High Velocity Business

Information technology expert, Stu Lees talks about how to turn your business into a High Velocity Business Machine.

The Effect of a Slow Economy

Many of my clients have expressed concerns about the current state of the economy. Naturally, they worry about the affect that it will have on sales, profits and cashflow.  As a business owner I have spent my own fair share of time examining the current economy and have tried the ‘crystal ball’ approach to how it might affect my business. I’ve also spoken to many customers about this topic and the following common themes have come out;

• the economic situation is negative but temporary
• businesses must improve productivity and profitability
• it is a good time to win market share
• managers must have a finger on the pulse

Now, what the heck does any of this have to do with information technology you might ask?  Well, the key thing here is velocity. There is saying that goes along the lines of ‘In tough times, it is not the biggest who survive but the fastest’.  If you talk to any good business coach, they will tell you that increasing your business velocity can lead to wonderful results without added expenditure on staff, advertising or capital.

A High Velocity Business Machine!

In sales, if you could cut 25% off the time spent on each proposal and also slice 25% of the time taken between customer request and quotation delivery – you could lower your costs, increase your sales and increase cashflow.  Improving your sales process can be as easy as creating some template sales proposals and inserting pre-defined fields into them but this is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be achieved.

High velocity customer service can be achieved through all manner of low cost tactics. Being able to respond to customer emails while you are out on the road is now widely available on mobile phones. It is incredible that many businesses don’t implement these tools to their full potential. The faster the response, the less cost involved and the better chance of a positive result.

Your accountant will testify that the faster that you get your invoices into the marketplace, the better your cashflow will be. Having strong business systems and processes in place are essential in an economic downturn but busy business people will often neglect admin activities and focus on sales and customer facing activities. Imagine being able to securely access your accounts and invoicing systems from home so that you can get the admin done in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed. Take this a step further and imagine doing this without having to invest in laptops for your staff and you will start to see the value that smart  business systems can have on your bottom line.

Making it Work

Our firm, Zero Down, is devoted to helping clients smarten up their business systems and we help businesses of all sizes become high velocity business machines! If you have any doubts about your businesses ability to thrive in the next 12 months then feel free to call me for a chat.

Make the call or email today and see how quickly I respond…. even when I’m out of the office.