COVID-19 has forced businesses to make drastic changes.
On the one hand, these changes have allowed companies to be more fluid in their operation. On the other, they've left some companies needing to provide more to their customers with fewer resources.
Concerns about the new normal
There's been a lot of press from industry leaders talking about the "new normal" and what this means for businesses post COVID. Having read the analysis and spoken to our own customers, we've identified two main areas of concern:
- Increased costs. Returning to the workplace is going to require significant investment in office redesigns, regular cleaning, and PPE to ensure the safety of their employees and remain compliant with government guidelines. Additionally, collaboration tools have now become the norm and will be required as people adopt a more flexible approach to working. This will have inherent cost implications as businesses need to scale infrastructure, licencing, and overall technology costs.
- Revenue decline. While there will be lots of opportunities, nervousness in the market is going to change the way people do business. Buyers are going to want flexible agreements with shorter commitments, and they're only going to be spending on essential products or services. This will have a knock-on effect on predictable income, and it's forecast that revenues as a whole will decrease as businesses scale back.
Businesses are going to need to do more with less. Our view is that, by leveraging data visualisation and analytics tools in four key areas, small to medium-sized companies will see substantial improvements.
Where should businesses focus post-COVID?
1. Revenue assurance and profitability
Revenues for business are forecast to decline, so it's more important than ever to ensure you're quickly and accurately capturing payments for all services.
Average revenue leakage is estimated at 5-15%. So by leveraging data and automation, you can quickly implement a solution that improves revenue, cash flow, and profits – all without the requirement to generate any new business.
2. Customer retention
We know that nervousness in the marketplace is going to slow down new business acquisition, so recurring revenues and existing customer retention are going to be paramount. Many businesses invest heavily in customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, yet are unable to adequately understand the risk profile of their customers (or even the temperature of the relationship).
If you can identify the 20% of your customers that are generating 80% of your revenue, you can ensure you're delivering outstanding service where it matters most. Even with a reduced workforce.
The pandemic has undoubtedly hit some industries harder than others. Understanding which of your customers will be affected most allows you to begin conversations that benefit both parties.
3. Operational efficiency
The requirement to downsize a business overnight while maintaining normal operations has been both challenging and eye-opening. From our conversations with companies so far, the pandemic has highlighted some highly inefficient workflows; simple tasks that require multiple unnecessary touchpoints/people and hours of manual efforts to complete.
This complexity is not only expensive but exposes you to risk at each stage in the workflow (human error or not being available). Reducing reliance on individuals in these instances removes the potential for failure while also reducing your cost to serve, increasing the speed of delivery and most importantly freeing up resource for more pressing responsibilities.
We recently managed to save one of our clients 100+ hours per month by automating processes within their finance team. The size of the prize is considerable.
4. Automated intelligence
Lack of resource isn't only a problem for operations. It also impacts reporting and business intelligence.
You may have found that some of your regular reports aren't available as there is a dependency on other people in the business. But today, it's no longer acceptable to have so many single points of failure; situations where business-critical insights are unavailable when somebody is sick, or in this case, furloughed.
Having a robust, fully automated system that can deliver your analytics continuously and without the need for human intervention means you know that you can depend on your data to make smarter business decisions in any situation.
5. Data or systems aren't ready
Technology and tools are always changing, so you might find yourself waiting forever for the “perfect” time to implement new solutions.
New systems provide plenty of opportunities. Having a clear data strategy at the start allows you to design and develop a system that delivers everything you need to tackle your key business challenges. It also saves money on potential redesign costs further down the line.
Regardless of your current situation, now is always the right time to start your data-driven journey. If you haven’t built a robust strategy that explains how data can add value to your business, you run the risk of being left behind.
How has COVID affected your business?
Have you got systems in place to tackle the challenges presented by COVID or are you in the lucky position to be able to take advantage?
If you're looking to run your business more efficiently and find ways of turning these challenging times into improvements in the way that you operate, get in touch today.