Profitability and cash flow is at the heart of every company…
Increasingly, business leaders and finance directors are required to help drive the business forward, both operationally and through growth.
This means there is an expectation not only to report on the figures, but to use this information to drive profitability, both through growth and cost control.
There are several steps that business leaders and finance directors can make to help their organisation reach their goals, and increase profitability throughout the whole organisation.
One of the simplest procedures you can introduce, is by increasing visibility across the team. If each team member is aware of the financial state of the organisation, changes will begin to be made in areas that need it, both operational and sales.
Being transparent where money is being lost and gained, will show your team where they need to be more careful with overspending, where they need to improve performance. And it will quickly become a commercial effort to tighten the businesses finances.
Being a business leader or finance director is demanding, and you will require your time to be spent as efficiently as possible…
Being labored with too many distractions, such as unnecessary meetings, or chasing other team members for information, can leave less time for the key aspects of driving the business forward, whilst keeping a close eye on operational costs.
Whilst your concentration should be on financial management and business growth, you can delegate your other jobs to your team, so that you can focus on increasing profitability. It may feel as though you are working to your full potential, but if you are pouring your energy into the wrong tasks, it will mean that you aren’t seeing the results that you’d expect, and you are actually holding back profitability and progress.
Introducing transparency through modern methods of sharing information with your team will allow you all to get any data you need (without spending wasted time chasing it) to make quick informed business decisions. Along with this, ensuring that all tasks are assigned to the relevant team members will cut down on wasted time and make a noticeable difference in your teams productivity.
The right business management software can have a major impact in your business, not just to help increase sales, but also to keep costs under control through implementing thorough procedures and processes. Not to mention, giving you and your team real time financial information.
Joined up organisation wide software for managing invoicing, credit control, inventory, marketing, employees, financial reporting and customer management can save an organisation loads of money, through streamlining of operations and saving loads of time. Not to mention providing a great platform to fuel growth in sales too.
Software platforms such as SAP Business One, Zoho One, Odoo, xTuple and Business by Miles are just a small number of the latest highly recommended platforms that have got great reviews, and could make a massive difference to the profitability of your organisation.
Platforms, such as these, allow you to see in real-time, the financial performance of the overall organisation, and who in the team is over or under performing. Making it easy to inform them what adjustments need to be made and in which areas. Meaning profitability can be maximised extremely quickly.
Another key benefit of using this kind of software, is that reporting becomes more accurate, with less errors. This is because all data is entered into one central system, rather than into a mix of different systems or spreadsheets. And reporting (of everything) is real-time with just the push of a button.
Implementing these simple tips into your organisation, will make a huge difference to the team’s daily functioning and will result in increased profitability, through operational savings and increased sales.
