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November the 28th 2023

Gifts for the business with an improvement budget

The biggest gift to your business, an investment budget is not only a savvy move to bolster your profits but also it’s incentivised with various tax breaks to encourage improvements in the economy. We know that it’s only natural when coming towards the end of the year to think about improvements to come in the next.

With now over 500 projects across sectors spanning the public sector, construction and even the dairy industry. In our work improving businesses’s processes and workflows we’ve learnt that there are a number of places to start utilising this investment budget – kicking off your business’s best year yet.

A roadmap for improvement

Having ticked over the 500 projects mark this year, we know that there’s no point in spending any money if you’ve not got a solid plan.  One of our primary roles with the firms we work with is business improvement. Be that developing and implementing a bespoke system, routing out wider inefficiency.

Your roadmap needs steps. For example, getting your team trained up on basic things like formulas in Excel or search engine optimisation on your website, can have a major benefit as a first step to your business’s future growth prior to implementing major digital transformations.

Shoothill has been working with the company Sharmans since 2018. The company was beginning to suffer growing pains, their disparate software systems failing to keep pace with the rising number of projects and properties in need of simultaneous management. Looking to shed these limitations and continue scaling up their enterprise without technological constraint, Sharmans sought out a digital transformation. Their aim was to acquire a system which would effectively manage all ongoing projects and contacts whilst catering to their unique business. As a result, they challenged Shoothill to develop a bespoke platform which would serve as a management hub for all their operations.

Shoothill built a state-of-the-art CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, hosted on the cloud using Azure, and fully customised to Sharman’s specific requirements. A number of smart features were implemented, allowing the system to serve as a multifaceted project management portal, providing support to all team members. Several software tools were included, for purposes such as reporting, project tracking, communication, and efficiency through workflow automation. Cloud computing allows for multiple users across the company, with remote access, their permissions handled by an in-house admin.

But none of this was achieved without that initial roadmap and plan for their future improvements.

Related: Legacy systems: slowing down your daily business

IT Managed Services

Your company can benefit massively by investing in IT Managed Services, having an outsourced specialist handle your hosting, systems, licences and security means that not only do you not have to deal with any problems yourself, but you have access to their expertise. Being able to get the job done quickly and with their own relationships can result in major cost savings.

Calling on external bodies to run these for you not only is an excellent way of speeding up your business processes but also an excellent way of starting a relationship with external experts who can assist your business in laying the foundations for further improvements.

Related: Shoothill’s biggest tips in unleashing business potential

A meeting with an outside agency

The purpose of bringing in an agency to assist in your business is very simple, you get to work with specialists and experts who are outside of your business’s normal scope of skills.

There are very few agencies equipped to deal with a complete business improvement roadmap. Along the way you’ll encounter technical issues that need development capabilities, complex ideas that need to be designed to show a simple workflow, but also know how similar problems have been resolved before.

This outside perspective can aid in designing your roadmap, establishing what direction you should take and finding out how to maximise your digital transformation.