Want To Expand But Can't Find The Budget? Seven Ideas To Start With

It's easy working out what to spend the money on, but it can be far more difficult to trying to figure out the easiest way of making it!

Where do you begin?

Planning to drive your business forward in the first place is a pretty good place to start, however, in order to start making a move forward, there must be a plan. The plan, in this day and age must include technology, however, how do you begin to afford it.

Just the thought of attempting to find a budget can be a real pain and possibly a potential fruitless exercise for the uninformed, but hopefully we can show you how to approach this area to attain the maximum savings.

The objective is not to simply look at one area, it is to review all of the revenue costs associated with your business. The goal is to identify as many possible areas of saving and then plan to implement various aspects of technology that can help maintain company profits year on year. As you know, technology is cheaper than human resources (and you don't have to pay for SSP or statutory holiday pay!).

Broadband

Every ISP is vying for market share and as a result, as always, deals can be had everywhere, however, there's a catch. Not with the ISP, but with most companies. That is, most of us don't want to change because of the thought of creating a problem with the network and losing email or internet access.

So, how can you save money in an area that businesses view "if it's not broken, don't fix it!" Try this for starters, get the last three bills from your ISP and look at the cost. Then, go on to the Internet and compare your current costs against whats on offer online.

Once you have compared your costs, find the cheapest price and then telephone your existing ISP and tell them that you have recieved a quotation that is "X" and ask them what they intend to do about it!

The chances are, they'll drop their prices without objection. Don't forget how you already know the cost of acquiring a new customer versus retaining an existing one. The same applies to your ISP

One phone call to my ISP and I increased the bandwidth to 4Mb and saved over 400 per annum on charges without even moving from my desk and they were so obliging too.

Bandwidth Brokering

Not a common piece of terminology but it makes a great deal of sense - here's how it works!

Any company with more than one office or who has extensive use of the internet may have any number of voice or data network facilities provided by BT or any other network supplier. Only when all of the fixed connections are combined can you establish what is achievable.

Brokering empowers companies to structure the best overall deal for rental costs combined with centrally placing business with one company.

Complete this task once and you can be guaranteed that all future costs will be kept at a minimum.

Homeworking

This probably wouldn't be the first thing you would think of, but nevertheless it is becoming quite an important factor for companies either expanding or those planning to restructure the way they work.

With the availability of broadband, VoIP and SIP technologies, it is possible to implement a local or nationwide business centric infrastructure that is both exciting and easy to manage. You don't need to be a software engineer to manage or install it either, the suppliers will take care of that too.

If you want to employ local staff, nationally, for sales, support or any other function, this is the answer.

Carrier - Lo Cost Calls

To most people, when the phone rings and it's another company offering low cost landline calls, the immediate response is to put the phone down without even speaking, fortunately we don't get many calls!

Because of the sheer number of companies offering cheaper calls, the market appears to be flooded, however, when it comes to business rates, there is an automatic assumption that the company offering the "deal" knows about telephony - this is where the problems start.

Sadly, the person on the end of the phone may well be quite oblivious of factors needed to structure a telephone system, you're looking for a supportive company and they're looking for some additional revenue. The result is you hang up - never knowing if there was a better deal to be had.

In keeping with objective of this newsletter, just looking at one area may not be worthwhile, but combined the revenues all adds up.

Electricity & Gas

You may have seen adverts for Uswitch and various companies advertising cheaper utilities but it is surprising how few businesses actually make the time to investigate the savings.

All it takes is a few minutes on a website to compare the savings. Obviously it helps if you have your bills to hand when browsing these types of sites.

We saved nearly 800 a year by switching suppliers, so from our experience it can be worthwhile.

Call to Mobiles

If you make a high number of calls to mobile phones, it is possible to install a product called a Premicell. This device connects to your telephone system and, with a little programming, routes all calls to mobiles through the mobile provider. As you may be aware, some mobile phones under the same contract can have free or low cost calls to each other. This enables you to keep in contact with your mobile staff at a reduced rate.

Maintenance Contracts

This is definitely where the saying "better the devil you know" is applicable. But, companies do not apply their logic when it comes to changing suppliers. There is a complacency within the telecoms market to keep companies on a maintenance contract for years and to keep increasing the cost year on year. How often does a telephone system need repairing. The "mean time between failue" is no longer looked at except within very large installations where invitations to tender are distributed. Again, it is possible to significantly reduce your annual expenditure by switching provider, you only have to ask the question.

One last note on this subject, do you know if your handsets are maintained? If they are, go and buy a few spares and leave them in a cupboard and cease the annual maintenance on them. You do the maths - when was the last time your handset stopped working and it wasn't the curly cord!

Now you have found some money each month, what now?

After you have saved money in various areas, the next stage is to attribute the spare cash to a finance agreement, but before you do anything rash, make sure you contact a vendor who can show you different ideas to generate additional profits and can also show you an accurate return on investment.

And don't forget to ask for reference sites!

Where to go from here!

If any of the articles are of interest or you or you have any specific queries, please contact us and we will be happy to help and provide you with advice - no strings attached!

You can telephone, email, join our forum, look at our web site or download our free eBook which covers even more aspects of maximising "Profit from Technology".

How much can you save towards reinvesting in your company?

Nigel Maine is senior partner of Clearvoice Consulting, a unique organisation committed to helping companies derive the most revenue and productivity from their technology.

Nigel has been actively involved in the technology industry since 1987 and is able to provide sound solutions to difficult problems. The emphasis is combining the latest technology with the current PR and Marketing activities businesses have to adopt in today's market.

The Clearvoice approach is to coach businesses either one-to-one or via the internet, to enable them to carry out and maintain their direction and profitability.

Web: http://www.clearvoice.co.uk

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