Top 7 ways to streamline your small business

Your ideas and your goals for small businesses aspire to be anything other than small. Often, the competition pushes you to build your business to keep abreast. Too often, additions and improvements become unmanageable and worse, unprofitable. If you have done your company is in danger of collapsing under its own weight, you know, there is only one solution. It is time to streamline!

1. The People
For most people, a rationalization of ways to minimize your workforce. Of all the goods, people can be regarded as the easiest to live without or replace. Although sometimes it may be a good thing - to banish redundancy for example, or to clean downloads - reduction in the surcharge could mean that employees are left. Again, the foundations of your business are shaking.

2. The Structure
So what can you do to strengthen your business? You can not sell expensive, but vital equipment. You can get rid of free donuts, but it will not be of a tooth, is it? Maybe the time has come to take a fresh look at the basic rudiments of your business and how you do your daily activities. It may not be possible to eliminate or reduce, but perhaps you might do things differently. Let's look at what the Internet can offer to small businesses.

3. The Telephone
Does your company spend a lot of money on the phones in your office? Is a large part of your phone bill goes to the advanced messaging, extensions and transfer systems?
Let's look at a different solution. There are several companies offering "virtual PBX". These programs are management control of Appeal, which will take a call, offer a choice of extensions - each with its own greetings and voicemail options - and to render this call wherever you choose. Options include the registration of all messages of greetings and yourself, choose the phones ring in what order, the rules vary for different times of day and week, as well as e-mail and messaging integration . All these elements can be accessed and managed from your computer. No need to buy special phones or services and the prices are shockingly low.
Example: www.ringcentral.com

4. The Database
The most important part of your sales staff is the database. It tells you who to call, who you have already called, what they said, what they bought, etc. How do you deal with all this data? There are many expensive programs there, has been even more expensive if you need to load them into multiple computers. Of course, you encounter procedures wasting time when you need to update and synchronize different computers. What about accounting or delivery? More time and money is wasted bringing them into the database repeatedly.
How about this? Rather than many programs on several computers in several departments, we have an online program that everyone can access. Online CRM (Customer Relationship Management) programs have revolutionized the office. Now, your sales staff can connect online, see what they are supposed to call, see who they are supposed not to appeal and record their notes, and mark their sales. Can go into accounting, ad hoc reports - all real-time - for payment processing. Shipping can see exactly to send, to whom and when. All this is seen by yourself, either piecemeal or in customized reports, you can create your own. Now imagine how this material could replace, what would be less paper used, and how much money could be saved.
Example: www.salesforce.com

5. File management
How much time is wasted each day picking up, or the sending of documents and spreadsheets crucial in your office? Every minute is wasted when someone has to stop what they are doing, pick up the phone or shoot an e-mail asking some file or another they need to do their job. How can you improve on that? There are custom servers that come with a big price to pay - and a bill even broader IT - but we want to simplify your business.
There are online programs that connects computers in your novel and innovative ways. One such course consists of a form of sharing folder where the files that must be shared are actually stored on each computer that has access to. With automatic synchronization, anytime someone opens a document or a spreadsheet and change, these programs will automatically copy the new version to each particular computer that the file is shared.
Think about this request: a shared folder called "sales." In all, it is one of your sales people need, including memos, manuals, guidelines, reports from suppliers, etc. Anytime a seller requires a particular file, it is sufficient to open Windows Explorer On their computer and looking through the files and open the document, just as they any other file. No more time wasted for searching for the file or with the file.
Example: www.foldershare.com

6. The Reunion
The meetings are very important for business. They can get people on the same page and working in the same direction. They bring the departments to work together as an enterprise to achieve your goals. However, if you have a configuration of employees, suppliers and customers that all others in the same building, the sessions can be very dangerous at the loss of time and money. To say that you should meet with a supplier or a customer, or if you have any off-site employees, and then setting up a planning meeting takes. Not to mention the money spent to get each and the meeting. How can you change this?
Returning to the phone and computer for this one. The conference call has come a long way since the days of "three avenues of appeal." Now you can instantly have a conference call with ten or a hundred people, as easily as, well pick up the phone. Calls can be recorded for future reference. They can even be accessed by anyone who missed the meeting.
When we bring the Internet into things, it gets even better. Now, you can talk to people while doing your PowerPoint presentation that they can all see on their own computers. You can also share a "whiteboard". You can even share documents and spreadsheets. But is not that there is nothing to the value of a "face-to-face?" At this point, you can go to the video conference. Everything you need is the online service , a webcam, and a "virtual F2F" is yours.
Example: www.accuconference.com

7. The Bureau
The scope of the changes proposed here is great, but can it be bigger? In most societies, the biggest expense - after major capital equipment if necessary - is office space. What if you did not have to pay for it?
If the first four suggestions for your company contributed in a fundamental way, we could take a closer look at your desk in the structure itself. How many employees could work from home if everything they do is on their computer? Is it possible to outsource your production? Your shipping needs could be addressed by another company? Customer service could be achieved 100% over the phone?
Of course, you could save a lot of money if you had not overhead office, but how is this possible? Okay, maybe not the whole office, but if you made major changes, would it be possible to do everything in a space much smaller?