5 Essential Tips to Make Your Business More Productive

New Year New Life! If in 2018 you want to make your company more productive, you should continue reading this article. Over the years, the way we work has changed a lot, especially due to technology. However, more and more we are “bombarded” with constant requests, which continually interrupt our work pace and diminish our productivity. In today’s article, we leave you 5 essential tips to make your business more productive in the new year!

Centralize information

One of the main problems of companies and especially of decision makers is to have the information spread through various software. This takes a long time to find the necessary data, which delays the operational decisions and undermines the good functioning of the companies. Softwares such as Multipeers allow you to centralize in a single platform all the information coming from the various systems of the company, showing it in a graphically clean and interactive way, which contributes to better decisions, since all the information can be consulted in real time.

Delegate tasks

It is not always easy for managers to be able to delegate important tasks to their team, but without realizing this is one of the main productivity problems. No one is a super hero to be able to carry the company on the back, so knowing trust in the team is fundamental to being able to dedicate to tasks that really cannot be done by anyone else. Surrounding yourself with qualified and responsible professionals will help you to know how to delegate some tasks.

Defining Daily Goals

We all have monthly and annual goals to fulfill, but if we think very generically we will not be able to perform daily the tasks that will contribute to this achievement of objectives. It is essential to set daily goals to make your business more productive. You should be realistic in setting goals for your day, otherwise you will not be able to accomplish all the tasks and this will lead you to a feeling of frustration.

Establish times to consult the email

The constant arrival of emails distracts us from the task we are currently undertaking. You should turn off incoming e-mail notifications on your Desktop and establish (and meet) e-mail query and response times. In this way, your day-to-day life will be much more organized and you will achieve higher levels of productivity.

Gather only if it is essential

Most companies live in a culture of meetings. Each and every subject is discussed around a meeting table and hardly the schedule and established plan are actually fulfilled. It has been proven that most of the issues discussed at business meetings could easily be solved by sending an email or a phone call. Therefore, you should meet only if the matter is delicate and require the input of various elements of your team. Otherwise, you can opt for quick and standing conversations so that employees realize that it will be a quick “meeting” and really focus on the matter to be resolved.

Crisis Management: Preventive Measures to Save Your Business

All companies fear going through periods of crisis. However, they do not always worry about having crisis management plans, because their thinking is “only happens to others.” In fact, all businesses are predisposed to to going through more troubled financial times and it is essential that they have a crisis management plan to eliminate the problem as quickly as possible or to minimize its effects. In today’s article, we introduce preventative actions to save your business!

Analyze data and identify problems

The first step is to recognize that there is a problem that needs to be spoken. It is essential to assess its severity since only this we can determine the urgency of corrective actions. Managers need to constantly analyze available data in order to detect management failures, need to change strategy, diversion of production, and other problems that can lead to a crisis. Identifying mistakes made in the past allows us to avoid the same mistakes in the future.

Have a crisis manual

When a company goes through a period of crisis, it needs to make quick decisions. It is very important that you have a written communication plan that is nothing more than the crisis manual. This document informs about the vulnerabilities of the company, explains how to act and who is the responsible person to communicate in this period. The crisis manual should include releases so that communication in times of trouble is faster.

Do not ignore the situation

If you detect any sign that something is wrong, you must act immediately. Ignoring the situation will only complicate it, which will have more serious consequences in the future. It is necessary to make an early diagnosis and investigate the origin of the problem, because the faster the measures are implemented, the more likely the company has to exit the crisis without great consequences.

Eliminate Unnecessary Spending

It is fundamental that companies are always attentive to all expenses, but at the moment of crisis this attention must be redoubled. Identify the highest and most unnecessary expenditures, the least productive employees, general expenses, travel expenses, among others. Eliminating these expenses in a healthy time of the company will allow crisis situations to be delayed or even eliminated. However, you should also be careful not to eliminate spending that are necessary for the proper functioning of the company, as this can pose an even bigger problem.

Get real-time information

Bad decisions can destroy a business, so it is vital that managers have reliable and up-to-date information. Real-time business monitoring software like Multipeers is increasingly a necessity in business. Only with updated information managers are able to make assertive and effective decisions for the proper functioning of the company. Lack of information is often the biggest responsible for less good times in companies, so it is essential to choose a good business monitoring system.

 

Analyzing data in real time is increasingly a reality in companies around the world. Business happens at a very fast pace and it is essential that you know what is happening in your company to make the most appropriate decisions for your business. Download our e-book and learn how a BAM tool can help you manage!

Best management techniques for small businesses

All small businesses want to one day be great, but you need to be aware that growing up in the business world is a process that takes time. It is necessary that small businesses adopt techniques appropriate to their size, so that they can grow in a sustainable way. In today’s article, we present the best management techniques for small businesses!

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is imperative for small businesses. This analysis allows us to know our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, giving us a better knowledge of the market in which we operate and the competitors we are going to have to face. This analysis should be updated every six months, so that managers are always aware of market developments.

Balanced Scorecard

This technique measures the performance of the company, identifying the current position with the strategic objectives previously defined. Its application can be made from the definition of indicators, which analyze the results from 4 factors: team evolution, improvement of internal processes, customer satisfaction index and current financial situation. The manager should compare the actions with the results obtained, identifying potential deviations and designing a strategy to improve the results if necessary.

Use a real-time management system

It is important that you know the state of your business at all times, from the beginning of the creation of your company, because only in this way you will be able to evolve at a sustainable pace. Business monitoring software such as Multipeers can also be applied to small businesses, because the information generated is always vast and, in this way, the manager will gain important management habits for when the company is bigger. Analyzing the business in real time and monitoring the evolution of indicators is an essential step for the growth of a business.

PDCA Cycle

PDCA is initials to plan, do, check and act. It is a management technique linked to the improvement of a company’s processes. Its purpose is to solve problems, pointing out the causes for potential deviations and productive failures. This process makes the organization of the company more efficient in the long run and it is essential that it be applied from the moment of creation of a business, so that the improvement can be continuous.

Decision tree

This management technique is used to evaluate risks, costs and benefits of a project from a certain number of probabilities. To start the decision tree process, you need to go by putting the decisions that need to be made in the short term, the risks involved, what the cost associated with decision making is and what benefit you can get from it. The goal is to put all possibilities and evaluate which decision is most beneficial to the company!

Top 5 Worst Errors in Your Business’s Annual Strategic Planning

The end of the year is always a very important time for companies, as well as measuring the actions and results of the year that ends, it is also time to plan all the actions of the following year and to define the strategy that will guide the direction of the company in the next 12 months. This is not an easy task and requires dedication and commitment on the part of managers and decision makers. Sometimes mistakes made in the strategic planning of the company are responsible for the less positive results of the following year. In this article, we present the 5 worst mistakes in your company’s annual strategic planning so you can avoid them!

Lack of reflection about the year ending

Many companies make the mistake of only presenting values ​​in the annual reports, without making an interpretation of the data that they have ahead. Rather than saying that goal X has not been met, you need to do a deep analysis until you find the reason why the goal was not achieved. The past of business is a very important teacher for your future as it teaches us not to make the same mistake twice.

Lack of continuous monitoring

The decisions in the companies, in the vast majority of cases, are taken based on reports with a few days, which makes the company’s action reactive and not proactive. More and more it is necessary to monitor the business in real time, because only this way it is possible to take immediate corrective measures. Companies should analyze their planning on an ongoing basis and not just at certain times. Softwares such as Multipeers, which allow us to analyze all the company’s actions in real time, are a reality that is increasingly present in companies around the world.

Lack of communication

Lack of communication is one of the major mistakes made in companies. Managers often forget to clearly communicate their intentions to all members of the company, which makes many employees not know what the annual goals are and drive them to work unfocused. Always communicating annual planning in a clear and objective way is a rule for all companies that wish to be successful.

Wrong priorities

Companies have the ultimate goal of achieving the highest possible profit, but a series of steps have to be taken to achieve maximum profit and income levels. One of the major mistakes made in planning is the incorrect definition of priorities. Many managers list as their top priority goals that will never be met unless we pursue other goals.

Lack of information

Lack of information in companies is a very serious problem. Managers to make a conscious decision need to consult a large number of sources of information, which makes this process time consuming and tiring. The use of business monitoring tools such as Multipeers allows the manager to have all the real-time information about the company on the Desktop and on his mobile device, being much more informed when deciding.

Find how to deal with changes in consumer behavior in recent years

Consumer behavior: key changes and tricks to deal with it

The consumer has changed a lot in recent times and technology is the main “guilty” of this change. The constant daily access to the Internet has transformed the way we buy and how we relate to brands. Increasingly, today’s consumer seeks to solve their problems quickly and efficiently, which forces companies to keep abreast of new market needs in order to act proactively. Today we are all more demanding, more informed and less patient. In this article we will give you some tips on dealing with changes in consumer behavior in recent years!

Multi-channel Communication

The current consumer is no longer satisfied with a single way of communicating with the company. Given the multiplicity of conversation platforms, customers expect to have several alternatives available to contact the company. As they seek immediate response, they now prefer chatbots, Whatsapp, or any other instant chat platform.

Create empathy

The current consumer likes to be heard and needs to feel that their doubts and complaints have been heard. Listen carefully to what he has to say to you and then repeat what he said in order to get the clear message that you understood his problem. Ask clear and objective questions about what he feels and show him that he is committed to finding solutions. The current consumer wants to be treated as unique and not as another member of a large group.

Offer interesting content

We currently receive dozens of emails per day with the most varied offers. Most of the information we receive is not really useful and its destination is going to the Trash folder. So, many companies spend a lot of time producing campaigns that will not have any return because they don’t care about what their target audience really needs and only focus on the dissemination of their products and services. The trend is to create valuable and really important content for the consumer. Articles about your area of ​​expertise, a news funnel or an e-book are good ways to create a stronger bond with your target consumers. Keep in mind that talking about yourself and your brand will be too egocentric and new consumers will not tolerate such brands.

Clearly define policies

It is essential to know how to proceed if there is a complaint. If you have a clothing store, you must clearly state how the exchange policy works. If you have a company that provides telecommunications services, it should be clear when explaining how to contact technical assistance. Informing the customer of everything is the first step to avoiding problems in the future. In an era in which people share experiences online (especially bad experiences), it is necessary to avoid any situation that may lead to disagreement with the client.

Never make the customer wait

This is our last tip and one of the most important. The current consumer doesn’t allow waiting. He wants an instant response to his problem and it is only with complete knowledge of the market and current needs that companies can effectively respond to situations. Analyzing the business in real time helps you to fully understand the current state of a business. That’s why software like Multipeers gain increasing importance.

What is data management and why you should start using it today?

Data-driven management: everything you need to know

The terms Big Data and Analytics have brought a new challenge for managers: using the data to support their decisions. If decisions were made in the past based on feelings and a forecasting perspective, today they need to be taken based on true and up-to-date data, because only in this way companies can prosper in a market as competitive as the one we have at the moment. In today’s article we will talk about data-based management and realize why your company should start using it today!

What is data-based management?

The speedy pace of business today forces managers to make strategic decisions at all times and with great urgency. Decisions define the success or failure of companies and therefore a data-based management is essential to reduce risk in the decision-making process and contribute to the business success.

Data-driven management is one that is guided by the large amount of information circulating throughout the organization every day. The data comes from internal and external sources, such as customer profiles, market analysis, competition analysis, quotes, among many other information. Managing on the basis of concrete data is a very important step in deciding correctly.

Why should I manage based on the data?

First of all, managing on the basis of data is essential to making the right decisions. Data-driven management must rely on business monitoring solutions, such as Multipeers, because this way you will always have the most up-to-date information about your company. A delay in decision making can mean the loss of business, especially in the current market where everything changes so quickly. Information is the most important asset in today’s businesses and needs to be managed in the best way possible.

Besides being important to have updated data to decide, managing based on real information allows you to set concrete performance indicators to evaluate the performance of your company. Knowing the actual performance level of an organization allows you to discover failures and improvement points, maximizing the company’s performance to the fullest.

Data-driven management also helps companies to reduce operational costs by being able to more easily identify the company’s most-spending sectors. Based on the information gathered, managers will be able to change processes to reduce costs.

Finally, real-time data-based management allows you to identify changes and failures at the exact moment they occur, and it is possible for the manager to act immediately.

Business information is one of the concerns of current managers because there is already the awareness that knowing is power and only with a concrete knowledge about the operations of the company and the market is that you can beat the competition.

Download our e-book about business monitoring and meeting objectives and learn how real-time data management can help your business grow!

Get to know 4 tools that facilitate business mobility

Use the best applications to facilitate business mobility

Technological evolution has made business mobility an increasingly present reality in the business world. The possibility of responding to urgent situations at a distance, brought greater agility and efficiency to the companies and allowed to reduce operating costs. There are applications that facilitate business mobility and in this article we present you the 4 most important!

Microsoft Office 365

Office 365 is a solution in the Cloud that offers features for creating Excel documents, texts and presentations. All these documents are essential to perform the administrative and communication tasks of any business. With Office 365 you can create and edit documents anywhere, giving business mobility. The access to this tool is by user account and there is no need to install the program on all devices that the company uses.

Videoconferences

Videoconferencing tools were the first tools to enable enterprise mobility. Nowadays, they are advancing on a large scale for mobile platforms, which significantly increases the scope of mobility. Programs that were only initially designed to be used on fixed devices have won a mobile version. Nowadays, we can already use Skype and Hangouts on mobile devices, which allows us to have meetings anytime, anywhere in the world.

Corporate Email in the Cloud

Changing the corporate email system to a cloud-based solution is very important to increase business mobility. These solutions facilitate communication between the various departments of the company, because the information becomes accessible even when you are using tablets and smartphones. Using email on mobile devices allows for a faster and more efficient response, which contributes to greater management efficiency.

Multipeers

Analyzing data in real time is an increasingly necessary reality in the business world. Managers often complain that they don’t have current and reliable information about which they can make conscious decisions. Multipeers is a business monitoring system that allows you to analyze everything that happens in the company in real time. Multipeers will search data from all of the company’s sources of information and present it in a graphically clean and intuitive way, making it easy to make decisions. It also has the advantage of allowing you to set business alerts: whenever a situation that requires your attention happens, Multipeers will send you an email or an SMS to notify you.

7 Tips to Improve Customer Relationship

With digital evolution, communication with the customer is easier, given the multitude of ways to reach it. However, if communication is easier for us, so is it for our competitors, so the battle for the attention of the target audience is greater than ever. There are important tips you can follow to improve your relationship with the Customer and in this article we’ll introduce you to the 7 best tricks!

Meet deadlines

To satisfy the customer in the immediate, many companies make the mistake of setting deadlines too short to solve complex issues. It is tempting to show our customers that we are fast and efficient, but if we cannot meet the deadlines we are going to get an image of lack of professionalism. Therefore, it is essential to be conscious when defining a deadline because we have to take into account all the limitations of time and resource that may exist.

Focus on meeting customer needs

The relationship with the customer doesn’t expire when customer buys. It is increasingly essential to keep track of the level of consumer satisfaction through satisfaction surveys.

Update information in real time

Whenever you receive new data about a customer or potential buyer, you need to update your CRM right away. Don’t leave this task for later because you run the risk of forgetting and losing important information for the realization of a sale. Running your information systems in real time and analyzing all changes with a business monitoring system such as Multipeers allows you to make more conscious decisions and close deals faster.

Establish emotional relationships

According to a study published by Harvard Business Review Brazil, turning satisfied customers into people emotionally connected with the company is far more advantageous than making dissatisfied customers happy. A client emotionally attached to a brand spends twice as much and is worth 52% more than a satisfied customer. A good trick to connect emotionally with customers is to create a kind of VIP club, where you offer special promotions and exclusive offers.

Have a good presence on social media

People no longer go to the Internet today: they live online. Therefore, it is essential that a brand is aware of the social media most frequented by its target and that defines a strategy of action in these platforms to ensure close contact with the customer. If you use a Facebook page, offer interesting content and be always available to respond quickly to your followers’ questions. Don’t just talk about yourself; you should share content about your area, to attract the attention of your followers.

Be human and not mechanical

Consumers feel more confident with companies that treat them with education and transparency and feel no empathy with companies that use a standard, quasi-robotic service. Talking to the client empathically.

Be objective

Customers hate when they feel like companies are fooling them with beautiful words. You must always be objective and go straight to the problem that the customer wants to solve. Don’t be afraid to say “no” or to make a mistake. You must always offer solutions to the customer in order to minimize the negative effects that a purchase had.

[Free e-book] BAM: The importance of real-time information for meeting objectives

The business world works at an extremely fast pace, which means that it is imperative to be constantly updated about what is happening in organizations, otherwise you will lose business opportunities and won’t detect problems in a timely manner. The globalization of access to information and the constant development of information technologies have contributed to the existence of products such as Multipeers. Capturing data for the creation of dashboards where the current state of a company is found is increasingly necessary for the control of operations and consequent maximization of results.

Why is it necessary to act in real time?

Markets are becoming more competitive and consumers, as they are more informed than before, are increasingly demanding and are looking for solutions in a practical and fast way. Nowadays, everyone “lives running” so that acting late in the business sector can lead to irreversible losses in profits and competitiveness. A company that makes its decisions based on reports with a few days will always have a reactive and non-proactive presence.

What is a BAM system?

A BAM tool consists of monitoring the company’s business processes through management indicators. Managers track all processes in real time through a simple and intuitive dashboard that can be defined as the global management cockpit of the company or organization. Through the implementation of a BAM system, managers can cross performance information and through this crossing can find production failures, for example, and act immediately, ensuring that these failures will not have harmful consequences.

Multipeers as a BAM system

In most companies, decision-making is based on reports, intranets, and e-mails that require the user to search for information. Due to this reality, many companies lost business opportunities because they didn’t have timely information. Likewise, on many occasions decisions have been made on the basis of outdated information, rendering them ineffective and wrong.

To combat this difficulty, Multipeers comes with the objective of delivering relevant information about the business in real time directly to their devices (desktop, tablet or smartphone). By using Multipeers, you don’t need to spend time looking for information, making processes and decision making much more agile and effective. In a simplified way, Multipeers assumes itself as a global, automated and real-time management cockpit.

Download the ebook “BAM: The Importance of Real-Time Information to Achieve Goals” and find all you need to know about business monitoring and meeting goals!

The impact of automation on day-to-day business

Learn how automation affects business

Automation is very important for companies today and the more automatic the processes the smaller will be the possibility of making mistakes and the greater the professionalism of the company. In this article we will cover the key aspects of the impact of automation on day-to-day business!

Higher profit

The right partnership between man and the machine allows for a greater income in the day-to-day. It also allows the elimination of excess labor costs, since it is easy to optimize the work of the employees.

Lower margin of error

The probability of making mistakes decreases dramatically when processes are automated. The procedures are known by the employee and it turns out to be easier for him to perform his job correctly.

Decrease in production costs

Automation generates a lot of savings because eliminates errors, reduces the time to perform tasks and reduces the need for a large number of employees to perform the same function. Correct automation allows for easy identification of inefficiency points and delays, which can be corrected immediately.

Reduction of working time

The time required to carry out the tasks substantially diminishes, as well as the need to carry out purely bureaucratic and boring activities. In this way, employees can focus only on their real tasks.

Effective control of operations

Automating the purchasing processes of a company ensures that all actions taken are in compliance with established standards. All actions related to purchases must be introduced in a digital environment so that it is possible to consult your history whenever there is a need to know what happened with a particular purchase.

Management in real time

Softwares like Multipeers allow real-time business management. Through the consolidated information in a simple and interactive dashboard, you can create reports quickly and efficiently without spending much time analyzing data.

Automating a business is essential to succeed in today’s competitive world. Consumers are becoming more informed and demanding and it is necessary to keep pace with their needs in order to win the competition. Management software is an important alliance of automation and its correct application brings all the benefits presented in this article!

Learn about the advantages of a BAM system and find how you can get the most out of this tool!