The Business Productivity Conundrum
Economists roughly define productivity as the amount produced from an amount used. Economics is all about understanding resources are limited and how to maximise the benefits from the resources at hand.
Whilst economists generally look at countries to evaluate this; there are important lessons for business owners and managers about examining their own business productivity.
In essence, a productive business produces more for the same hours and/or costs than their competitors do.
Stagnant Productivity
For the last 15 years, productivity has barely improved in the UK. (This isn’t a political point, there are similar stories worldwide). The Coronavirus pandemic along with the impact of Brexit did create a notable downward slide in productivity however, this has now returned to pre-pandemic levels post-2019.
However, this shouldn’t mask the truly telling statistic; single-digit percentage improvement over the last 15 years.
The Productivity Opportunity
If you can improve the productivity of your business. And, in particular, elevate it above the level of your competitors; it will place you in a stronger position to compete against them and win. There will be other factors such as Brand awareness, product effectiveness and quality however, productivity touches every business.
Codeframe’s cloud software development service is all about identifying two key areas for your business:
- where we can automate and
- where we can use technology for competitive advantage
It is the automation area that will most positively impact on the productivity of your business. Automating as many areas of your business as possible will give you many benefits:
- allow staff to focus on higher-value areas; typically customer interactions,
- increase speed that tasks take to complete
- reduce errors of humans performing repetitive tasks
- ability to manage the risks associated with growing the business
As well as these benefits, automation in the form of software can also
- extend the businesses hours of operation to 24×7 which consequently
- encourages user “self service” (in its most basic form, loading their own orders when they choose to) which can extend to customers, suppliers and partners as well as your own staff
Conclusion
Focussing on the improved productivity of your business through the development of automation for any task that can be automated has numerous benefits to the business.
For any business owner or manager looking to grow the business as well as reduce errors; software-enabled automation and productivity provide the answer.
And, finally
Before we sign off, a quick word about costs. Whilst it is difficult to be exact about what it would cost to introduce these benefits, we often find that
- our ongoing cost to the business is equivalent to a part-time employee whilst
- what we deliver to the business exceeds the efforts of a full-time employee.
To learn more about how we can help your business achieve automation and productivity-greatness start here