5 money saving tips that your business can actually use
The struggle between saving costs and compromising on the quality of your product and service provided is a familiar one for employers. If you’re on a tight budget you may feel pressured to cut corners in order to cut costs. However, with some smart decision making and knowledge of the tech world you can save a lot of money whilst keeping the high standards of your business in tact.
- Find freelancers
In today’s tech driven society, many professionals choose to work on a freelance basis, often from home, whilst advertising their services online on portfolio websites. Instead of spending a lot of time and money finding and training new employees, you can locate qualified professionals online for a lot less money. This gives you a retainer on a number of professional services you can use on either a full or part time basis depending on your needs.
If you’re determined to have in-house staff, the technology is still out there to help you find employees without paying agencies. You can utilise your Linkedin connections and use sites such as Monster and Indeed for either no cost or a fraction of the cost of using an agency.
- Be tech smart
Tech has the ability to save your business money in a number of ways; you just need to know what to use. Telecoms is an essential component to every office regardless of size or industry and one of the best ways of using modern technology to save money is to switch your telecoms to a cloud based service. There are plenty of companies that offer these services as an alternative to traditional telecommunications.
Hosted VoIP provides a phone service run entirely through the internet instead of relying on traditional phone lines. Using the same technology as Skype and FaceTime, VoIP to VoIP calls are free which gives businesses the opportunity to save a lot of money; the installation and maintenance is also far cheaper than traditional means plus there are loads of benefits such as flexibility and features like intelligent call routing and voicemail to email.
- Be tech smart – Again!
Another way to take advantage of the tech revolution is to ditch paper and go online. You don’t have to ditch paper fully but it’s no secret that huge amounts of paper are wasted through office use each year and a lot of it can be avoided, especially by big businesses.
By using online tools such as Google documents, Dropbox and Amazon Cloud Drive as well as general email for communications and data storage you can cut the costs of wasted paper use enormously. Applications such as Google docs are far more efficient in terms of sharing and backup too so switching to it is a no brainer.
- Buy A-Grade
Whether you’re a startup or a huge company, supplying the equipment necessary for the office can be costly; especially when it comes to technology such as computing and telephones. There can be a lot of pressure to have top of the range products however it is possible to cut costs without cutting corners.
The best way to do this is to choose A-Grade refurbishments over new models; an excellent telecoms example being the Plantronics HW261N which is a great headset that often comes as an A-Grade quality refurbishment. Though some are weary when it comes to used products, there are plenty of retailers who can guarantee that their products are as good as new – offering up to one year’s guarantee; the same you would get if you were purchasing brand new products.
- Hire brilliant people
According to a study by Samsung, UK businesses lose £250 million every year due to a lack of productivity at work; the list includes loud talkers, unnecessary emails and meetings as well as office gossip and lengthy tea breaks. Though there are many things an employer can do to tackle this issue the best they can do is hire people who are passionate and motivated to do an efficient and productive job.
Patronising and obvious as it may seem, having a driven and happy workforce is an almost guaranteed way to ensure that work gets done to a high standard; not only saving you money but potentially increasing revenue through hard work resulting in a positive reputation and more sales.
