Wednesday 27 January 2010

Goodbye Recession?

With the UK economy now emerging from recession, it's time to systemise your business to prepare for growth.

Creating systems in your business can free you to be the best leader, innovator and entrepreneur you can, so that you can work less IN your business and more ON it.
To do this, you need to step back and look at how information is flowing in your business. For example, when a call comes in for a job that needs to be done tomorrow, can the person taking it quickly find out if any of the jobs scheduled tomorrow can be put back a day or two to accomodate that? What information do they need to be able to do that, and how will that get communicated to the person doing the jobs?
When the same customer calls back 6 months later with good memories of how you juggled things to meet their needs, are they greeted with "Ah, Mr Brown, how's things since we last visited you in January?" or with "Mr Brown .... have we done any work for you before?"?
To make all of these work the way you want your customers to experience your business and to reduce your own stress, you need well defined processes and systems for handling this information. What's most important is that you have the processes and systems and that they work for your business, not how you implement them. A simple lever arch file with customer records in can be preferable to a complicated, clunky piece of software which no one knows how to use. However, it goes without saying that the right software implemented in a way which compliments your business can be an extremely powerful tool.
Once your business is systemised you will have a competitive advantage. Customers will benefit from your business running more efficiently and you will have a much better understanding of how it's performing, where the strengths are and what you need to work on. And you'll have more time to work on these bits as well!
We have helped many businesses to organise their data, procedures and reporting with our custom software. Our clients have found it very easy to use and they don't have to be tied to their office to use it. The savings made from increased efficiency and the increase in sales can pay for the software in a very short period of time
Nuvola's web based systems systems give you greater control over your business, add value, lower costs, improve profits and free up your time.
www.nuvola.co.uk

Wednesday 13 January 2010

Weather Resistant Business Continuity

We’ve having the worst snow in decades according to the statistics. We’ve been bought to a standstill. According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), lost employee productivity could cost the UK £600m per day.
The good news for our clients is there are no excuses for an extended holiday since their custom-built business management systems can be accessed from anywhere there is an internet connection.
It might be a stretch to say we are making local businesses productive, but clients using our software have a much better chance of working undisrupted if staff can continue to access the systems they rely on during the current weather conditions.
Our web-based systems have business continuity built in - even if you can't get to your office, you can still use the software. Grant Smith, Director of one of our long standing clients, AzteQ Solutions Ltd, found this out recently: "The snow has been particularly bad where we are, and many of my team have struggled to get into work. The fact that the system Nuvola developed is not tied to our office, though, has made it a lot easier for people to work from home. This has certainly saved us time, money and a lot of frustration in recent weeks."
And of course, this technology makes businesses more robust at any time. If your office is flooded or you're a victim of fire or theft, you can still access your data, and back-ups are taken care of without you having to think about it. As well as this built-in stability, the ability to work flexibly from anywhere, all year round, is clearly an advantage in today's world.
For any businesses out there still using traditional software instead of cloud applications, this is a good time to talk to Nuvola. Until February 2010, you can receive 20% off your initial order quoting SNOW.
www.nuvola.co.uk

Restructuring Spreadsheets - how poorly structured data can hamper a business

I'd like to introduce you to Joe the gardener. Joe is 37 and worked in financial services until a couple of years ago. He was made redundant, but was reasonably happy about this because it gave him the chance to re-evaluate his life, and he decided that he had a passion for gardens and horticulture. So he took his redundancy pay and some savings, and set up Joe's Gardens, whose specialism is redesigning gardens by changing the way the plants use space, rather than doing landscaping. A year ago, his wife started helping with bookings and enquiries, which was great for their lifestyle and because she could help co-ordinate the new people he was bringing into the business to meet growing demand.

Now the business is booming, and Joe's beginning to find juggling all the jobs stressful. He thinks he has the right people, but there never seems to be enough time. He's wondering what to do next.
Now let's look at Joe's business systems. When he started up, he started a spreadsheet containing details of all his customers. He made another spreadsheet with all his one-off jobs, and another one with his regular maintenance contracts. He's pretty computer literate and so had no problem setting these up, and they did the job at the start. But now his spreadsheets are getting massive, and he's got a big folder full of photos which is sorted by customer name. When his wife answers the phone to a customer from 2 years ago, she normally knows the person and can get to their details quite easily, although it can take a while to find everything. But they're thinking of employing an administrator to ease her workload and are worried that this person will never find old customers' details, and the old customers will go elsewhere telling their friends about how Joe's Gardens were great a couple of years ago but seem to have lost their way. Also, scheduling jobs can be quite difficult and a couple of times recently they've double-booked themselves or found that they were paying a contractor for an afternoon of doing nothing. Joe and his wife would also like to be able to predict their earnings, but sales forecasting takes an hour or two each month as Joe sits with has calculator and a notepad, totting up figures from his spreadsheets. Joe's sure there must be a better way and has googled a few things but is a bit bewildered!
Well, Joe is a fictional character, but in this case similarities to persons either living or dead are not co-incidental. Many small business owners, especially those who've had rapid growth, find that their systems are in a similar state to Joe's, and this is where we can help.
In Joe's case, we'd look at putting in three key things, probably staged to spread the cost and get the most pressing issue sorted quickly:
  • a log of all past jobs with photos, linked to customers so that a simple search on customer name would bring up all the details of what's been done for that customer
  • a schedule so that anyone doing the administration can see at a glance who's doing what, where and when, and slot new jobs in accordingly
  • sales pipeline functions so that potential customers are followed up properly and Joe and his wife can see at a glance how much they can expect to make over the coming months
Our system would be available online at all times and will store Joe's key business data securely off-site without any extra effort.
Does Joe's story sound a little like your business? If so, please give us a call!