We've been a little quiet on our blog recently, a lot of which has been to do with the various bank holidays, half term and being happily busy with client work! Anyway, we thought it was about time we posted something.
If you've been watching James on LinkedIn, you'll have seen a few posts he's been making with some associated businesses around coming back stronger from the lockdown. They have put together a questionnaire to help businesses identify areas they should address to come out of this in a better place than they went in.
But what does the end of lockdown mean for what we do?
A lot of our customers and potential customers will have had some downtime in the last couple of months, and an opportunity to think about their business. Part of this is almost certainly putting better systems in place. Obviously, that's something we can help with!
So aside from the bookings app we're building as a product for therapists, barbers, beauticians and the like (watch this space!), what kind of thing might you be thinking about at the moment?
Let's start with a couple of projects we have underway at the moment. The first is a loyalty app for an independent coffee kiosk chain. It will enable customers to order in advance, pick up their order in store and replace their paper loyalty card with a digital version. This has in part been funded by the coronavirus grants they have received for their premises.
The second is, at the heart of it, a forms app for an existing customer, who is a supplier to the construction trade. But it will allow them to automate their test and approval process for installers by giving them an app where they can both take the test and find information about the product. And it will also allow them to carry out site inspections within a related app.
The point is with both of these that they offer improvements to their respective businesses which we have been talking about with the client for a while, but the lockdown has given them a bit of space to push on with them.
Fincance-wise, obviously there are various forms of funding available from the government at the moment which can be used to help make these business improvements. Further, research and development investment tax relief can allow you to reclaim around 43% of development costs (and your associated staff costs) against your corporation tax bill. And you might just need something simple which we can build quickly from our framework at a very competitive price.
So here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Do you still use paper forms in your business at all?
- Do you have very cumbersome Excel spreadsheets?
- Do you struggle to produce reports to tell you what's going on with your business?
- Could you communicate better with your field staff?
If you can answer 'yes' to any of the above maybe we should have a chat.
