How to lower business expenses while actually improving performance

A tight budget is a pain in the neck for most businesses. While striving to offer the best service to your clients, little is left to fund re-investment in your business or extensive marketing.

Reducing costs can help you free up funds, but a common concern of many business owners is that these cost reductions may compromise the quality of their service. Fear not though - when it comes to cost-cutting, you have a powerful ally by your side and its name is technology.

Despite the potential for cost savings, many businesses are reluctant to embrace enterprise-wide technologies. According to a recent report, 46% of ERP software projects are implementing the business’ first ERP system. Although it may seem daunting at first, the right software can work miracles; it can help you cut down expenses and actually improve the quality of your services. Let’s see how.

Automate finances

An accounting app can help you automate your payments and handle your payroll, saving you precious time. To get the most out of it, choose an app that integrates easily with a number of e-commerce solutions, so you don’t have to go back and forth with your data.

Use this comprehensive ERP pricing guide to help set your project budget

Also, by selecting a monthly withdrawal date and allowing your providers to directly deduct from your checking account, you can automatically pay monthly bills, such as rent, utilities, and credit card payments. Many providers also offer discounts or extra benefits to customers that auto-pay.

Start using reporting systems to measure performance

Every company has unique challenges, and different ways to optimize their business operations are needed as a result. For this reason, it is important to have reporting tools in place that can help your business identify ways to improve supply chains, production schedules or point-of-sale processes.

ERP or WMS software with a strong reporting module, can help to find slow moving inventory, products with large value and to optimize restocking or marketing efforts accordingly. The reporting module should allow the user to group results by products, supplier or inventory location and to have drilldown capabilities to help businesses take the correct decisions. For example, by checking how fast different products move, you can quickly push slow moving inventory with discounts and special deals before it becomes totally unmovable.

Upgrade your customer communication

Last but not least, how you communicate with your customers can play a decisive role in how much you sell. Regular communication and immediate responses to customers’ queries are crucial, but may be also overwhelming, especially for small teams with few resources.

Automating and optimizing your customer communication management can lead to better sales results, without overstraining your budget. An e-mail marketing app can help you create mail campaigns to send out newsletters and offers or request feedback on previous transactions with your clients. In addition, if customer support is important for the business, adding a chat tool on your website will help people to easily interact with you at their own time, without bombarding your phone. Less time on the phone equals more time to help walk-in customers.

A final note

Optimizing your business processes is the key to optimizing your profit. Implementing the right software means you can invest more time in the business and still cut your expenditure. Two birds with one stone. Remember though that your methods can become obsolete pretty quickly, so make sure to re-evaluate them from time to time.