Over the years, organizations have invested billions in large-scale reengineering initiatives like ERP implementations, shared services, and outsourcing. While these "whale-bite" transformations can yield significant results, they often come with substantial costs, business disruption, and risk.
A Different Approach: Goldfish Bytes
Lao Tzu wisely said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Rather than focusing on sweeping, organization-wide changes, our series will explore Goldfish Bytes: lighter, low-friction efficiency hacks. These quick wins, all with a technology angle, can substantially impact your bottom line without the disruption and project of a whale-sized project. Let's dive in.
Hack #1: Software As A Savings™
Your company has hundreds of costly processes and systems to produce and sell your products, many manual or using outdated software. You know that improvement is needed but are reluctant to change these because decades of painful software implementations make you jittery. The software of yesterday required a heavy lift...long-term commitments, disruptive, manpower intensive, and costly.
The software world has changed a lot in the last decade, and today's tech startups have solutions that are as easy as a smartphone software upgrade. If you haven't evaluated the plethora of new software products available in the past three to four years, there's a good chance you're missing opportunities to optimize your back-office operations and save money. Let's look at one example of 'Software As A Savings™'.
Our client was using a large, well-known expense reporting software that had been around for over 10 years. It was complicated and worked okay, but cost about $35 per expense report resulting in a huge annual cost for the client.
We tested the market and discovered numerous new SAAS expense reporting solutions, mostly from startups who were hungry to get our client's business. The option selected was free (yes, you heard that right....FREE) and included cash back to the company for purchases on the provider's credit card. Implementation was easy and took under two months. The amazing part is that the new solution functions significantly better than the old one!
The potential for efficiency gains extends beyond expense reporting. Consider replacing outdated or manual processes with innovative software solutions in areas such as safety incident reporting, business intelligence, social media management, data integrity, and talent management. The software solutions on the market today, many powered by AI, will blow your mind.
Taking the First Step
Getting started is simple. Pick the process or software that's frustrating you or your team the most. Is it invoicing? Fleet management? Maybe, like our client, it's expense reporting. From there, it's pretty easy to research potential solutions, short-list 3-4 for demos, get bids, select and implement.
Implementing this Goldfish Bytes is a great first step on your 1000-mile journey toward top-tier efficiency and margins.
V-17 Advisory understands SAAS (Software As A Savings™). We can help you identify the areas for improvement and implement the right solutions to drive efficiency and growth. Contact us today to learn more.
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