Basic Tools to Help Your Business Grow

From making process workflows efficient in using prioritization matrix, here are some ways to unlock great growth potential in several key aspects of

17:12 25 September 2019

Let’s get into it and take a look at how these tools can really help businesses grow. 

Strategy: Prioritize and Implement

Studies cite that the lack of understanding of what to prioritize as the reason why several businesses fail to hit their actual growth potential. Despite having a great business strategy roadmap and all, businesses tend to fail mainly because they don’t spend much time prioritizing things before jumping on to implementing the plans. This is where a prioritization matrix comes in handy.

For the uninitiated, a prioritization matrix is an analysis and decision making tool which has its applications in many areas such as business strategy and analysis, business process improvement and project management. For the sake of this discussion, let’s consider business strategy. 

One key obstacle to taking your business to the next level is getting all the concerned stakeholders to give their consensus in determining valid strategic roadmap cases that deliver immense value to the business, whether it be revenue growth or increase in market share or anything in between. Having a proper priority matrix takes care of this problem. By providing stakeholders with a tool to resolve their disagreements (if any) openly and quickly, and zero down on all proposals and plans that unlock great potential, and boost the odds of success by promoting consensus, a business can execute on their strategic goals with clarity and confidence. 

As a strategy execution tool, the prioritization matrix acts as a link between the strategic goals and objectives a business sets for itself and a list of projects or initiatives created based on those goals, helping them identify where their action plan sits in terms of priorities. Using a 2*2 prioritization matrix, for instance, companies can determine the value and risk associated with each initiative and then plot it on the matrix in relation to one another. That’s all it takes. Chuen Seet of Jibility (https://www.jibility.com/using-a-prioritization-matrix/) gives you a great overview of how a prioritization matrix can help your business grow in today's business context. Jibility, as a tool, aims to bridge the gap between strategizing goals and executing them. Many businesses, just for the sake of implementing quickly, often fail to take the time for prioritizing goals based on key growth drivers or for evaluating key risk components. Jibility is a godsend for such businesses.

Operations: Speeding up Workflow

Today’s technology allows businesses to manage anything and everything that has got to do with their business from mobile devices. Talk about getting an opportunity to grow your business on the go. So many applications and business tool kits out there are free to use and can send your workflow efficiency up without you incurring any additional cost.

For example, expediting workflow and improving productivity is one area where several businesses fall short. Many departments spend a lot of time exchanging information back and forth between them, and a big chunk of it could be saved by using a simple document sharing solution such as Google Docs or Dropbox. These are cloud-based apps that help organize and manage all your documents ranging from employee records to compliance needs, thereby converting your file cabinets into a digital storage space. 

Small businesses should be able to embrace such advancements in technology that enables them to resolve day-to-day problems and make their workflow more efficient.

Marketing: Automating Tasks

Ideally, each and every business could have an all-in-one application that does everything it needs- from managing leads to running marketing campaigns. But since that is not realistic, app automation is the closest it gets. Tools like Zapier or Microsoft Flow help businesses automate their workflow by connecting to over thousands of other apps, all in a bid to save time and improve overall productivity and efficiency. By connecting apps through Zapier and the like, your business can ensure that workflows are connected at a business level resulting in a lot of benefits as said before. From appointment scheduling with a lead to sending customized emails to clients, anything can be streamlined and made much more efficient. Check out case studies of how marketing departments of businesses are able to make the most of the impactful app automation technology, understand how your team can use it to their advantage, and convert your business into an automated juggernaut that keeps rolling. 

Growing your business is not easy and can be daunting. If you don’t want to start off on the wrong foot or leave growing your business to chance, your business can have a clear key priority plan, improve efficiency and turn to technology for automating key things-which are more than important when it comes to hacking your way to success.