Companies that compete on the domestic stage often don’t need to be right at the forefront of workforce productivity. But for companies that compete on the international stage, staying behind the times is not an option. And this is reflected in the data.
Just have a look at the productivity per worker in major companies that export overseas and you’ll find that it’s through the roof. So what about your business? Is it performing as it could be and what could you do to make 2016 a year to remember?
Outsource IT
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These days, outsourcing IT solutions have become the go-to option for many businesses. There simply isn’t the need, as there was in the past, to spend vast sums of money on in-house IT infrastructure. Now the movement is very much in the opposite direction. Companies realise that outsourcing IT brings several significant advantages.
The first of these is a marked reduction in costs. IT companies often only charge a monthly fee, and because the competition in the market is fierce, prices are very reasonable. A monthly fee is not only cheaper than doing it yourself, but the costs are less volatile. If something goes wrong with your system, it is the responsibility of the provider to sort it out. If there are large expenses involved, this is borne by the company, and not you.
The second benefit is reduced downtime. When you outsource your IT to an external company you reduce the likelihood that you’ll experience a system failure. Why? Because many companies can remotely defuse problems before they arise. This is in marked contrast to what would have happened before. Before, your IT department would have been reactive, rather than proactive. And major problems would have only been addressed when they caused a major issue, and not before. The costs were enormous in terms of time and money. And many businesses had their operations compromised on a regular basis.
Consolidate Your IT Systems
If your back office and your field engineers are disconnected this can have serious repercussions. One is that you find yourself replicating the same data over and over. The second is that you end up with a lot more paperwork than is necessary. This impacts your operational costs and also reduces the productivity of your colleagues.
Wouldn’t it be good if you could integrate your back office with your field engineers and cut out all the unnecessary hassle? With modern software, you can actually do this. In fact, software is now so advanced that you can consolidate most of your business activities into a single programme.
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This can be especially useful if you deal with a large number of customers through different people in your business. For example, connecting the person who spoke to the customer on the phone with the engineer that goes to their house is helpful. If you want to learn more about consolidation you can find additional facts from Job Logic.
Task Tracking
Task tracking is becoming one of the most important parts of every company’s workflow management. One of the problems that companies tend to have is that information on how a task is progressing is not publicly available. That means that people working on a task are often subject to a barrage of emails asking whether the project is completed or not. It can also slow down meetings, as people try to get a handle on where exactly people are in various projects.
This is where task tracking comes into its own. Employees can use software to publicly disclose exactly what stage they’re at. When everybody is informed you have less email clutter and more time spend working on the task at hand.
Employers can also use task flow management software to pick up on where persistent workflow problems arise. This can help streamline business performance and find new ways to become productive.
Use The Cloud
Cloud computing has developed enormously over recent years. It’s the result of services becoming cheaper, more reliable and safer.
Even though the cloud is “out there”, it often feels as if it is even more present than tradition native computing. The reason for this is that the cloud opens up so many opportunities for people to work more effectively.
Perhaps the most important of these is the ability for workers to collaborate. Cloud computing means that workers can work on a task together in real time, communicate with each other and make suggestions. And they do all of this without actually being anywhere near each other physically. This saves time and actually makes the collaborative process more effective.
The cloud also offers businesses a level of asset protection that previous generations could only dream of having. Cloud services tend to be far more reliable than in-house options. And they can be a lot more secure.
Advanced cloud solutions can actually wall off your business from the rest of the internet. This is especially important if your business regularly handles mission critical data. Losing mission critical data means that your operations are jeopardised. And if the data are of a sensitive or personal nature, then you may be putting yourself at risk from litigation. Most modern businesses are using cloud solutions to protect their data and allow colleagues to collaborate, so why aren’t you?
Start Measuring Progress
IT should make work more productive, but does it actually? One of the problems that companies have is in tracking whether IT improvements filter down to higher output. Often, IT is not frictionless; meaning it does come with costs of use. But the question is whether those costs are outweighed by the benefits.
Cutting edge business will actually take the time to measure the performance improvements they get from each new system. This is often done scientifically, by measuring the output per employee for a given set of inputs. If a new technology, like mobile computing or cloud services, has increased this, then there had been a measurable response.
Tracking response to new technologies can help justify further improvements down the road too. What better way to ensure that your company remains productive this year?
