COVID-19 did a lot of damage to the business world. Big business suffered unpleasant setbacks, but it was ultimately small businesses that were hit hardest of all. Many companies didn’t have the resources to absorb the economic impact of lockdowns and other such complications. Those businesses are now insolvent and gone.

The ones that didn’t perish were in for a bumpy ride. A year or so after the crisis began and the lockdowns hit, we’re still not out of the woods. Competition is fiercer than ever, and SMEs in particular need to be on their toes if they don’t want to fall by the wayside.

For a small business, the only way to stay ahead of the competition is to be as efficient as possible. This means constantly optimizing your business processes so that you can get the most out of the limited resources you have. Implementing a BPM software is crucial for managing your team and business as effectively as possible.

There are essential steps every company should consider to improve its business processes. Here are the best strategies to put your company on the fast track to success.

Organize Your Physical Space

There are many practices you need to adopt to improve your success as an entrepreneur. The first one is to get your “house” in order. Organize your physical office and storage space. Arrange and put away the cables that support your IT workstations. Sort through and file all the paperwork you have.

Sure, there are plenty of other things that you can do to optimize your business processes. Most of them can seem to be more sophisticated and practical. However, the fact remains that clutter and chaos are a productivity killer. When a job is urgent, you usually need to get to it right away. Having to clean up before you can even start on the task at hand will put a spanner in your works.

Don’t Neglect Marketing

Running a successful SME is all about compromise. Often, you won’t have the resources to cover every base and constantly gain ground on every front. It’s all about running a tight ship and making the best you can with what you have. As such, it may be tempting to cut corners here and there – especially in a time of crisis. 

Still, whatever you do, do not sacrifice marketing. In the current day and age, visibility is everything. Reducing your visibility in such a climate is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot – twice.

Even if you’re displeased with the results of your marketing efforts so far, don’t cut them short. Instead, diversify your vectors of approach. Focus on promoting your brand on social media. Dip your toe into influencer marketing. Explore the possibility of wider audiences and new communities that may like your product. 

Do everything you can to make sure you stay relevant in people’s minds. You’re immediately going to lose vital ground to your competitors if you don’t.

Go Digital

Going digital is an excellent way of speeding up the pace of your business. Sticking all your paperwork on the cloud is a great way to both store your information securely and make it shareable. But that’s only one way of making use of IT to improve your process.

Automating your workflow and using templates to aid your process whenever possible are also a must. It’s remarkable how much more efficient you can be if you use the right digital tools. 

You may need a BPM, a video conference software, a CRM tool, or another tool that automates mundane everyday tasks and projects with set deadlines. Make no mistake – the right tools for the job are out there. You just have to find them. 

To this end, make it a point to dedicate time to researching how technology can make your business more effective. Take a close look at every part of your process. Do some research on how you can digitize it – and then take steps to implement these tech innovations.

Adopt a Good Task Management System

Getting task management right is essential for running a successful business. Implementing a good BPM solution or adopting software that incorporates task management in some way can help you a lot in that.

The foundation of improving efficiency is clarity. You need to establish what everyone’s tasks are, what every task that needs doing is, what your goals and priorities are. 

Categorize and clearly outline everything, and make sure everyone on board knows what’s going on. Doing this without employing a specialized tool can be a bother, even if you are running an SME. 

Theoretically, everyone in a small team should be able to keep tabs on all current activities and plans. In practice, everyone has far too much to do to keep the business running. You need to adopt a system that allows everyone to check every aspect of your business easily. 

Maintain Your Momentum

You can’t afford to get complacent once you put these strategies into motion – you need to keep going. Cleaning up is not something you do once and for all. You need to establish a system to keep the clutter out of your office, storage, and working space. 

The same goes for adopting digital tools. You should always be on the lookout for new ways of using technology to improve your business process. Automation will open valuable time that you can spend on more productivity or advancement. As such, it is the key to your success.

Likewise, marketing is not something you do once and for all and forget about. Watch out for what’s new, popular, and effective. True, keeping up with what’s hip nowadays is a lot of work. Unfortunately, that’s the only way to stay relevant.

Business process management is an ongoing process by default. However, sometimes it’s not enough just to keep using the old system. If you need more than it can deliver, you should seriously consider changing it with a new one that better suits your needs. Failing that, you can think about supplementing it with additional systems. Investing precious time and effort into that may seem wasteful, but if it can improve your business the expenditure may well be worth it.