Increasing business productivity is synonymous with increasing business growth. By unlocking and addressing the challenges affecting your employees, you can improve productivity, lower operational costs, and increase business performance.

To help your business out, read on to find three key ways of increasing business productivity.

Address Inefficiencies

All employees find that there are certain processes that slow down their ability to produce work. This is a red flag for bottlenecks and inefficiencies that are usually the main source of your team’s frustration.

If you recognise any of the following in your business, it’s time to assess how you address these issues:

• Employees or management sitting around waiting for reports or other critical information necessary to move forward
• Information silos that result in double-upping of tasks
• Manual admin tasks that suck up valuable hours and reduce the time spent in front of clients
• Chronic late deliveries

Start your productivity assessment by creating a flowchart that shows how the operations of your business work. You might consider creating one big chart for the overall business and then breaking each segment down into smaller pieces so you get a clear picture. Note down how long each process takes, and look out for areas that aren’t keeping pace.

Once you’ve identified areas that are causing slowdowns, look for obvious solutions. For example, is there a more efficient way to get data out quickly, such as posting reports in the cloud so key players can easily view them in real-time? Could an automated system speed up that one sluggish task?

Eliminate the Waste

Waste is a word that can mean many different things in business. When it comes to productivity, wasted time is your biggest concern.

To identify waste, you need to know the value of your business processes. Sales are the heart of most business revenue, so it is a practical starting point. Look closely at the various services and products your company offers and the input and output for each one.

• Input = time and money that goes into that product or service
• Output = amount of revenue it generates

The goal is to get a breakdown of your business so you can have a closer look at what works and what doesn’t.

Once you have the figures in hand, start making comparisons. You can automatically eliminate anything that costs more than it is worth — that frees up time for products that do generate income. 

Follow this same strategy when assessing other elements of your business. For example, you can compare staffing in different divisions to trim waste and increase productivity. Examine your vendors the same way and look at company assets to ensure you have all the right tools in place and that they pay for themselves.

Is Your IT Adding More to Your Bottom Line?

Productivity is essentially a company’s ability to execute a working strategy, and the role of IT is to help streamline execution to deliver results.

There are a number of ways you can use IT to improve the business flow. For instance, why not find a way to automate repetitive processes in your business? Today’s IT systems can perform many varied tasks, from smart scheduling and warehouse robots to comparing supplier prices.

Business technology is also the answer to faster and more effective communication. IT creates a formal framework for communication that opens up those lines while still providing a level of security. With the right communication strategies in place, you can remove communication delays, which cost the business time and money and even expand your metrics to measure work performance.

Today’s technology is the answer to:

• Setting up the foundation for business growth
• Getting the most out of your business strategy
• Connectivity throughout business processes
• Delivering a competitive advantage

Boosting productivity means you get more out of each hour of the day — that means more revenue, more customers, and more recognition for your brand. Efficient productivity is the one thing that all successful companies have in common, giving them a major advantage over the others. What could your company achieve at maximum productivity?

If you’d like to learn more about how IT can be your business’s competitive advantage, contact Lanrex today.

A version of this article is originally published at the Lanrex blog.

Written by Jodie Korber, Managing Director at Lanrex

Jodie Korber is the Managing Director of Lanrex since 2009. After 19 years consulting for small- and mid-sized business as well as working in larger financial institutions, she’s well aware that even though there are common themes, everyone’s situation is unique. When Jodie isn't helping clients get ahead with their IT, she's trying to get ahead as a keen dragon boat racer.