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Why Workflow Automation Is Crucial for SMEs Today

According to the Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC), small and medium scale enterprises make up nearly 97 per cent of all businesses. These SMEs employ the majority of the workforce across the APEC economies. Suffice to say that SMEs are the drivers of growth, and we cannot deny their immense contribution to the GDP. However, it seems that the surging digitization has escaped most of them. A large chunk still depends on antiquated workflows and business processes. Imagine the level of productivity and growth they can achieve with workflow automation and optimized processes?!

Owners of small enterprises are under constant pressure from low revenue streams, rigid budgets, and finite resources. Irrespective of the fact that the primary goal of these enterprises is to reduce expenses and labour costs, they still find it incredibly difficult to deal with the up-front cost of investing in this very outcome.

Areas of Workflow Automation for SMEs

Small businesses today face the threat of lagging behind their competitors if they fail to automate routine processes. Today, technologies like enhanced computing power and robust networking are developing at a rapid scale. Now it has become more than easy for SMEs to deploy automation solutions for their daily processes and manage numerous tasks between their workers.

Put simply, workflow automation solutions are no longer a luxury that can be leveraged only by large organizations. Given below are some of the most effective spheres of automation that SMEs should regard as an investment for their future expansion and growth.

Payroll Solutions

Numerous small business payroll solutions streamline the process of automating payroll from scratch or automate transitioning from another system. Managing employee payroll is necessary for success. A payroll software solution from a reliable workflow management company will automate activities in areas like:

• Running payroll

• Management of payroll taxes

• Compliance with existing payroll legislation and guidelines

Staying away from such a solution will only lead to more expenses and a wastage of time and resources that you can deploy elsewhere. It is no wonder that nearly 40 percentper cent of SMEs consider taxes and bookkeeping the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of owning a business.

Benefits of Payroll Automation

Many small business owners spend endless time managing the scheduling of employees to guarantee them sufficient coverage. Payroll systems offer features that facilitate the automation of scheduling according to the individual employee data. You can also integrate the software with systems that monitor worker’s paid time off, sick leaves, and vacation days. Their efficacy lies in the fact that the reporting functions filter down to every single user.

The significance of reliable payroll software becomes more pronounced in certain scenarios. For example, you may feel entirely at ease with the employee reports display data but still find workers with queries on payday.

Payroll automation is an all-inclusive solution for SMEs, manageable from a mobile device. It allows owners to keep a tab on things when they are on the move.

Automation for Enhancing Team Collaboration

Teamwork lies at the heart of any business. Smooth interaction between team members is critical to sustained success. Workflow automation solutions like project management board allow teams to monitor their work progress together. Many cloud-based solutions work well with remote team members as well.

There is also scope for engaging in more confidential activities like signing contracts, discussing acquisitions, investments, and negotiations. Many software solutions can create ‘virtual data rooms’ that safeguard sensitive information. Collaboration tools with such a feature can manage functions like access control and printing permissions and impart granularity that enables you to decide who can make changes.

Marketing Automation

Automating your workflow is perhaps the best technology practice that you can implement to enhance productivity. Going by the recent trends, automating might just be what your organization needs to overcome the market-wide productivity slump.

With the dominance of online marketing, SMEs find themselves with no shortage of marketing options. Thankfully, the trend is complemented with an equal, if not more increase in the number of marketing automation options. Marketing automation provides marketers with the ability to form one-on-one cross-channel journeys that impart consistent and connected customer experiences. It entails providing the right content to the right customers at the right time, thus nurturing their trust.

Automation of Customer Service

Today, the customer is king. Nurturing a bond with customers is a crucial priority for managers and their staff. At the same time, there’s no escaping the fact that providing excellent customer service can turn out to be quite draining on the finite resources of an SME.

Providing quality service can be best achieved by streamlining this function through a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. They collect and manage customer-related information and interaction. By availing such a solution for themselves, SMEs better align themselves with customer needs and provide customized recommendations according to customer history with their organization.

As you can see, there’s no end to the benefits that SMEs can get by leveraging workflow automation. It enhances collaboration, reduces overhead costs, boosts productivity, and frees up the team to concentrate on innovation and creativity. However, it is wise not to view workflow automation as a magic solution to all business concerns. You need to think every time you implement such a solution carefully. Step back and take a moment to analyze your workflow and then figure out the solution to help you manage it in the best way possible. Reach out to Ezofis to reap the full benefits of workflow automation.

3 Reasons Why You Should Write a New CV Today

Over the past decade the quality of CV writing has risen dramatically. This is down to the amount of free information you can find online. There are lots of CV writing guides and tips which help anyone wanting to improve their application, and this has pushed the quality up to a whole new level.

Because of this employers are now expecting a higher quality of CV, which leaves anyone not swotting up online in the past. The old style of writing a CV is not good enough anymore and it’s harder than ever to now get an interview.

If you’re worried that your CV may be failing you, here are 3 massive reasons why you must write a new CV today.

It’s too generic

If your current CV is purely a list of all your skills, qualifications and experience – then read on. This approach to CV writing is out of date and not going to impress anyone. But what will help you get a job interview is tailoring your application.

To find out if your CV is too generic, grab a highlighter pen and print off a copy of your CV. Having read the job advert you should have a good idea of the skills and experience they require. Then, highlight all the information which isn’t relevant to the employer you are going to send it off too. After highlighting all the irrelevant parts you will probably have most of your information in yellow by now!

Like so many other CVs you should find that most of your information isn’t going to be of interest to the employer. Now that you’re staring at a huge sea of yellow or pink highlighter, you can see why a generic and untailored CV is not going to get you an interview.

Now would be a great time to start again completely from scratch. Keep your old CV so you have all your work history, but create a new one which now takes into consideration what the company wants.

You must tailor your CV to the role and the company if you want to succeed. The hiring manager wants to pick up your application and instantly see that you are suitable. A generic CV will force them to read between the lines, and most of the time they won’t bother.

You only update

If you keep the same CV and simply keep updating it every time you change jobs, you definitely need a new CV. Your old and tired CV is going to continue to slowly step out of favour with its design and content.

“Tailor your CV. Look at the company’s website and social media accounts, look to see if they’ve recently been mentioned in the local press and use the job advert to make sure your CV is targeted to the role and employer.”

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/cvs-and-cover-letters/how-to-write-a-cv

We’ve already covered the topic of tailoring your CV to the role, and by doing that you will prevent this from happening. You don’t need to keep making small updates if you always write a brand new CV every time you apply. Even if you’re applying to numerous employers for the same job title, you should still write a new one for each – there will always be differences, no matter how subtle they may seem.

So stop making small updates and start again. It will ensure your information is relevant and fresh, and you can also choose a new design for your layout. This brings us on to…

You haven’t used a CV template

A CV template is a ready made layout that you can use to simply insert your details. Not only will that save a lot of time and stress, it will look great!

Unless you are a graphic designer or have a keen eye for this sort of thing, you should always choose a ready made CV template. You just have to make sure you pick a good one and avoid any rogue websites. Unfortunately not every CV template website you come across offers the best designs, but hopefully you will be able to filter out the good from the bad.

There are lots of modern designs to choose from and most are free to download. If you can find one that’s recent and clearly looks fantastic, it will certainly help you get a job interview. The overall layout and design of your CV is just as important as the skills you have to offer.

Why Is It Vital Today for Small Business Owners to Have Their Own App?

If you own a small business today and you do not have an app to promote your business, you should address this now. Apps for smartphone’s have become a way of life. 86% of the time cell phone users spend on their phone is in apps. A Gallup study indicates almost 3/4 of cell users check their phone at least once per hour. I believe this a low percentage based on my experience watch people and particularly 35-40 year olds. Phones are visible everywhere.

Therefore, cell phone apps have become useful as a marketing tool. You can engage with your customers, promote good feeling, build your brand, and show your customers that you are willing to build a relationship with them.

Where is your phone now? In your pocket or your hand? Does your phone like mine, have many different apps that you use for various reasons? If you want to prepare for the future, you should definitely get your company an app.

So, why do I say you should do this? It is my thinking that you must be progressive. You must find new ways to provide more value to your customers. There are so many valuable ways that an app promotes your business – loyalty programs and discounts, messages (Push Notifications) on special offers, building your brand, sell online, accept payments etc.

Starbucks currently uses and app to reward customers with the app. Domino’s created an app for delivery and store pickup of orders. I have a friend who liked Domino’s but hated the annoyance of calling them. Now that they have an app, she told me she has brand loyalty. 52% of online orders are created through and app. Domino’s has experienced a rise of 28% in six months pre-tax profits in the UK alone. This is impressive.

You can use your app to do research. Ask your clients – they are your friends. What do they really want from you in the future? This will help with product development and customer retention. You can collect feedback on your customers.

Find an app developer you trust. Once that accepts a deposit, then works with you to design what you want on your app. Make sure you have a contract indicating the deposit, full price, and time. The time issue must be very clear. Included in the contract should be an over view of the site being created – number of pages, specific pages, how many changes you will receive. If you don’t give your developer the required information, they can’t produce your app in a timely manner. Set dates. Then move forward.

Make Money Online With Small Business Opportunities Today

In the past 10 years we have watched the small business, home based business and network marketing industry serge into a billion dollar industry with their numbers increasing every year. Any average marketer can make money online through successful internet marketing principles. There are many people making money online, there are a couple thousand internet marketing millionaires as well. Now with that established we can go ahead and acknowledge the fact that it wasn’t just a walk-in-the-park, they had to work hard to make that money. I just don’t want anybody to get the idea that the internet was just about get-rich-quick schemes because that is not what I am talking about. I want to talk to you about using proven systems to make so much money online you couldn’t imagine it. Hopefully today you will learn these internet marketing success secrets that you can use to make money online and build a residual income.

The beauty of the internet is that you can earn an income while you sleep. I am being extremely serious because there are not a lot of other things that give you that luxury. You can literally go to sleep with a certain amount of money in your account and wake up with money money than the night before in your account. The power that the internet possesses that allows you to do that is the ability to advertise any and everywhere. You can target your advertising as much as possible and only have people that are already interested in what you have to offer running down your business because of a constant online presence. Due to this, the internet is probably the greatest marketing tool in the 21st Century.

Millionaire Principles vs The “Average” Earner

So you probably want to know what separates the millionaires from the ones who fail? The first thing I would tell you that is separating millionaires and average earners is not the person themselves but their attitude. You see whether you fail or you don’t fail it is up to you, how successful you are is based on the decisions and actions you make today. I could think of three other things straight off the top of my head that limit most people from becoming great entrepreneurs: lack of mentorship, lack of action and they probably never had an effective enough system. I suggest these three things off the top of my head as major set-backs between top earners and even the average earners. If you want to make money online then I suggest getting a mentor, somebody who has already earned a significant amount of money online. Then I suggest joining a proven successful system and learning that system from the people who are successful with it already. The person who is successful with any system is successful because of their principles and if you can learn their principles and apply it you too can become successful. I highly encourage taking action as you learn and as you grow because without action you can learn as much as you want and still not progress, action is an essential key in the equation of success.

Making money online is not really different from making money from any regular retail store or sales marketing business. The actual shopping experience is different but the principles remain the same. Just like if you had a store, you would need traffic coming to your store in order to make sales. Well the advantage here is that you can have traffic from anywhere on the planet, also through online advertising and offline advertising. You can sell other people’s products and you don’t have to have the products physically, it can also be digital products. There are a lot of online business opportunities that can earn you a passive residual income. You have to do you research and find the small business opportunity that fits you and ensure it has products/services that you believe in and can stand by.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who make money online with small business opportunities and you can be one of them. How badly do you want to be successful? Are you willing to work hard for you internet marketing dreams? I ask these questions because if you really want to make money online you have to want it bad, you have to be willing to work day in and day out. The thing is, you will work hard at the start but you will end up seeing results just a couple months in and if you can keep up your initial work ethic or even increase it and you will see your results double, triple and even quadruple over time. The internet offers you the opportunity of retiring within 1-2 years of effective marketing and not many opportunities can say the same thing. Work hard enough within your first year and you can break into financial freedom.

No other business opportunity is offering you financial freedom for one year of work. I want to see you become an internet marketing success and make so much money online you don’t know what to do with it. I have already been successful online but I enjoy seeing other people learn and become themselves. If you find yourself a proven successful system and you stay diligent and work hard at marketing it, you will make money online. There are many resources out there that can aid you in making money online and many of them are free as well.

I encourage you to go out there right now and do some research on small business opportunities. Find an opportunity you can really trust and stand behind and join the program and go make some real money online. Remember what Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

To Your Success!