specifically oversee – for instance there are legal transcription services, ways that you can outsource HR, companies that will build websites for you, accountants who will work out your taxes.
Reduce Your Paper Use
Paper is something that you probably need to use a whole lot less of at work for multiple reasons. First and foremost, using less paper is much more eco friendly, which is something that every business should be striving towards. Secondly, having stacks of paper all over the office is messy and time consuming. Storing paper in filing cabinets takes up a lot of space. Space is money, and aside from the financial implications, it can be hard to find things even in the best and most well organised filing systems out there. If you store information on paper it’s time to migrate that information over to the cloud. It’s simpler, cheaper, takes up less space, and it’s much easier to find information.
Add More Flexibility
It’s important to make sure that your business is as flexible as it possibly can be. When you start out, it’s a good idea to hire freelancers – it’s often cheaper and you can work with people who are real experts in their fields instead of hiring full time staff who have more general skills. One of the great things about freelancers are that they are incredibly flexible – they can work from anywhere and the amount of work you give them from week to week may vary. This flexibility is something that you could extend into the rest of your business. Let’s face it: remote working is the way forward. It means that you can hot desk at work, which in turn means that you won’t need as big an office space, and it takes out the expense and time of having to commute to work. Travel time is unproductive, and it’s easy to talk face to face via Skype if you need to.
Streamlining your business is easy – these tips should help you cut out some of the less important things in no time!
