3 Reliable Ways Small Business can Improve Business Processes

At its core Business Process Management (BPM), is a systematic approach to making an organisation’s workflow more effective, efficient, and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. As you might imagine, BPM is a wide-ranging subject, and there are a number of different areas you’ll have to focus on in order to create a well-rounded business. Three approaches described below can help small business owners improve their business processes to be able to compete effectively.

Social Media

The days of social media simply being a means to catch up with your old school friends are long gone. In recent years, it’s become a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve their corporate brand, communicate with customers, and even find potential employees. Social media has also become a valuable collaboration tool amongst businesses who employ staff who work remotely across numerous different locations. Microblogs allow project leaders to more effectively communicate their project details with the rest of the department, while others can create and share short videos that relay a summary of a meeting that not everyone could attend.

5 Guaranteed Ways to Improve Brand Awareness of Business

Having a unique and memorable brand helps you build awareness of your business and create a long-term position in the marketplace. Brand awareness is a measure of how well your brand is known within its target markets. Your brand is a welcome mat or a locked door to potential customers, and by building up your brand name in the online and offline arena you will potentially reach more clients and customers. There are many ways to increase your own brand awareness:

• Exhibit – Exhibiting can be expensive but it is also a great way to get in front of hundreds of people attending a conference or trade event. With expense in mind it is important to choose where you are exhibiting carefully so that you can reach your target audience.
• Experiential stunt – The aim of this is to create a bond between the consumer and the brand by showcasing the brand in a fun, memorable experience and if they are truly successful increase brand awareness. This can be expensive, with Red Bull providing some great examples in the past through its Formula 1 teams, BMX events most notable would be its Space Jump in October 2012.
• Social Media – Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn provide companies with a great platform to build their brand awareness with their target audience online. However finding the time to create engaging content for these channels can be time consuming and at a cost. One company which has certainly used its social channels to their advantage to engage with their consumer is ‘AO’ check there Facebook page here for some examples.
• Promotional Merchandise – Small corporate gifts are a great way to thank customers for their business and reinforce your brand at the same time. But don’t scrimp too much, cheap and cheerful merchandise could create a false impression of your brand. Something unusual or personalised will delight the recipient and may lead to them posting about the gift on social media, earning your brand extra glory. One recent example of this was in the construction industry, where Hill Engineering in Northern Ireland commissioned a bespoke USB of its own product a Tefra Quick Coupler. This unique shaped USB pen resonated well with their target audience creating brand awareness and also gave them further opportunity to engage online with suppliers and contractors within the construction industry.

4 Tips to Make Manufacturing Business Efficient

Manufacturing industry is immensely competitive, which mandates that you need to stay efficient if you want to stay alive in this business for long-term. With the rise of globalization manufacturing companies are not just dealing with competitors across the town, but with international companies from countries like India and China. These international manufacturing businesses might be operational in countries where labour laws are different. This means that they will be able to make the same product as you at a far cheaper cost. As a result, they can afford to offer it to suppliers at a lower price. The only way to compete with these businesses is to find ways to make your manufacturing firm more efficient and save on costs yourself. Here are 4 tips to help you become efficient.

Outsource

In manufacturing, outsourcing is starting to play an important role. By outsourcing, a manufacturer can specialise in the production of one part of the product rather than the entire item. Or, they can hire other companies to complete the rest of the production for them. But still sell the finished product themselves. By doing this, you won’t have to hire as many staff or invest in as much equipment. You will also be able to save on your energy bills and still produce a high amount of stock. To outsource in this way, it’s important to find businesses and make partnerships with other companies that you can rely on. If they fail to provide the service that you need, it could damage your business reputation.

Hire the Right Staff

It’s also important that you think about what staff to hire. Again, as a manufacturing business, you will be completing a large number of jobs for short periods of time. It’s crucial that you have the staff who are the most skilled for these jobs. If you do, you’ll be able to produce a larger number of items and make bigger profits. This will be true even if you are competing with cheaper competition. If you can produce a higher number of items in a shorter period, you might gain the interest of buyers. Even if your price is higher than other businesses.