Let’s face it.
In today’s ever-changing environment, the ever-growing consumer demands and expectations and technological advances, competition in business is fierce. Which means to be profitable, your business has to come up with a long list of strategies.
But who has time for all these?
So we scoured the internet for the fastest tips on how to increase profitability, and almost all them point to one thing:
Productivity.
The thing is…
What productivity workshops have been telling us does not apply any longer.
The modern business setting calls for modern productivity techniques.
Relying on time management alone no longer works.
What should be done instead?
We gathered information from different sources, and here are the top tips from the experts.
How to be productive in the modern world
Have time to think.
In a time when almost everyone is expected to do more because technology can help automate plenty of manual tasks, it is not uncommon to be engaged in the hustle and bustle from eight to five.
However, international ICF Master Certified Coach Lynn Scott claims that being busy the whole office hours is actually counter-productive.
We should spend time doing nothing but thinking–thinking about what and should be done. We should ask ourselves…
“What am I here to do today?”
“Why do I want to do that?”
“How do I want to do that?”
…and so on.
Giving yourself a time out, says Scott, is perfectly OK to put things in perspective and will make you more productive.
Once you know what to do for the day, it’s time to think about the other members of the company, which bring us to the next point.
Engage employees.
It is no secret that human resource is the most valuable among all the resources a company has. Hence, there is no question that its performance significantly affects a company’s productivity.
However, some businesses neglect this resource because they think in the modern world, technology is their best friend.
But that is not true at all.
Human input is still necessary today as it was centuries ago. You just have to make sure you are inspiring them to be efficient.
So:
How do you make sure your employees are performing efficiently?
Engage them.
Let them participate in planning, ask them how they feel, solicit feedback–there are several ways to make your company engaging for your workers.
In a case study by Perry Daneshgari and Heather Moore, the authors emphasized the power of engaging employees.
According to them, involving employees as much as possible results in an improvement in the following aspects:
- Sales
- Profitability
- Market share
- Loyalty to the company
(See how it answers our question on how to increase profitability?)
The study does not mention the reason for these outcomes, but it could be because engaged employees feel valued in the company. And we all know the consequences of being unvalued.
Harvard Business Review says that most issues at work can be traced back to the feeling of being devalued.
However:
Showing we value our employees does not stop at opening doors for them to participate. We should also consider their needs in the company.
One of these needs is the need for the right equipment.
Which means you have to:
Provide the right tools.
The modern business setting is no longer about whether you should automate or not. It’s more about which automation tools you should get.
You see, one web search of “CRM,” for example, will give your more than 230 million results (as of this writing). That’s how much information and options there are out there.
But take note:
not all tools are created equal.
For example, a spreadsheet is a fine bookkeeping tool if your transactions are minimal. But you can’t keep it for the rest of your business life.
As your business grows, you may need to ditch it for something more efficient.
David Frost, the author of “Advanced Information Technology: Improve Workplace Productivity with Balanced Scorecard Actions” says:
“right…tools and application(s) [can] help achieve aligned business goals.”
Note that the keyword is right.
It cannot be just any tool; It should be the right tool.
One does not have to be an expert in anything to know that the wrong tools hamper business productivity in one way or another.
How do you know the right tool?
You have to go back to Point 1 above.
Think.
Think about what you want to achieve and how you’re planning to achieve it. Then…
Ask.
Ask your employees for help or suggestions. Then…
Pick.
Once you have your goals set and your options laid out for you, the only thing that’s left is to narrow down your options and choose the best one.
The next time you ask yourself how to increase profitability, go back to these three steps and see it soar.
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