Thought for the Day #skills
Productivity –can SaaS close the gap
Yesterday I shared my thoughts on the issue of cash flow and really nailing our skills around the flow of cash in business. I am thrilled with how many people asked for help with this, in the group and also privately, which does show, this is an area that we will need to invest time and skills into when we open The Business Cafe
Today, my thoughts are around the productivity gap that is on the News a lot at the moment. When I hear about economic issues, I always wonder what my own personal role is in improving things. How can I improve my productivity (and help others to improve.)
What also intrigues me is the 2007 shift that happened.
In 2007 – the iphone was launched
This is the year that marks the stedy decline in Productivity in the UK
This is the year self employment began to grow faster.
I chose this image of a lone worker working into the night, surely that is not the answer for all of us to achieve the incomes needed and the skills and love we all need to give.
Productivity for all of us is about the most efficient use of our time and processes to improve our hourly output. The scary task many of us set ourselves is the hourly wage we are effectively paying ourselves. The long hours worked and the output of income. It makes me wonder if the drop in productivity in the UK is partly due to the growth in sole traders and micro business, it takes a long time to know how to run a business really productivity and at its optimum.
Achieving more income for hours worked forces us to think about how we are using our time and the proportion of client time vs administration. Also our fees, are we respecting our knowledge enough and will the market cope with an increase in our fees if we want to respect it more. The economics around productivity is really interesting.
At our disposal now are amazing software tools that we can access from our mobiles that enable us to use our time wisely, and as Gail says ‘delegate to a App’.
As a team, we have just started to use Trello, this makes us more accountable, transparent with our actions and sets clear deadlines, a great Project Management tool. We use Xero to maintain our accounts and cash awareness. We use some great social media tools, we could improve on this, and we will. We have created a good supply chain to enable us to scale with partners and skilled suppliers. In fact, I would say the productivity of Gail and I is pretty good, always room for improvement though.
A ‘Productivity Audit’ now that would be cool. Imagine if we could call on a cutting edge Business SaaS (software as a Service) Expert, who could make out business even more efficient though implementing the right Business Apps and Marketing Tools to maximise the hour/income ratio. Now I like that. I guess this will be the roll of our Digital Friends when we set them up in the cafe’s across the country.
Back down to earth, what do you feel would be the most useful tool to add to your life to increase your hourly output? Increase your income and decrease the hours spent servicing it?
Would love to hear your thoughts on this
I posted this on our Facebook Group today, if you would like to join this conversation and the Daily Thoughts, please join our Facebook Group where we are real, raw and caring. Search The Business Cafe Global on Facebook or click HERE
