Have you ever read Dilbert? It is a long-standing comic strip that pokes fun at the business world. Occasionally, the strip pokes fun at companies spending hundreds of thousands on consultants to help them save money.
There is an odd paradox that exists in the business world where middle managers are happy to throw money at a problem so long as it makes the problem go away, and this includes throwing money at the idea of business savings. The truth is that your business can probably save a bundle if you scale back expectations before you scale back your business processes.
Use BitTorrent to Share Files
If you were to walk into your boss’s office right now and suggest installing BitTorrent onto their computers, your boss may become worried because the software is tarred with the banner of copyright piracy. Yet, if a company took the software, repackaged it as intra-office sharing software, your same boss would probably pay hundreds for it.
Save on Cloud expenses and server expenses. If you have large files that need sharing throughout the company and even with clients or associates, then use BitTorrent and share the files very quickly without the added expense. What’s more, if you are worried about security, then simply zip your files and put a password on them. So long as you are not sending financial information, then there is no risk to your company.
Add LibreOffice into Your Company
How dare anyone suggest you use anything except Microsoft Office? How dare indeed since Microsoft has spawned hundreds of competitors that have copied their formula and made millions. Yet, there is a brilliant outlier that has copied Microsoft Office in almost every way but has released it for free on the internet. This software is called LibreOffice, and it is just like Microsoft Office except that you do not have to pay (ever).
Plus, you can still create the same files as Microsoft. For example, if you want to save a word processor document, you can save it as a Microsoft document (.docx) or a text document, as HTML, or mostly any file type you get with Microsoft.
Also, the great thing about LibreOffice is that it is open source, which means you can add things to it. For example, you could add access to information from your app so that LibreOffice users could harvest app information more quickly. Better still, since it is open source, you can program it to secure it from your own staff. It may stop staff doing things like altering database numbers that they shouldn’t or stop them from changing the auto-corrected words into rude ones (usual office high jinks).
Buy Staff Management Software
One of the biggest areas where you may be losing money is through staff downtime. Sometimes staff downtime happens organically and is unavoidable, such as in hospitals where sometimes nurses are not busy, and on the same night may be very busy if say a bus crashes.
Then there are non-organic slabs of downtime, and these are the sorts of things you can avoid with staff management software. Rather than having staff floating around waiting to be given orders, or waiting for the next job, you can organize and arrange from a central location. Even the simple act of recording staff movements and job progress may help you determine where you are losing the most time and the most staff hours.
Share Promotional Costs With Another Company
Let’s say that you are doing a little local advertising, and you have a nearby friendly company that has a similar need to advertise. Since you and the other company are not in competition, perhaps try sharing promotional costs with the hopes of reducing your own advertising spending.
You can keep it simple, such as you print on one side of a leaflet, and the other company prints on the other side. Or you can arrange events together, or even cross promote. For example, the other company could give away leaflets with your discount offers on, and you could give away leaflets with their discount offers.
Final Thoughts – Cutting Costs Doesn’t Always Mean Having Less
The problem with the notion of cutting costs is that people associate them with somehow having less or losing out. The simple examples given in this article prove that many times, not only can you save money, but you actually walk away with a better deal. At the very least, try starting by replacing that paid/subscription software with free software, and then start considering new approaches to staff management and even to customer management.
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