It’s a tough time to be in business.

And especially so if you’re a mature, established business that’s finding it hard to keep pace in the rapidly changing and evolving market.

As a mature owner, you have experience and knowledge on your side. But you’re also faced with the new realities of transformative AI technology, the threat of climate change and a global economy that’s increasingly unstable and unpredictable.

Why are these challenges so problematic? Let’s look at the potential impact.

A new business reality

When you started out, the business world was a more predictable beast to tame.

Technology was here to assist us, not replace us. Markets were more stable, and supply chains were reliable. Weather wasn’t a major factor in your business plan, or your insurance policy.

But that cozy existence has changed – and it’s making it much harder to do business.

That’s bad news if you’re aiming to:

• • Grow the business and increase sales revenue.
  • Sell the business and get a good return on your investment.
  • Hand the business to the next generation in good shape.

The challenges for mature businesses

Trading, when the world around you is changing, is difficult. It throws up some specific challenges that could have a major impact on the future of your business.

A) Staying competitive and efficient:

Cloud tech, automation and now artificial intelligence (AI) have changed the technological landscape. If you aren’t abreast of this technology, you can quickly lose your competitive edge.

B) Protecting your business:

Dangerous weather events, widespread flooding and the ongoing threat of the climate emergency are making it difficult to trade and protect your business.

C) Planning your strategy:

The business landscape is no longer stable. Global events can change the economic outlook and the validity of your strategy in a heartbeat, making it hard to plan.

Three ways to optimize your business in 2025

To overcome some of the potentially negative impacts, it’s important to remain agile.

Let’s look at three ways you can help to embrace the new reality.

1. Champion AI, automation and digital technology

Get on board with AI and digital tech. AI can either be your worst enemy or your biggest asset. Fall behind the technology curve and your competitors will overtake you. Embrace the best elements of AI and it could transform your operations and productivity.

When used well, and with a proper strategy behind it, AI has the potential to make your business more efficient and make it cheaper to run.

2. Focus on human skills and talent

Technology is brilliant for speeding up the running of your operations. But it’s also vital to recognize the contributions of key human skills and the talent of your team and workforce.

Your people are the face of the company and a large element in defining your brand. They’re the creative center, the ideas hub and the humanity that brings your business to life. Never underestimate the impact of real, genuine, human customer service.

3. Balance your use of AI and human skills

AI can help to run the business, but you also need a talented team driving the company.

The sweet spot is to balance these two different factors making sure you have human oversight over your AI. Maximize your use of AI, software automation and digital technologies, but also invest in people, raw talent and the capabilities that a human team brings to the table.

Talk to us about optimizing your business

If you’re feeling like the business landscape is speeding past you, leaving you trailing in the wake of technological, environmental, political and economic change, you’re not alone!

Many experienced business owners are feeling the same way – and have the same concerns around how they’ll be able to sell their business or pass it on to their successor.

Come and talk to the team and we’ll walk you through some simple, straightforward steps to help you change course, optimize your business and embrace the new reality.

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

If you want to stabilize your finances and grow the business, working to strict budgets becomes a necessity.

Managing the cashflow twists and turns of a project can be hard work. But it’s easier to do when you have an agreed budget and can track your spending and performance.

So, what’s the best way to stay in control of the budgets you’ve set? And how can you manage your cashflow position to make sure there’s always enough cash to fund the project?

Understand the costs of each project

Starting a project without fully understanding how much it will cost is a no-no. To keep on top of costs, overheads, staff expenses and general spending, you need at least a ballpark figure for this expenditure. In an ideal world, you’ll want to be as precise as possible with these costs.

Run through the project from start to finish and highlight every point where there will be costs to incur. It might be the cost of your raw materials. It may be the cost of buying new equipment. It could be the payroll costs for the people actively working on the project. Break everything down and come up with a total expense for the project. This is your starting point.

Set your budget and track it over time

Once you know your baseline cost for the project, you and your team should decide on the amount of funds to allocate to the budget. Your baseline cost is a starting point, but don’t forget to include extra for specific contingencies. What if the project overruns? What if your raw material costs go sky high? What if you need more people to get the job over the line?

Agree on a clear budget and set up your finance system to track spending against this budget. With a cloud accounting system at the heart of the business, it’s very easy to create a budget and then record and track your spending over time.

Keep a close eye on budgets and project cashflow

One of the big things to remember is that a budget is not a static thing. You’ll obviously aim to stick to your initial costs, but prices and availability will affect the total spend over time. Because of this, it’s vital to not just write the budget and then forget about it.

Keep a close eye on your budget performance and the cashflow for each project. Being able to review this performance, in real time, should help you avoid overspending, or running out of cash for the project. And when the cash in the kitty is getting low, you can get proactive and look at ways to top up the budget, or rein in spending in other areas of the project.

Take action to maintain your positive cashflow position

Balancing the cashflow scales on a project isn’t easy. But when you spot that there’s a potential hole in the budget, the important thing is to do something about it, pronto!

Running any project with your fingers crossed that ‘it will all work out in the end’ is a recipe for disaster. And with such detailed budget reports and cashflow forecasts available with today’s finance apps, there’s really no need to be disorganized about your spending.

Think about:

• • Setting up key metrics for each project, to measure spending, cashflow and progress
  • Run worst-case and best-case cashflow scenarios, so you’re prepared for anything
  • Regularly reviewing your spending and looking for areas to make savings
  • Taking on finance facilities to plug any cashflow holes as they appear.

If you’re thinking about scaling up your established startup, please do get in touch. We’ll help you build solid, workable budgets that can be easily tracked through your accounting system.

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

There is a saying that the best customers are the ones you already have.

Your business grows by attracting new clients. However, retaining existing customers may cost less and yield greater returns. The Harvard Business Review found that acquiring a new customer may cost five to 25 times more than keeping an existing customer, and that increased customer retention can enhance profitability.

Develop a robust retention strategy with strong client relationships:

• • Identify common ground
  • Ask questions, listen and build rapport
  • Make clients feel welcome
  • Establish trust, under-promise and over-deliver

Train your team so that customer care is consistently excellent.

It’s easier to build trust when you’re face to face. Online touchpoints need to be consistent too. Consider ease of use, responsiveness and follow up. Is the path from automated contact to personalized contact and service delivery seamless from the customer’s point of view? Dig into users’ experience to see how they perceive interactions with your business.

Back up service delivery with:

• • Social media presence, putting a face to your business
  • Email personalization
  • Rapid response. Show clients you respect their time because it – like yours – is valuable
  • Data analysis. Different demographics may have different preferences for how they connect with your business. Some are comfortable with chatbot interactions while others may be turned off, valuing personal contact they perceive as authentic.

All this helps your business stand out, so people remember you and tell their friends and colleagues. Great client relationships help your business attract new clients as well as repeat business. The three Rs are key to long-term success.

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

When a business rolls out new software, there’s usually a flurry of excitement—new features, better visibility, slicker processes.

But after the launch? That’s where the wheels often come off.

Instead of structured training, staff are left to “figure it out as they go.” Maybe there’s a quick demo, a few help articles, or that one team member who seems to magically understand the system (and quickly becomes the unofficial IT support).

It’s a tempting approach—after all, training takes time and money. But trial and error come with a hidden cost: messy data, inconsistent processes, and teams that never quite feel confident using the tools they’re given.

From an accounting perspective, this matters more than you might think. Poor data leads to poor reporting—and if your reporting’s off, then so is your forecasting. Business advisory relies on clean, consistent data so goals are realistic, progress is trackable, and decisions are grounded in fact. What you can measure, you can control. And what you control, you can change.

Trial & Error: The False Economy

Letting staff muddle through might seem like a cost-saving move, but it usually ends up more expensive in the long run. Productivity drops, mistakes multiply, and your lovely new system gets a reputation for being “too hard” or “just not working properly.” Here’s what tends to go wrong:

• Every staff member invents their own way of doing things.
• Reports don’t match because the data’s inconsistent.
• Confidence in the system drops—so people revert to spreadsheets.
• Your investment in software ends up underused and undervalued.

Without a shared understanding of how to use the system, even the best software becomes a bottleneck instead of a business booster.

Why Proper Training Pays Off

Good training isn’t just a tick-box exercise—it’s the foundation for making your systems (and your people) work well together. When staff are trained properly:

• Data entry becomes accurate and consistent.
• Reports make sense (to everyone).
• Teams know where to go for answers, not just where to guess.
• Confidence goes up, and mistakes go down.

From a financial perspective, the benefits are just as strong. Accurate job costing, real-time margins, forecastable capacity—it all starts with clean, structured data. And clean data comes from people who know what they’re doing.

Want to track profitability by project? Measure billable time properly? See where things are slipping before they become a problem? You need people who know how to use the tools properly—because garbage in still means garbage out.

What Good Training Looks Like

Investing in training doesn’t mean week-long classroom marathons. It’s about thoughtful, practical sessions that fit how your business works. Great training will include:

• Tailored sessions using your workflows and data.
• Clear, repeatable steps for key tasks.
• Room for questions and real-world examples.
• Follow-up resources so people don’t forget it all the next day.

Whether it’s virtual, in-person, one-on-one or recorded, the key is making it real, relevant, and repeatable. Bonus points if it also includes a bit of humor to keep people awake during the invoicing module.

Final Thoughts

Software doesn’t improve your business. People using software well? That’s where the magic happens.

Training your team isn’t just about avoiding mistakes—it’s about unlocking the value of your tools, creating usable data, and making decisions based on something more reliable than crossed fingers. It’s how you get from guessing to growing.

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

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming essential for many small businesses, with AI agents and tools becoming part of a‘digital workforce’ that’s transforming the way we do business.

One key area where AI can lend a hand is with your procurement and cost management tasks, helping you to streamline and automate many of the steps in these processes.

Let’s look at five ways AI can help you step up your procurement game

1.  Automate the process of finding suppliers

Reviewing and updating your list of suppliers is key to a good procurement process. But doing this research manually takes time and can often be missed off your to-do list.

AI platforms like ScoutBee can scan databases and online marketplaces around the clock, filtering potential suppliers based on criteria like price, quality standards, delivery timelines and ethical-sourcing credentials.

Getting rid of the manual research saves you time and broadens the pool of potential vendors, helping you find better prices, local sourcing or better-quality services.

2.  Intelligent support for your supplier negotiations

Data gives you power in any negotiation setting. But do you currently have the data and information you need at your fingertips when talking to your suppliers?

AI tools like Nibble can analyze historical pricing data, market trends and supplier performance metrics to give you data-driven insights for your negotiation strategy. AI can suggest the best price points, look for potential concessions and even automate parts of the negotiation process.

3.  Getting predictive with your inventory management

AI-driven solutions, like EasyStock, can analyze your company’s sales patterns, seasonality, lead times and external factors to forecast demand incredibly accurately.

With AI automatically analyzing these factors, you can optimize your inventory levels and minimize the risk of stockouts and the costs associated with overstocking. This is great for keeping your cashflow under control and reducing unnecessary waste and costs.

4.  Automate your invoice processing and reconciliation

Document-processing tools, like Staple AI, can automatically extract data from invoices, match them with purchase orders and goods received notes, and flag any discrepancies for review.

Automating this reconciliation process helps you cut down on manual data entry, reduce errors and speed up the payment cycle. It also improves the overall accuracy of your record-keeping and financial management, leading to better cost control and improved reporting.

5.  Analyse and control your expenses

AI-bookkeeping tools, like Zeni, can analyze your expenditure, categories spending and generate financial reports that highlight any potential cost savings or inefficiencies.

Reviewing unusual spending patterns or deviations from your budget helps you spot spending issues and make informed decisions about expense management. This can be the driver for cutting costs, negotiating improved rates, or finding suppliers who can offer trade credit etc.

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