When we discuss productivity with many business owners they seem to understand the surface value of the concept but never look any deeper. The fact is that an increase in productivity is immediately reflected as revenue growth.

When a user is more productive at what he does, he is able to provide a better overall service, avoid mistakes (which we all know can cost a lot of time and money) and achieve higher customer satisfaction which, once again, translates to higher revenue in the long term.

So what is productivity? Improving productivity can be defined as taking any process and making it more streamlined. For example, creating user alerts to prevent users from making mistakes, and reducing the number of clicks needed to complete a task can be both contribute hugely to improved productivity.

Imagine the following scenario: you need to enter a sales order into your business system but your inventory data resides in another system, and there is no integration to your CRM system (whatever it may be, a small program, an XL file, etc…). This can be interpreted in a number of ways:

  • It’s going to take you a considerable amount of time to create this sales order
  • You are lacking important business insight
  • Maybe if the sales order needs to be approved, then you either call / email for approval

And all this can take a very long time which translates into lost revenue, reduced customer satisfaction and user frustration.

When you have everything required for your business processes in one system, these issues are eliminated and the order process can be completed in just a few clicks, rather than requiring the user to jump between different systems for the relevant data.

One of the easiest ways to improve productivity is to implement an ERP system. Even if you have a small business you should familiarise yourself with that term. There are many good ERP systems out there which are designed for the small and even very small market. One of those systems is called SAP Business One, and before you ask: yes, the mighty SAP corporation has actually built an affordable ERP system which is ideal for small and medium customers.

Of course, the main benefit for an ERP system like SAP Business One is to be able to customise it. It you can't make your ERP system run the way you need it to then you're back at the crossroads of unaligned processes and reduced productivity. As such, a customisation tool is one of the most important things you'll need in your arsenal.

By customising your ERP system you're able to create your own business processes, user alerts and pop-ups for different scenarios, thereby making sure that required data is not missed out, and your users don't end up having to pick up the phone or write emails to request this information at a later date…. When all of this logic is built into your ERP system then you can start analysing your operations and improving your productivity.

The idea is to work simple and smart: involve the minimum of systems for your data processing and eliminate the need to do custom coding in order to customise them. You can then focus on running your business rather than micro-managing it.