Partner Article

Four simple steps to boost your business productivity

Britain has a productivity problem. On one hand, the UK economy is relatively buoyant, with falling unemployment and positive growth. On the other, we produce less than just about any other comparable country. The key explanation for this disconnect is our use of technology. UK businesses have a poor track record of not making the most of the resources available to them. The primary hindrance lies in the fact that many organisations are still working with technology that was implemented into the business perhaps a decade ago.

Another explanation is our reluctance to embrace worker-friendly policies. Consider, for instance, the French concept of working 9 to 5 with a hard stop for a lunch break. This sounds like a recipe for inefficiency, yet in fact, France has a significantly higher productivity rate than the UK. In contrast, many businesses in Britain still have policies in place whereby employees have to work round an existing structure – one that may be inimical to the best way of working. For example, an employee who is concerned about leaving the office early to pick up his or her kids from school may be unable to concentrate fully on the task at hand. The point is, this is a stilted way of working, geared to the way the company was set up and how it has always run.

We see this attitude reflected in the take-up of cloud computing. Although it has made inroads in the IT world, it still attracts a degree of suspicion among UK businesses. It’s all too common to hear phrases such as “the cloud is not secure,” “the cloud is too complicated,” or even “the cloud won’t fit in with our IT system.” This is simply another version of the “we’ve always done things this way” excuse.

The time has come to consider how your business systems can be improved. In order to streamline inefficiencies, maximise resources, and reduce costs firms must be willing to adopt new technologies. With these simple steps, you can significantly boost your organisation’s productivity and, in turn, your bottom line.

1.Consider a virtual office

Real estate is a pricey commodity, not to mention the expense of the overheads associated with furnishing, heating and day to-day office management. With a cloud-based set-up, it’s possible to have a virtual office. With its “any place, any time” ethos, employees can work from home, or if a central resource is required, from a smaller hub office.

21st century companies need to be able to adapt speedily. Using cloud technology is an ideal vehicle to facilitate this. With increased emphasis on mobile and flexible working, productivity tools are revolutionising the way that business is done.

We can see their impact when we consider how colleagues work off documents. By hosting workbooks and documents in the cloud, such as with Office 365, it’s not unfeasible for several team members to be working off the same document simultaneously, even whilst based remotely. Not only this, colleagues can make changes to the document in real-time and track the changes too – considerably speeding up the process. And because these documents are stored in the cloud, there’s no need for them to be sent back and forth on email between colleagues. Provided they have an internet connection, co-workers can access documents whenever they need to.

2.Embrace security

There remains a prevailing misconception among many UK businesses that the cloud is both unreliable and insecure. Yet there’s little evidence supporting this belief. According to the latest survey from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), 99 per cent of organisations using cloud services have never actually experienced a breach of security.

In fact, the weakest points in any firm’s security procedures are not the technical ones but human. Who has revealed their passwords? Which member of staff left their USB stick on the train? Cloud providers offer businesses a much greater sense of security.

Cloud providers can devote greater resources to security, invest in the most up-to-date solutions, and can afford to employ the very best experts. What’s more, with sophisticated monitoring systems, cloud providers continuously audit their systems, testing the underlying infrastructure on a regular basis. As a result, they are equipped to identify any potential breaches early on.

3.Adopt a collaborative approach

Collaboration and communication are vital ingredients for greater productivity. In this respect, video conferencing tools, such as Skype for Business and instant messaging apps like Yammer are essential. Indeed, a recent survey from Frost and Sullivan highlighted the positive impact of cloud collaboration on business efficiency. Nearly two-thirds of firms surveyed claimed to work more efficiently when using cloud collaboration tools.

The key benefits cited? Agility and efficiency. The survey found that organisations using cloud collaboration tools were able to enhance communication and speed up business processes - whether it was getting a product to market quicker or responding faster to changing market conditions.

4.Implement better IT resources

Large corporations tend to have extensive technology departments, with a body of skilled IT staff, an array of software, and state-of-the-art hardware. Traditionally, smaller firms were unable to compete. Thanks to the cloud, the landscape has changed.

For the first time, small and medium-sized businesses have access to the sort of computing resources that larger corporates take for granted. With unlimited storage and CPU power, no business should be held back by a lack of a technical set-up. And no longer should any company be hampered by the cost of expensive software licences, as the cloud offers the ability to pay for what’s needed on a monthly basis.

Ultimately, migrating to the cloud is about transforming your business to meet current and future demands. Cloud services pose new questions about the way your business is run. Do your employees have the best work tools at their disposal? Are they working in the right places at the right time? Are you losing business because you’re not responding to tenders or queries in a timely manner?

Your IT system must be able to support your way of working in a truly efficient way. When it comes to speed, responsiveness and collaboration, if you’re unable to perform well, you may need to think again about the system that you have in place.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ash Patel .