We’re trading in uncertain times, where changes to the global economy can happen overnight.

This creates a real challenge for your small business, making it difficult to plan and understand the short to medium-term future of your financial strategy.

But by monitoring and analyzing your business data, it is possible to get back in control of your financial management, and to reduce some of the financial uncertainty.

Good business decisions are based on solid and reliable information. That’s why it’s so important to track and monitor your business performance.

Using the metrics and data from your business dashboard, you can follow your progress against budgets and financial strategies – and see when fast, evasive action is needed.

Here are five ways performance monitoring can ease your uncertainty

1. Real-time sales and revenue dashboards:

Set up Sales Dashboards to monitor sales figures, revenue streams and customer acquisition costs.

This makes it easier to spot dips or surges in demand, giving you time to adjust your marketing strategies, inventory levels or pricing. When the market changes, you’ve got the data in front of you to help you respond and remain agile.

2.  Track KPIs for operational efficiency:

Key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards help you monitor crucial operational metrics like production costs, delivery times and resource utilization.

By monitoring and analyzing these KPIs, you can look for the inefficiencies that are most affected by economic instability. When metrics show poor performance, you can take swift action to deal with rising operational costs, or poor utilization of your resources and workforce.

3.  Monitor customer behavior and trends:

Tracking your customer data helps you spot patterns in customers’ purchasing patterns, website engagement and social media interactions.

When you have data that demonstrates clear customer preferences and trends, you have the evidence needed to change strategy. The business can adapt its offerings and marketing efforts to remain relevant and competitive, even while dealing with erratic economic conditions.

4.  Review financial forecasts regularly:

Create detailed financial forecasts, including cashflow projections, revenue forecasts and profit and loss forecasts. Use your software tools to compare your actual performance data against these forecasts, so you can see the variances and where action is needed.

This helps you anticipate potential financial challenges and economic instability, with enough time to react and refine your future tactics and strategy.

5.  Analyze profitability by product and service:

Use your software’s performance metrics and tracking to understand which products, services and customer segments are most profitable – and also which are proving to be most resilient during the current economic uncertainty and upheaval.

When you know which products and segments are the most stable, you can adjust your sales and marketing strategy to focus on these specific targets. You can also pivot away from more vulnerable offerings or customer groups, helping you generate more stable revenues.

Making your financial future clearer and easier to navigate

Today’s forecasting tools and KPI dashboards give you all the data and metrics you need to stay one step ahead of the current economic uncertainty and market instability.

Come and talk to us about setting up the most useful dashboards and metrics for your business – and find out how we can guide you through these uncertain times.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has surged in popularity among business users over the past few years, with many small businesses now making AI a central part of their systems.

But AI isn’t just about having some machine learning capabilities hidden away in the background. There are now full-fledged ‘AI agents’ on the market.

But what is an AI agent? And how can adding these digital workers to your workforce help you scale, boost efficiency and become a more effective business operation?

What is an AI agent?

An AI agent is a digital entity that can carry out tasks to achieve specific operational or business goals. Unlike basic AI, which follows predefined rules, AI agents can learn, adapt and make autonomous decisions, mimicking our own problem-solving skills.

Think of your AI agent as a digital member of the team. A worker that can be entrusted with a specific task – like answering your business phone or completing your bookkeeping.

Let’s look at five areas where an AI agent could be helping your business

1.  Procurement and cost management

AI agents can work in the background to automate selection of suppliers, negotiate contracts, and monitor inventory levels. This helps you optimize your pricing, find the best supplier contracts and reduce your overall procurement costs.

GEP’s AI agents help with supplier relationship management, automate your key procurement tasks and improve logistics, making your whole procurement process more efficient.

2.  Client service and reception

Customer service AI agents are available 24/7 to provide AI-driven support, handle routine enquiries and personalize the way you interact with your customers. They can manage appointment scheduling, greet virtual visitors and route calls to the most relevant person.

HubSpot’s Breeze Customer Agent can resolve routine FAQs, provide instant support and integrate with your CRM system to make those interactions seamless and personalized.

3. Sales and marketing

Sales and marketing AI agents are designed to automate your lead generation and personalize the company’s marketing campaigns. They can even analyze customer data to spot likely sales opportunities, boost conversion rates and drive up your revenue.

Salesforce’s Agentforce can streamline your marketing operations in several different ways. Agentforce crafts campaign briefs, breaks down target audience segments and even generates initial drafts of marketing emails.

4.  Finance and accounting

Finance-focused AI agents can automate many of your basic bookkeeping tasks, including invoice processing, expense tracking and bank reconciliation. This is great for reducing human errors and giving time back to your finance team. They can also generate cashflow reports, assist with budgeting and improve your overall financial management.

AppZen’s agent can automate manual accounts payable processes, optimize your financial decision-making and predict potential cashflow issues. It integrates with your existing financial systems to give you a completely transparent view of your financial health.

5.  HR and people management

AI agents can automate many of your basic human resources (HR) tasks. This can include onboarding new starters, training staff, processing payroll and benefits, and answering HR queries. This gives time back to your HR team to focus on higher value tasks.

Leena AI provides an AI-powered virtual assistant that’s a central point of contact for employees. It can quickly answer HR-related questions, reducing the burden on your HR team.

Talk to us about making AI agents part of your business

Want to make the most of AI, but don’t know where to start? In this series, we’ll run you through the basics of AI, the main terms and the AI tools and agents that can transform your business.

And if you’re hungry to know more, why not talk to our team about the AI agents and AI-driven apps that would be most appropriate for your industry, niche or business type.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

Automation. The magical word that promises to free us from repetitive tasks, save hours of time, and deliver your business from the clutches of inefficiency.

Just plug in a shiny new app, flick a few switches, and voilà – chaos becomes order.

Except… it doesn’t. Not if your underlying processes are a mess to begin with.

Let’s break down the common myth that automation fixes processes and explore why you need to sort your workflows out first – before letting the bots loose.

The Myth: “We’ll Just Automate It”

You’ve probably heard (or said) something like this:

“Our quoting process is all over the place. We just need to automate it.”

Or:

“We keep missing invoice follow-ups – let’s get a system that does it automatically.”

The idea is appealing–automation as a silver bullet. But automating a broken process doesn’t fix it – it just allows you to do the wrong thing faster and more often.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Automation is only as good as the process it’s built on. If you’ve got:

• • Multiple ways of entering the same data.
  • Approval steps that rely on someone’s memory.
  • Bottlenecks disguised as “checks and balances”.
  • Excel sheets of doom lurking in the background.

Then automating those steps won’t solve the problem. It’ll just make the spaghetti go faster.

Take invoicing as an example. If your team is unclear on when to invoice, what to include, or which rate card applies, then automating that process will just send out incorrect invoices – but faster! Your accounts team won’t thank you.

The Fix: Clean Before You Code

Before you even think about automation, take time to map the process as it should be. Ask:

• • Who does what, and when?
  • What decisions are made along the way?
  • Where does information come from and go to?
  • What causes delays or confusion?

It doesn’t need to be a six-month strategic review. A whiteboard, a few post-it notes, and some candid conversations can go a long way. Once you’ve got a cleaned-up, agreed-upon workflow, then it’s time to look at automation tools that can support and scale that process.

Automation is Amplification

Think of automation as a megaphone. It amplifies what’s already happening in your business – good or bad.

If you’ve got a solid workflow, automation helps your team run like a well-oiled machine. But if your process is a bit… Frankenstein, then automation will just make the monster move faster.

A quick case in point: a client wanted to automate their quote approvals using a fancy CRM integration. Turns out, half their quotes weren’t even following the same template. After standardizing their quote process first, automation finally made sense – and worked beautifully.

Final Thoughts

Automation isn’t magic. It’s just a tool. And like any tool, it works best when the foundation is solid. So before you go chasing new tech, do a bit of spring cleaning. Your future automated self will thank you.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

“We need custom software.”

That sentence has launched a thousand spreadsheets, burned through budget after budget, and given more than a few project managers a permanent eye twitch. It’s often said with the best intentions – the team wants to be more efficient, and their current tools are a hot mess of workarounds. But here’s the thing: custom software is rarely the magic bullet it promises to be.

In many cases, what you need is better alignment, not custom code.

The Temptation of a Blank Slate

Custom software sounds dreamy. You get to build exactly what you want. No compromises. No awkward processes. Just you and your ideal workflow, hand in hand, skipping through fields of automation.

But dreams are expensive. And complicated. And very often, unnecessary.

Custom software means you’re not only paying for the development – you’re also on the hook for maintenance, updates, bug fixes, hosting, documentation, security, and integration management. Forever. Or until your one and only developer ghosts you for a better gig.

Off-the-Shelf Doesn’t Mean Off-the-Mark

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of the time, your business is not as unique as you think.

Off-the-shelf solutions (like Xero, Unleashed, Projectworks, WorkGuru, etc.) are designed around common business needs and tested across thousands of users. They’re updated regularly, come with built-in support, and are far cheaper to implement and maintain. You can often configure them to fit your processes with a little effort – and if something isn’t quite right, it’s usually because your processes need tweaking, not the software.

Think of off-the-shelf like flat-pack furniture. It might not be bespoke walnut with a satin finish, but it’ll hold your mugs and only take an Allen key to fix.

When Should You Build Custom?

Let’s not throw custom builds under the bus entirely. There are times when it’s the right choice:

• • You’ve looked at every viable commercial tool and none meet your core business needs.
  • You have a genuinely unique process that gives you a competitive edge – not just a quirky workflow you’re emotionally attached to.
  • You’ve validated the requirements and costs with someone who’s built software before (hint: not just your mate who “dabbles in coding”).
  • You’re ready to fund not just the build, but the ongoing development and support, like it’s a second business.
  • There’s no suitable software in your space yet – rare, but it happens (congrats on finding the gap!).

If all those boxes are ticked? Great. Go custom but go in with your eyes open and a seasoned project lead.

The Middle Ground: Custom Integration

If you’re using three great off-the-shelf tools that don’t quite talk to each other – this is where custom work can shine. Instead of building a whole new system, invest in smart integrations, automations, or even just API connectors to stitch together the best of both worlds. It’s like getting your flat-pack shelf custom-painted to match the walls – without having to build the house from scratch.

If integrations are something you’re interested in exploring, reach out to us for a referral, or directly to a provider like The Software Coach who can guide you through the process.

Before you break ground on your software masterpiece, ask yourself: do you need a custom castle, or just a better way to use the perfectly good house you’ve already got? Efficiency doesn’t come from unique software. It comes from clear processes, the right tools, and a team that knows how to use them.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.

Your business may compete head-to-head with several other companies, but this doesn’t mean you have to treat ALL other businesses as if they are the competition.

In fact, there are real benefits in creating strategic alliances with other like-minded organizations.

When you look at the wider marketplace, you’ll see that there are businesses out there that may well compliment your offering. And by working together (rather than against each other) it’s possible to become valued strategic partners, collaborating to serve your joint customers, improve brand awareness and, ultimately, expand your target market.

If this sounds like a positive strategy, now’s the time to do your homework and start hunting down the best strategic partners for your business.

Working to serve a shared customer base

Strategic partnerships are all about finding the common ground between you and your intended partner – and this means finding the best ways to combine your efforts. If you can share the same customer audience, and create a complimentary way of meeting their needs, that creates a broader, more connected way of growing both companies.

7-tips to find a company that’s interested in forming a strategic alliance

1. Find partners in complementary sectors – if you’re an accounting firm, like us, it makes sense to partner with solicitors, lawyers and other professional services providers who can help your clients. If you’re a maker of shoes it makes sense to partner with a clothing manufacturer that shares your same sense of style and purpose. The key here is to find a shared audience or customer need, and to create some real synergy between your two businesses.
2. Take part in business networking and events – to get a wider understanding of your local, or industry specific, business network, it’s worth taking part in plenty of online and offline business events. You’ll meet new people, hear about new brands and will find it easier to find your ideal strategic partner. The wider your business network, the more choices you have for an alliance.
3. Look at crossover between your target audiences – once you’ve found a potential strategic partner, it’s important to take a detailed look at the crossover between your partner’s audience and your audience. Do they shop through the same channels? Do they fit a certain age group or social demographic? Are these customers local, or are they part of a national or global online customer base? How large is their database?
4. Cross-reference your customer databases – by sharing and comparing your client relationship management (CRM) data, you can cross-reference both sets of customer data and see where there’s overlap, or where you may already share some of the same customers. The better you understand each other’s customers, the more likely it is that you’ll find some common ground for shared marketing and promotion.
5. Run joint events and promotions – presenting joint webinars with your strategic partner, or running joint promotions. By finding a common theme, you bring both audiences together and reinforce the alliance between your two brands. You also reduce the expenditure by sharing the costs and reach a wider audience.
6. Combine your R&D efforts – to move your alliance forward, you can also try combining your research and development (R&D) activity, to find new products, new services and new ways of keeping your joint customers happy. By sharing the time, costs and effort of developing new offerings, both companies will benefit – and you keep your businesses at the cutting edge of their respective sectors or specialisms.

Look for other opportunities – can you link to each other on your websites, or as an upsell or cross sell when a customer is buying. Could you promote their product or service directly whether by email, social media marketing or at events and can they reciprocate? Don’t think of it as a once and done, look for ways to continue the collaboration and grow both businesses moving forwards.

The following content was originally published by BOMA. We have updated some of this article for our readers.