These days, businesses face fierce competition, technological advancements, ever-changing consumer trends, and increasing globalization. Therefore, they have to keep re-inventing themselves to stay competitive amidst the tides. This approach is more relevant now in the year 2020 where most businesses are struggling with a decrease in demand due to the pandemic.
Thus, business owners must adopt new processes and techniques. Doing so can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase output while keeping consumers engaged. Everyone around the globe is going through tough times, and for this reason, their decisions must make the best economic sense.
Below are some of the best business processes and techniques you should try:
1. Cost Rationalization
Costs and business expenses slowly eat away at revenues generated. There are necessary expenses that are core to a business’ operations, like labor and maintenance. Sometimes, when these costs are not optimized, they can be the reason for the downfall of a company.
Below are ways businesses can rationalize costs:
- Business Process Outsourcing – This can be done by contracting services to other companies. This way, the business effectively saves office space, medical costs, and other administration costs. Companies can also lease machines or other capital-intensive items to help avoid recurrent maintenance costs.
- Cost Audit – This pertains to a thorough scrutiny of the effectiveness of a certain cost. This helps find whether a cost unit is necessary and if it can be avoided. A cost audit can, for instance, help in improving quality with lean manufacturing—any wastage, inefficient cost centers, units, and overheads can be objectively identified and rectified.
- Labor Cost Audit – This is an emotive issue because people are affected by decisions around this. If an operation is not profitable, staffing is not justifiable. This can be affected by redundancies, re-assignments, and exit packages.
Businesses in 2020 must ensure that the cost items and overall cost value are necessary. Cost rationalization in response to competition and shrinking global demand will help solve the ongoing concerns of your business.
2. Improve Customer Service
Customer service, experience, and satisfaction offer direct input to the health of a business. If a business is met with growing customer needs and demands, business owners must provide responsive answers and prompt solutions.
Below is a breakdown of what businesses can do to improve this:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – This is a software that can be used to automate the operations of the customer service department. This is important because it creates a central point for quality assurance, customer logs, and training purposes. Customer complaints, solved issues, pending issues, and supporting notes can be found from a central point.
- Social Media – Customer service has now expanded into digital channels, like social media. It’s then necessary for businesses to have a respectable presence there. Seventy-one percent of customers who have had a good experience with a brand on social media easily recommend it to family and friends. Twitter, for instance, offers a good channel to listen to conversations, provide real-time solutions, and offer complimentary marketing.
Good and responsive customer service is like extended marketing. In 2020, brands or businesses that show strong support to their customers will increase their chances of keeping their customers loyal, as well as increase the number of potential customers.
3. Restructure The Human Resource Department
The HR department is a critical department that helps in bringing and retaining the right talent in organizations. It’s more than just supporting staff—it involves systems, policies, and good reporting frameworks. In 2020, workers may suffer from COVID-19 illness, mental breakdowns, and other related incidents.
Businesses must, therefore, show a more human touch to attract and keep quality staff. This can be achieved by automating some of the systems. Staff can use systems to claim compassionate benefits or use online portals when seeking mental health care support.
Businesses can also give employees bigger roles when developing new policies or systems. This will help nurture a more team-centric environment and earn loyalty from the staff.
4. New Age Marketing
The marketing and sales departments are some of the most vital assets in an organization. The continued adoption of the internet market and automated intelligence show the need to adapt. Furthermore, majority of people globally now have access to the internet.
Below are some of the benefits from adopting new age marketing:
- Insights And Analytical Tools – Marketing on social media platforms benefit from audience insights and scientific analysis of advert subsequent performance. This helps allocate resources wisely to marketing efforts and also craft a workable strategy.
- Lead Generation – Businesses can develop or tap leads from social media sites. These can be obtained on channels or other related assets like websites. This also helps in crafting highly targeted adverts.
Businesses in 2020 can benefit from new-age digital marketing as it helps optimize marketing budgets for maximum performance.
Closing Thoughts
The year 2020 and beyond represents new challenges and opportunities for businesses. With the reduced demand due to the pandemic, expenses must be justified, technology fully adopted, and the labor force well managed. The customer service department should also embrace automation and social media solutions to give the best experience to customers.
