Where In The Business Can Software Improve Productivity?

Profitability can be improved through productivity improvements. Tweaking operational processes with business process improvement is one way to cut down on time taken to get tasks done.

Another sure-fire way is using software systems and apps. Investing in technology has proven to be a winner for most businesses.

Think COVID and how the businesses already set up for remote working lost next to no time in worker productivity. There are software solutions for every aspect of the business from invoicing and bookkeeping to marketing and sales.

In this article, we hone in on where you can make big gains in staff management, as well as marketing & sales automation, customer support and accounts.

Task Management

Being aware of what your staff are working on and how long it takes them to complete each task, empowers you to improve the process. When your staff achieve more in a day, your business is more efficient and ideally more profitable.

Task management software will help your staff document and track their tasks, and requirements. Collaborative tools like Google Docs are free, and there are many reputable providers too, including well-known brands: Wrike, MeisterTask, backlog, Monday.com and many more.

There’s nothing quite like a global pandemic to stimulate management to invest in task management and collaborative tools to keep the wheels of their business turning.

Accounting

Accounting includes keeping track of financial transactions from sales invoices, to purchases. Online accounting software is commonplace, and it’s made light work of what used to be a paper-based activity. Now nearly all aspects of accounting are achieved online even with small businesses,

According to bestinvoicingsoftware.com, small businesses are looking for simplicity and intuitive invoicing software with all the other features normally associated with management accounting software. Getting the invoices out to customers, sending reminders and recording payments is the core focus to improve cash flow.

Plus there’s an added feature that management will love and that’s the user audit. Your staff can be assigned their own login, and then you can analyze their productivity, i.e. work rate and completed tasks.

Marketing and Sales

Marketing is one area that is harder to track success as it’s less transactional. However, a plethora of marketing and sales automation systems help you understand what your marketing and sales team do daily as well as track the campaigns, your investment in marketing strategies and the actual sales. Salesforce is very popular and is fairs well when compared to another powerhouse in this area, HubSpot.

It’s easier to collaborate between departments with sales automation software, and management can use the data to work on the business to improve sales success as well as productivity in the areas of marketing and sales.

Customer Support

Management doesn’t need to be convinced customer service is a priority for repeat business, referrals and maintaining the overall company reputation.

Helpdesk software is crucial to keep a handle on how customers queries are being handled and areas of concern resolved. Artificial intelligence is very much part of the customer support process using natural language processing and many websites now have machine learning chatbots as their first line of customer support. This is a topic that interests us, and we will continue to cover it on BusinessBlogs.

Summary

Most companies are continuously assessing where they need to invest in more software and apps to run their business more efficiently. Improving staff productivity starts with empowering them to use the tools provided. Explore features of the systems beyond what they need to complete their tasks.

Most software providers add new features when they provide software updates as it’s their way of staying relevant and ahead of their competitors.

Therefore your role is to provide regular training of software, so your staff are inspired to find ways to do more in less time.