Making a profit and generating cash is vital to all businesses and a key way to improve profit is to reduce overheads, here are a few ideas:
- Re-think your office/premises requirements – Premises are big cost for most businesses, could you operate in a smaller space and sub-let part of your offices? could you work from home?
- Telecommute – Technology effectively reduces distance, so there is no need to require administrative people or specialists to be physically located together. Use VOIP, Skype and Video Conferencing.
- Cars – Company Cars can be expensive, time consuming to manage and emotive, why not consider car allowances
- Staff – Generally the biggest overhead is people, consider outsourcing rather than having the fixed overhead of in house staff
- Shop around – Are you getting the best deals on Stationery, Printing, Insurance, Light & Heat…..
- Students – Students, apprentices and interns are eager to learn and will be less expensive then experienced employees
- Refinance Debt – Could you reduce the cost of borrowing? could you borrow from your Self Invested Pension Plan?
- Paper – Sorting, filing, and finding files requires time and space. Purchase a scanner and scan all important papers and keep them in well organised electronic files to save space and administrative costs.
- Go Green – Reducing waste and saving energy will save money too
- Buy Second Hand – Second hand office furniture is plentiful and its cheaper than buying new
steve@bicknells.net
