4 Reliable Tactics Businesses Can Leverage To Lower Operating Costs

When it comes to keeping your company above water financially, every penny counts. There are many ways to save money on operating costs so that you may redirect funds to the most important aspects of your business or invest in the future growth of your business; however, many business owners may be unaware of the technologies that are easily available to the general public and can give their business the boost it needs. These four helpful tactics below have been proven to work in the current business landscape.

Virtual assistance

There is no reason that you have to pay the overhead for manual labor that you have to keep up with in a physical office. With virtual assistance, you can have the same administrative as well as operative power without dealing with the health care costs, maintenance expenses or the personal costs of hiring new employees.

It is also much easier to replace a virtual assistant that you do not like; there is no paperwork and there are companies with many VAs that will match you with their best until you find the right fit for your company.

Automation tools

There are many free automation, as well as operational, tools that you can use to automate the day to day tasks that you perform every day. It is no longer necessary to take up the time of your employees to deal with that require no original movement such as payroll. You can then re-purpose your manpower to dealing with the human aspects of your business which include the more creative areas of marketing as well as salesmanship that your customers will appreciate.

Enterprise automation tools like Zopim and ZohoCRM are available that business owners can pay for as well; however, starting with the tools that are free can be more than enough for a business owner who is looking to create additional leverage for the operation of their business.

Expand your business using mobile payment tools

There is also no reason that you should not be able to make a sale just because you meet a customer at an inopportune time. With payment tools such as Intuit payment solutions and SquareUp, there is no such thing as a bad time to pay; you are able to take any kind of payment from any kind of card online or directly from your mobile phone. The technology is as safe as, if not safer than, desktop cash registers and the apps have the ability to connect directly to your bank account and print receipts as well as keep records for business purposes.

Create an environment with resources for employees

Each and every step that you can take off of the foot traffic of your employees increases the productivity of your company. For instance, having a coffeemaker in the office can save almost half an hour per employee. Instead of making a Starbucks run, they can simply brew a pot that the whole office can enjoy. As a bonus, it will help employees cut their own costs.

Expanding your resources to include lunch can save as much as two hours per employee. Many companies offer a daily catered because they find that the foot traffic that they save with employees going outside for lunch is worth the cost many times over. If this is not within your budget, some businesses will make it a point to rent office space in an office complex that has an internal cafeteria. Many of these cafes will deliver directly to an office in the building. Startups such as Chewse and CaterCow have taken off in the last year. While they’re mostly in metropolitan areas,  their success could mean further expansion.

About the author

Zoe Maldonado is a blogger for TechBreach who enjoys writing about all things mobile and electronic and spending time with her very active twin boys.