If You Do It Right, Your Company’s Productivity Never Has To Plateau.
Many businesses assume that as they grow to a certain size, they will have to deal with certain inefficiencies… but this isn’t true.
Take it from us: there are countless ways to innovate, and keep your business operations lean. In this article, we’ll explore a few solutions ranging from investing in automation to enlisting the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Like our government is fond of saying, it’s all about doing more with less!
#1: Invest in automation
One company which is big on using technology to increase productivity is Ernst & Young, one of the most reputable accounting firms in the world. Over at EY, they use software robots to handle the repetitive tasks associated with employee onboarding. You’re reading that right – EY’s tech team actually built an army of robots which are capable of performing tasks such as entering incoming employee information into the firm’s HR system.
These robots are actually made up of code, and they’re not physical entities. So, nope, there aren’t any WALL-E type robots trundling around the EY offices, but the HR staff still get to outsource their menial tasks!
#2: Use collaborative tools
Here’s the thing about meetings: more often than not, they’re a huge waste of time.
You know how it goes. You’re supposed to meet at 2pm, but people only start trickling in at 2.05pm, and by the time everyone’s present, it’s 2.15pm.
Even if the meeting starts off strong, it inevitably goes off on a tangent. Maybe the team gets into a heated debate about whether they were using the right metrics to analyze last month’s campaign. They spend 40 minutes in a furious back-and-forth, and only realize they haven’t discussed the most urgent topic – this month’s campaign – five minutes before the meeting is supposed to end.
Here’s our recommendation: cut down on the meetings, and use collaboration suites to discuss projects instead. Tools such as Slack and Trello are equipped with plenty of collaborative features; these allow team members to communicate about projects without getting sucked into unproductive, long drawn out meetings. We’ve got all this technology at our fingertips… so go ahead and capitalize on it!
#3: Use AI to schedule your meetings
Many business owners tell us that AI feels like something that’s insanely out of reach. But here’s what they don’t know: there are plenty of cost-effective or free AI applications out there, and you can take advantage of the power of AI even with a limited budget.
Take Evie for example, which is a AI scheduling assistant that helps you schedule your meetings and manage your calendar. (As mentioned above, you should ideally be cutting down on your meetings. But it’s unrealistic to try and eliminate these altogether, and for those meetings which are absolutely essential, that’s where Evie comes in!)
Here’s how it works:
Say you need to set up a face-to-face meeting or a Skype call with someone. Simply cc Evie in your email, and it’ll arrange the date, send out an invitation, and even book a conference room if necessary.
Evie can handle multiple requests, timezones, and cancellations. If you have just 10 people on your team, and each person has 3 meetings a week on average, it’s estimated that Evie will save you 24 hours and $450 per month. Not too shabby, huh?
Want to learn about how RICE can help you improve your company’s productivity, so that your revenue doesn’t plateau? Get in touch with us here!
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