The global economic climate is as uncertain as ever. Talks about an incoming recession, the war in Ukraine, and the aftermath of the Covid crisis are significant pieces responsible for the economic tremors we are experiencing today. Previous financial crises have taught us that if a business wants to survive, it needs to be prepared and act quickly. It seems a bit counterintuitive to invest in tech in the face of a recession but that sole decision might help your company weather the potential storm. Embracing emerging technologies can and will make an organization more resilient to potential disruptions, providing it with the necessary flexibility, which can also prove useful in day-to-day operations and potentially give the business an edge over competitors. In today’s article, we will discuss the role of technology in businesses, its benefits, and a few reasons why companies should invest in new tech.  As always, fetch your favorite drink, and let’s move forward, shall we?

The role and importance of technology in businesses

It’s safe to say that today’s world is driven by technology. It has invaded every possible sector and thanks to innovation, technology keeps changing the environment daily making it more of a need, rather than a choice to invest in it. If a company hasn’t hopped on the tech train yet it might as well forfeit any hope for growth and success. Investing in technology doesn’t narrow down only to buying expensive end-to-end software solutions. Acquiring a simple tool that enhances the interaction between customers and your service can increase productivity and have an impact on overall profitability. The impact technology has on businesses is too high to be neglected. Investing in it can:

Improve communication – both internally and externally, tech solutions play a huge role in making communication between clients and/or different departments smoother and more effective.

Facilitate decision-making – by utilizing emerging technologies such as Intelligent Automation a business doesn’t need to stress about collecting data and utilizing it to its best potential. Today’s technology helps organizations make data-driven decisions and minimize overall risk.

Boost profit and growth – digital solutions can help propel businesses into new markets, draw more traffic and ultimately grow the company.

Benefits of technology for businesses

Depending on the size and field of operation, different digital solutions can have a tangible impact on a business. Here are some key advantages a company should have in mind when considering whether it should invest in technology:

Automation – having the power to automate certain actions or full end-to-end processes brings numerous benefits. It fundamentally saves resources, frees up time for employees to focus on more meaningful tasks, and reduces human errors.

Financial savings – investing in technology directly correlates with an increase in productivity and efficiency across the board. This basically allows companies to achieve the same or more with less, which leads to more cost-efficient operations and opens up the opportunity to save or reinvest the money.

Security – Technology helps businesses with protecting their critical data, by setting up strict cybersecurity measures.

Reasons why companies should invest in technology

Greater efficiency and productivity – technology is a business’s best friend. Machines can alleviate staff from tedious tasks, and perform them faster with better precision. Also, if employees are provided with powerful tools to do their jobs, the quality and quantity of their work will increase.

Meet remote demands – according to a study held by IWG in 2019, “50% of employees globally are working outside of their main office headquarters for at least 2.5 days a week.” In order to meet remote demands businesses need to provide the necessary software and products to ensure a smooth flow of work and communication.

Get an edge over your competitors – probably the key reason for almost every business. Without the proper technology to help develop your ideas and support your staff, a company risks losing business opportunities to competitors.

Better interaction with your customers – leaning on omnichannel solutions to enhance the relationship between a business and its clients is invaluable. Technology also helps with providing adequate customer service and fast, reliable customer support. Building and maintaining a good relationship with customers directly affects revenue and customer retention.

Strong company flexibility – investing in technology provides organizations with the capability to react properly in any situation which might disrupt business operations. New technology means that a company possesses the tools and flexibility to expand, create new opportunities, design better products, and provide better services.

Final Thoughts

An investment in new technology can result in reduced costs and increased profitability. Keeping up to date with the latest developments in technology solutions is something every business should do. Keep in mind that technology trends come and go, so choose the right software mindfully. When investing in technology make sure to choose one that is customizable, that fits your needs, and that integrates with other products you are currently using.

Whether we like it or not, business process management has moved up the ranks and has become an indispensable tool that every CEO wants to utilize. It isn’t anything new and it has proven its utility, especially during the pandemic. By fully automating a set of small tasks, as part of an entire end-to-end process, businesses benefit by increasing efficiencies and cost-savings on a company level. BPM packs up a heavy punch on its own. Now, imagine BPM combined with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and RPA (Robotic Processed Automation). The result: a monstrous automation supercharger called Intelligent Automation. In this article, we’ll try to get a better understanding of what IA is, how it applies to business, and what benefits it brings, and of course some real-world examples to better illustrate the capabilities of this modern solution. As always grab your coffee, tea, or whatever drink you prefer, and let’s get down to business.

What is Intelligent Automation?

Intelligent Automation, sometimes also referred to as cognitive automation or hyper-automation is the combined use of business process management (BPM), and robotics process automation (RPA), to form a solution that enhances business operations by simplifying processes, freeing up resources and improving overall operational efficiencies. Intelligent automation has numerous applications. For example, IA can be used in the insurance sector to calculate payments, address compliance needs, make predictions, and others.

We can separate IA into its three core components — AI, BPM, and RPA — in order to try and explain it better.

Artificial Intelligence – This is how IA basically makes decisions. AI is probably the most important component of intelligent automation. Its role is to analyze structured and unstructured data, by utilizing machine learning and algorithms, so that businesses can develop a substantial knowledge base and formulate predictions based on that data.

Business Process Management – We already mentioned this a couple of times. BPM automates workflows, not single trivial tasks, and helps businesses across various industries to streamline processes, providing agility and consistency.

Robotic Process Management – This basically acts as the brute force of IA. RPA uses software robots to handle various tasks such as extracting data and filling out forms.

These three components combine to form the solution that we call IA, which simplifies and streamlines processes and ultimately improves customer experience.

Benefits of Intelligent Automation

By supercharging automation using IA there are a plethora of benefits. We mentioned two in the heading of the article: cost saving and process efficiency. Others that are worthy of mentioning include increased staff productivity and satisfaction, improved regulatory compliance, and enhanced customer experience.

Reduced costs – by default automating processes saves resources because it reduces the amount of time needed to complete tasks. If a person does a task manually not only it takes more time, but there’s also the risk of making mistakes, and fixing those mistakes also costs resources.

Process efficiency – AI’s supercharged automation ensures consistency and provides a high quality of processes. Intelligent automation not only measures and monitors process execution but also proposes ideas to improve it.

Increased staff satisfaction and productivity – By properly automating business processes you will allow employees to focus on other tasks, which are more meaningful and important to them and to the business. Also, the time saved by automating tasks can be utilized by employees to learn, develop and improve new skills.

Improved regulatory compliance – Most companies operate under strict government and industry-specific regulations and laws. With intelligent automation, businesses can ensure those rules are met every time, with little to no room for errors.

Improved customer experience – Customers want immediate and accurate solutions to a problem they might run into. Chatbots are a perfect example of how IA can boost customer experience – they are available 24/7, they respond fast, and can solve multiple cases at once accurately.

Application of Intelligent Automation

Due to IA’s resourcefulness and error-free reassurance, it can be applied in various sectors and in different business areas. Here are a few examples of how intelligent automation can affect a couple of industries.

Healthcare

Bots with conversational AI capabilities can help patients schedule their appointments with a specific physician by interacting with them and figuring out their health problems. They can also help with reducing no-shows by sending reminders and providing a simple way to reschedule or cancel appointments.

Financial services & banking

By utilizing intelligent automation, banks can speed up know-your-customer (KYC) processing times, reduce error rates, and improve regulatory compliance. Also, by using AI-powered automation financial institutions can reduce the manual paperwork during loan application processing.

Retail

By leveraging IA retailers can better manage stockouts and waste. Intelligent bots can use AI/ML models and historical sales data to estimate the optimum inventory levels for different products, in different places and at times.

Manufacturing

Intelligent bots can be connected to machinery by sensors, thus allowing manufacturers to keep track of the health of their equipment in real-time, to help predict machine failures, and set maintenance schedules.

Insurance

Claims processing is a labor-intensive process, and making this process as efficient as possible is important. AI-powered automation can accelerate document processing which can help increase profitability and customer retention: 87% of customers say effective claims processing influences their decision to choose an insurer.

Closing lines

Оrganizations must continue to innovate and adopt various technologies in order to keep an edge and stay competitive in their respective sectors. Intelligent automation is one of those technologies that can truly transform the way businesses operate and deliver. The main benefits are faster operations, cheaper costs, lower risk of mistakes, and appeasing people from trivial day-to-day tasks. IA will undoubtedly change the future of how businesses will operate, and those that don’t implement it will find it extremely difficult to remain relevant.

Every team has its highs and lows. Sometimes everybody in the team is laser-focused on a common goal and gets after it every day relentlessly, and constantly pushes themselves and others. And sometimes productivity plummets like an anchor with no apparent reason or explanation. There isn’t a simple solution to that issue. But there are guidelines and steps to take into consideration when battling with the lack of your team’s productivity. In this article we will talk about what team productivity is, we’ll discuss how you can try to increase it, and last but not least how to measure your efforts to better see if they bear any fruit. As always, fetch your favorite drink, and let’s move forward, shall we?

What Is Team Productivity?

Productivity is a metric that is used to describe how well an individual or a team creates as output. For individuals it usually refers to how much they accomplished in a day, as for teams – it translates to how many projects or assigned tasks have been successfully completed for longer periods of time (week, month, quarter, etc.) Being productive correlates directly with how valuable you are. The more productive an employee is, the more important he/she becomes to the company. Productive employees and teams are invaluable assets to any company. But they don’t just appear out of thin air. A lot of effort and time is expended to cultivate a healthy environment in which people can thrive easily. Leadership is also an important part of the productivity puzzle. Low-performing teams are generally associated with poor leadership. Every team is capable of performing well so long as the leader responsible for that team is doing a proper job. There aren’t bad teams, there’s just bad leadership. So, what can leaders do to enable their teams to be more productive?

How To Increase Team Productivity?

As we pointed out earlier, there is no way to automatically turn up your team’s productivity — it takes a lot of work and effort from both sides. Hacks and quick fixes don’t exist, but there are realistic ways to try to increase productivity.

Strive for quality, not quantity

Acquiring monthly targets is important for the overall morale of the team. Most of the time they all come down to hitting a certain number of a certain metric. For example, a support team operating within a region has to close a certain amount of tickets per month. This can be good, but it can also backfire. The team might successfully hit the monthly target and get their bonuses, but customer satisfaction might drop. While quantity is important in the short term, quality is way more important in the long term.

Prioritize and execute

Today’s businesses are complex. Teams often have to juggle between several projects and individuals have to be responsible for more than one thing. When down in the weeds, teams often can lose sight of what’s important. Having a common goal to serve as a navigation point is paramount. It should serve as a compass and as a unifying factor. If everyone is on track with the main goal, with what’s important, they will know how to prioritize properly and avoid confusion.

Healthy communication

Even top performers can’t thrive for long periods of time if they are under continued, ongoing stress. Ensure that the company culture promotes a healthy balance between work and life. Allowing employees to communicate freely and openly also sets an environment in which they can express their worries and personal life issues which might hinder their performance temporarily.

Promote growth

You shouldn’t immediately fire someone if they aren’t performing their tasks well. As we mentioned before, this might be because they are going through a rough patch in their private life. A lot of the time, underperformers just need a bit of training. Also If you allow employees to express how they want their careers to evolve, they will tell you the exact seminars/workshops/courses they want to attend in order to improve and perform better. By investing in your employees’ growth you ensure that their performance will stay on top.

Technology is your friend

The tech sector changes hourly. It feels like newer and better products arrive each month and if you don’t take advantage of them, it feels as if you are missing out and you’re losing traction. You don’t have to use different products if the one you currently use is getting the job done. But you have to consider upgrading when the right time/product comes. Investing in the right tools can give you an advantage and can significantly improve productivity.

How to track and measure the productivity of your team?

If you don’t have a way to measure something you can’t really understand if it’s going well or badly. Before trying to improve productivity you have to set a baseline for where it currently stands. Output isn’t entirely correlated with productivity. Productivity is not as easily as quantifiable as the number of projects completed. However, there are a few things you can keep track of to better understand improvement in output.

Firstly, utilize the tools you have to see how quickly your team moves through tasks. You can assume that there’s an increase in productivity if there’s an increase in completed projects per week or completion speed.

Second, keep track of your metrics and KPIs. Although this is a lagging indicator of success, it’s still a solid sign of how your teams are performing. If you notice an improvement in key metrics it likely means that there is an increase in your teams’ productivity. It’s not a direct correlation but it can be used as an additional source to check if performance is increasing.

Last but not least, trust your employees. If you cultivated a safe space in which everybody can share their thoughts without fear, then you can be certain that your team leaders will tell you if the team’s productivity is slowing down. Use team meetings or one-on-ones as an opportunity to talk about if stuff is going well or badly and if the answer is the latter, to share ideas on how you can address potential issues.

Closing lines

Productivity is a complex metric that involves multiple corporate processes to measure and improve. When focusing on increasing a team’s efficiency and productivity, don’t just turn up the heat, because you will burn them out. Instead, take it slow and steady. When you can identify which aspects of your team need improvement or which aspects of management, you can make the necessary adjustments and improve overall productivity within the company.

Achieving a work-life balance today is an even more difficult task than a few decades ago. As Mr. Daniel Smith points out: “Live a life that is well balanced; don’t do things in excess.” It is surely easier said than done, but all we can do is give it our best shot. In this article, we are going to explore the importance of work-life balance, why employers should pay more attention to it, how can they promote it, and what all of us can do to help us to strike the perfect balance for ourselves. As always, go and grab that favorite drink of yours, and let us dive in.

Why is a work-life balance important nowadays?

Just to get things clear, work-life balance has always been important. Baby boomers just didn’t have the luxury to ask for it. For them, it was way more important to be employed, rather than insisting on employers give them bean bags, a hot-coco machine, and a room filled with PlayStations, which on the other hand is typical for Millenials (It’s a joke, Millenials, we love you). The in-between Gen Xers emphasize a lot more on work-life balance, after seeing the after-effects of their parents (baby boomers) who broke their backs working long hours.

Today work-life balance and a flexible work environment definitely are taken even more seriously. As an employer, it’s essential to promote and invest in a healthy work environment. Most of the aspects of a flexible work environment before are now considered as a baseline. Some of them often include:

• Ability to work from home
• Flexible working hours
• Opportunities for professional and personal growth
• Additional days off
• Frequent team building/bonding events
• Child/Pet Care Options

The easiest way for employers to promote a healthy work-life balance is to give their employees the freedom and responsibility to decide what works best for them. This has to be moderated of course, in order to avoid exploitation. For example, people who have children might want to come in early, so they can leave in time, to pick up their kids from school. Alternatively, night owls and younger people might prefer to come in later and stay a bit longer. If you hypothetically are a manager, and you tell your employees they have to be in the office from 10 to 4, in order to be able to organize day-to-day tasks and meetings easier, you will definitely be on the right track to creating a healthier, more flexible work environment. 

Healthy employees are probably the number one asset in an organization. They tend to focus on work better, and complete tasks without compromising quality, which increases overall employee productivity and job satisfaction. And when those two parameters are on the high end, employee turnover decreases. We all heard stories of the work-life balance in Japan, where sometimes employees are forced to work overtime, due to high demand, and a lot of them can’t even apply for their 20 days of annual leave because of the harsh working culture. On the other hand, an example of a good work-life balance can be made with Etsy, which received a score of 3.9/5 for work-life balance from its employees and was included in Glassdoor’s list of companies that offer healthy work-life balance. 

How did employer features change after covid?

When the pandemic hit our homes became our offices and remote work became a necessity rather than a perk. When that happened a lot of us found out how much time and effort we actually put into our work. During that time a lot of people realized that they have been neglecting their well-being and that they focused too much time on their work, and didn’t spend enough time out of it, to enjoy life in general. We feel that the majority of people understood the importance of having hobbies and pursuing passions outside of work, therefore after the mass amount of layoffs people started their own creative/business journeys as blacksmiths, carpenters, artists, photographers, vloggers, etc.

After things slowly got back to normal, businesses were faced with new challenges when hiring new people and keeping their existing employees happy and healthy. Managers and recruiters had to get more creative. The former leaned on creating a framework for developing a balanced approach between professional and personal lives in the workplace. Some of the critical work-life strategies can include:

Culture of trust – managers should allow employees to be responsible for their performance and trust them that they will get the job done, rather than micromanaging, which oftentimes is counter-productive.

Open communication – managers should allow an open flow of communication between them and the employees. Sometimes people just have a lot going on and their performance at the job can be hindered. By having the opportunity to openly communicate with their managers, those types of personal issues can be addressed and possibly be given space to be resolved.

Flexibility – managers should give the ability to employees to work flexible hours and to have flexible annual paid leave policies. That should increase overall job satisfaction and possibly reduce the employee turnover rate. 

Workplace perks – managers should invest in workplace perks in order to let employees enjoy some time off and refresh their minds. Spending more hours at the desk doesn’t always equate to more productivity.

Employer branding and the importance of showcasing the right features for future employees.

A strong workplace culture that promotes a healthy work-life balance, is a powerful recruiting tool. Securing top talent across all industries has always been difficult. If you provide an impressive well-being policy and your employer branding successfully communicates it to the world, then attracting the right talent should become a lot easier. It’s a fact that millennials are more willing to take a job, with a favorable company culture over a higher salary. Stating what you stand for as an organization clearly has an impact. Talent will be attracted to you.

By promoting a healthy work-life balance you increase the possibility of existing employees referring future candidates. This is widely acknowledged as an effective means of hiring. Your employees know the company culture well and can know if a person will be a good fit. If your organization offers a flexible and supportive environment at work, the people inside will be eager to share the news with their friends. 

Closing lines

As workplaces become busier and more connected, it is more important than ever to try to move toward achieving a work-life balance for employers and employees. Having a company culture that promotes work-life balance is also good for recruitment. It can be a key differentiator between different companies for a candidate, and it’s a great way to attract top talent to your business. A better work-life balance will inevitably lead to better retention, greater longevity within the industry, and, perhaps most importantly, better well-being for everyone working within it.

Humans throughout history have managed all sorts of processes and tasks. In the middle of the 20th century, the art of this responsible position was fully recognized and thus the official term project management was born into the world. Every one of us has been a project manager at some point in our lives simply because we all had to organize a birthday party. As weird as it sounds organizing one requires key project management skills: to work and collaborate with people (e.g to call a bakery, which is going to make the cake); to plan carefully and to fit in a budget (e.g to not go overboard with decorations); to oversee and navigate all of the processes (to make sure the DJ arrives early, to properly set up the surprise and to not forget the cake); to meet a deadline of some sort (e.g to make sure everything is ready for the big day, not the day after), and most importantly to produce a final visible successful result (e.g a fun and memorable birthday party for all of the participants). Now, if you want to learn more about managing a killer birthday part… we mean a killer project, then this article is for you. As always, go and grab that beloved beverage of yours, and let’s plow ahead.

What is project management?

A detailed definition would sound something like this: project management, or PM for short, is a group of different processes, which all aim to achieve a specific objective in a specified amount of time, all in accord with predefined criteria and parameters. It’s a complex and multi-layered task, which safeguards a project from its planning phase to its due date and tries to make the road from beginning to completion as smooth as possible.

In today’s fast-paced technological world project managers are cherished and sought after in pretty much any type of business. They are the people responsible for the success of every project. Depending on the organization a project manager can oversee different operations and usually juggle a lot of things at once. This might sound very similar to any managerial role. The things that set apart project management are that it has a final deliverable and a finite timespan unlike regular management, which is an ongoing process.

Projects are part of every organization’s operations. Obviously, they vary in scale, complexity, and specificity but every project contains the same three building blocks: time, cost, and quality. Not every project requires formal management though. Some tasks are pretty straightforward, with minimal risk and not that large of an impact. But some tasks morph into enormous projects, which can’t go forward without a person who oversees them. These sorts of projects hide a lot of risks and often require cross-team collaboration.

Investing in effective project management and project management tools can bring a lot of benefits to an organization’s overall performance. The most obvious one is to increase the likelihood of a project bearing successful results. Other key benefits are the more efficient use of resources and the ability to better satisfy the differing needs of the project’s stakeholders. 

Core stages and methodologies

Before we talk about the tools first we have to shine some light on the core stages of project management, as well as on the different types of project management methodologies.

There are three core stages when we talk about project management:

Scoping – the gathering of all the elements needed to kick off the project; they include the reasons behind starting the project, estimating the resources needed, comparing them to the expected return on investment, and securing the budget for the project. 

Planning and delivering – mapping out how the project should be completed; gathering delivery teams and assigning tasks to them; identifying and fixing issues throughout the process that could hinder the performance of the teams involved; ensuring that deadlines are met; 

Reporting and closure – reporting is an ongoing process throughout all stages, e.g communicating with project stakeholders and managing their expectations; once the objectives are met and everything is handled appropriately, a post-mortem meeting is assigned to discuss and evaluate what went right, and what went wrong. 

With the development of technology and industries, the role of project management also has to adapt accordingly. Project management methodologies exist for that particular reason. Different companies have different projects which can have specific needs and the role of all of the methodologies is to better meet those specific needs. We’ll list and review a few of the popular ones.

Waterfall methodology – the traditional approach to project management, in which tasks are handled sequentially in a linear manner, e.g complete task A, then start to work on B, and after B is completed start to work on C, etc.

Agile methodology – the very opposite of the previous approach; this methodology offers an iterative approach that allows for revision while a process is ongoing, rather to have to wait for its completion and then revise it. Testing at frequent intervals, reassessing, and adapting are key elements in this approach. 

Scrum methodology – a different form of agile project management; the work is split into short, often weekly cycles, called “sprints”, which are managed by a scrum master (a person who leads small teams, not to be confused with the project manager), who reviews the team’s performance after every sprint and makes the necessary adjustments before starting the next one.

Kanban methodology – another form of agile project management, in which work is picked and assigned from a pre-defined backlog and “moved” along through columns that define different stages of development.

What tools are usually used in project management?

We’ll give you the universal answer – it depends. Based on the structure of the company, and by which methodology/methodologies it operates, some tools might be a better fit than others. At their core, they are pretty much the same. By giving visibility on every single process, that is part of a project – how it’s going, who is responsible for it, ETA, etc. –  they assist project managers in their daily tasks of supervising each project they are accountable for and basically make their lives easier.

In a big organization, different departments might choose to operate by different methodologies, therefore a more complex and diverse project management tool like Jira might be of better use. On the other hand, a small marketing agency that has a less complicated structure and operates in a more simple way might opt for Trello, which will probably cover all of their needs and can save them expenses with its free version.

Choosing the best tool for your business can be a feat of its own. You can use the following steps as guidelines if you want to make that process a bit easier.

Define your needs – think about your company culture, what services you provide and which project management methodology best suits your business operations. A PM tool should be cross-functional and should be scalable.

Pick and test – based on the previous step, you should pick 2-3 tools and test them with a real team on a realistic project. The more complex the test project – the better. A suitable tool should be flexible. After the test trials, evaluate the pros and cons of each tool, get feedback from the different teams and their project managers and opt for the best choice. 

Purchase and implement – price should definitely be accounted for when making the choice from the previous step. After you found the solution that fits your business best you now will need to implement it. Some of the project management tools are intuitive and user-friendly-ish but keep in mind that the more complex ones probably will require some sort of training. 

Review and iterate – after implementing the tool, you should review its impact on the organization. Did it cover all of the needs you addressed in step one? Are your teams happy to use it or do they despise it? Does anything need improvement? Acquire all of the feedback you can get and make the necessary adjustments.

Closing lines
Project management is a constantly evolving discipline that requires project managers to deal with delivery teams and hand over work on time and within budget. Along with their specific skill set and leadership qualities, project managers also require the help of the right tools to perform their job more efficiently.

Choosing the right tool for your organization can be overwhelming based on all of the available options but if you are able to carefully define your needs and test some tools based on the type of your organization and its field of operations, you will manage to narrow down the options to a few, and then purchase and implement the one you deem best.

It’s not a secret that everybody secretly dislikes meetings. We’ve all had our fair share of business sessions that really didn’t have any impact and just felt like a big waste of time. Organizing a meeting might sounds easy on paper but in reality is a feat of itself. You need to invite the right people, to cover a serious topic in a short amount of time, to be able to smoothly present the topic at hand, and to make sure everybody got the memo. Complicated, right? Well, not really. In this article we’ll try to help you better prepare and present your next meeting. As always, fetch your favorite drink and let’s move forward, shall we?

What is a meeting agenda?

In order for any action to have a better chance for success there has to be a proper planning phase. This also applies for meetings. As we already mentioned, nobody likes to sit in a small room with pen and paper ready at hand just to smile and nod wondering why is this meeting even necessary. There is a magic cure for that and its called a meeting agenda.Meeting agendas are basically an outline of a meeting. They should cover the main points of the gathering, act as an overall guide and should be able to help everyone involved to get a better understanding of their purpose and of the main purpose. 

Whether remote or in-person effective meetings are important for teams and businesses to better align on a subject. According to research only half of the time spent in meetings is effective and engaging and over $37 billion is wasted on unproductive meetings each year. Without apparent purpose and proper organization your next meeting can easily fall in the previous statistic. It’s paramount to design a decent framework if you want your colleagues to feel organized and motivated to get stuff done.

Why do you need meeting agendas?

The lack of structure to a meeting can have a crushing effect on its purpose. Often times conversation trails off to offtopics which have nothing to do with the main purpose and just waste everyones time. Without a framework meetings run the risk of dragging for too long. Thirty minutes to an hour should be enough to brief a team on pretty much any topic.

Agendas help both the presenter and the attendees to have an overall better experience. For the host its necessary to keep the conversation on track in order to fit in the pre-defined time span, and to make sure each participant is engaged, and fully understands his/hers role in the meeting. For the people participating agendas help to clear the point of the meeting ahead of time, so that they can better prepare for it. For example if the meeting is about creating a new onboarding process, the presenter should address questions like: “Why do we need a new onboarding process?” ; “How the new one is going to improve current setbacks and fix issues?”; “Who is going to be in charge of different processes?”, etc. Alternatively, participants should prepare all sort of questions regarding the new system and think of ideas for the new one. 

How to properly create and follow meeting agendas in 6 simple steps

Every process can be made easy if broken down. In the case of meeting agendas, here are some simple steps you can follow when preparing for the next meeting.

1. Ask for input – when creating the agenda, ask the attendees for their input on how should the meeting be conducted. This will also help with overall engagement. 
2. Present agenda items as questions – the more eloquent and precise an agenda item is named, the better. Frame them as questions to help participants prepare better.
3. Assign a timeframe to each item – by doing this you ensure that everybody will better understand the flow of the meeting. It will also serve as a reminder to the presenter on what to emphasize and to not drag the meeting out unnecessarily.
4. Invite the right people – simple but very important. Make sure to pick only the people who are directly concerned with the topic of the meeting. 
5. Assign roles – unless you plan on leading the whole meeting, which often is not a good idea, you should assign roles for other participants. This will ensure that everyone will come prepared.
6. Leave time for Q&A’s and wrap it up properly – always make sure to answer questions and concerns. They will inevitably arise at some point in time and its better to address them in the meeting room while everyone else is present, so that all the participants are properly aligned. It is also a good idea to summarize in short what were the results of the meetings and what is expected from each participant. 

How to properly lead the meeting discussion according to your agenda

Creating a proper agenda is just a single step of managing a successful and efficient meeting. In order to run a meeting correctly you need to understand that most of the work happens beforehand through organization and planning. Don’t forget to:

1. Define the objectives
2. Create an agenda and send calendar invites
3. Create a safe space for communication and collaboration
4. Stay on track
5. End with clear actions

People don’t dread all meetings, they dread the poorly planned and managed ones, which lack structure and organization. By being proactive and carefully designing your next meeting, you will be able to set yourself apart and possibly create a positive and fruitful experience for everyone involved. The most important thing is to always ask for feedback and to make adjustments along the way. Practice makes perfect and with time and patience you will undoubtedly be able to hold killer meetings.

We bet that you probably have heard “KPI” at least once in your life. We even mentioned it in a previous article about KPI reports and why they are important. Today we are going to try to broaden the knowledge around KPIs, what they are all about, why you should know more about them and why every business should use them. As per usual, pick your preferred refreshment, and let’s press on, shall we?

What is a KPI?

KPI, also known as a Key Performance Indicator is a measurable mark that is used to determine the efficiency of a business operation. They help with gauging a company’s strategic, financial, and operational performance and provide a clearer overall vision of how an organization is functioning. They are important for people across all levels of a company, as well as for stakeholders, who can view if progress is made and if the business is on track. KPIs are also useful because they:

Help with employee accountability – by tracking progress on every level, team leaders can see how well individuals on their team are performing and if they are meeting their goals. This can help with overall morale – award employees who hit their target and provide additional training and support for those who aren’t able to.

Alignment – KPIs set a common goal that everyone can get behind. This works on a team level, as well as on an organizational level. Managing to keep everyone aligned with the important objectives is crucial.

Overview of a business’s health – by tracking, measuring, and analyzing what’s important, an organization can get an overview of how well it’s functioning. For instance, employee retention rates can paint a picture of the company’s culture. Assessing similar data and taking the necessary actions are a must if a business wants to operate better and longer.

Examples of KPIs

Revenue, expenses, and profit are the golden trio of KPIs that everybody is aware of. Beyond them, other commonly used KPIs are gross and net profit margins, which measure how much money a business makes when they are selling their products; cost of goods sold, which measures the materials and labor expenses when a product is being made; inventory turnover, which tells how fast products held in inventory are sold. 

Depending on the industry, every business chooses to track a specific set of KPIs which are relevant to their operations. If for example, a company operates in customer service, they will opt for tracking KPIs such as first-call resolution rate, call abandonment rate, call hold time, etc. Or a business in manufacturing will follow KPIs such as manufacturing cycle time, carrying cost, percentage of out-of-stock items, etc. 

A specific real-life example can be given with the electrical automotive giant Tesla. The numbers below are from their Q4 2021 update. You can view the full report here.

Vehicle production – the company produced 305,840 vehicles and managed to deliver 308,650 vehicles. Ramped-up production means more market share and profits for the company.

Automotive gross margin – Gross margin provides a very clear sign of profitability for Tesla, as it isolates its vehicle production costs. Based on the report it expanded to 30.6% even as sales of lower-priced models outpaced its higher-margin models.

Free cash flow – in the previous year-ago period the free cash flow was $1.9 billion, compared to the $2.8 billion during the quarter there’s a significant difference. The larger amount of free cash flow is an indicator that the company is reaching a scale of profitability without the help of regulatory credits. 

How are KPIs usually used? 

The previous example provides a rather clear idea of how KPIs are utilized. Often times its better for businesses to pick a set amount of KPIs to track. Not only its easier to collect, maintain and analyze the data needed for the reports but also it gives a better idea of what the company aims to achieve and where it should go in the long term. Tracking too many KPIs can be extremely complicated and more often won’t lead to positive results.

KPIs help to shine a better light on how well a business is doing. Leading KPIs can help with assessing information from past events to help better navigate the future. They are used to give the company’s leaders a tool to help them evaluate overall performance and to make meaningful data-driven changes to address possible problems. Lagging KPIs on the other hand try to foresee and warn company leaders of possible issues in the future. For example, profit margins are a result of operations and are considered a lagging indicator. Alternatively, the number of overtime hours worked, can be a leading KPI if the company notices a poorer manufacturing quality.

What do KPIs mean for the business? 

As with everything, KPIs have their advantages and their limitations. An example of the prior is when KPIs inform management of specific issues, which they can resolve properly and ensure that everything is in order. Key performance indicators also act as a bridge between business operations and business goals. Without the ability to track progress, a company can’t really navigate well toward those goals.

In order for KPIs to provide meaningful and accurate data, they have to measure parameters for a longer time frame. For example, for a company to properly assess employee satisfaction and overall morale it might have to collect data from the whole year. KPIs also require constant monitoring and processing. If I KPI report is made but is never analyzed it serves no purpose. 

The bottom line

A carefully selected and managed set of KPIs can help to provide key information for managers to use and analyze in order to progress toward a specific goal. A KPI can track and measure numerous factors most of which are used to assess performance, with the ultimate goal to help leaders to make more informed business decisions. By understanding better what KPIs are, their advantages and downsides, and how to properly implement them, businesses are able to optimize for long-term success.

Tedious tasks have always been a nuisance to deal with. They appear through all levels of the corporate world and we can all agree that nobody likes them. But thanks to business process automation (we’ll call it BPA from now on) the tables are slowly turning in our favor. Gone are the days when an employee has to spend a whole day filling papers and performing administrative tasks. BPA is gaining more popularity in the past few years and if you too are wondering how to improve the quality of life of your employees, clients, business partners, and your business as a whole, then please be our guest and read kindly through. As always, grab your favorite refreshment of choice, and let’s swoop in.

What’s BPA and why should you care?

In a nutshell, BPA relies on technology for the execution of various tasks in replacement of manual human effort. Now, before you jump on the Technology-is-going-to-steal-my-job-and-make-me-redundant train let’s clarify a few things. BPA isn’t your enemy, in fact, its sole purpose is to assist you in dealing with mundane, repetitive tasks, so you’ll have more time to focus more on creative and innovative work. Think of your relationship with BPA as a cooperation and not as a competition. 

Businesses tend to automate a portion of a particular process but there are cases where savvy businesses have completely automated processes from A-Z. An example we’ve all encountered is the chatbot in customer support. It can receive an inquiry, understand the issue and either offer a solution or connect the troubled customer to a customer support rep, which can then offer further assistance. 

Benefits of BPA

You probably already thought of a few scenarios where automation can become your best friend. There are numerous cases where BPA shines bright. We are going to share a few of the benefits which BPA can offer if implemented.

Efficiency

By automating a process you ensure that it gets done faster and with fewer errors. The reason simply is the removal of “human” in human error.

Standardization

When the same process is every time is done in the same way you also ensure uniform, predictable results. 

Customer satisfaction

We talked about how important customer satisfaction is for a business. When you combine efficiency and standardization it almost always leads to a happy customer. No missed deadlines, no mistakes, and no room for errors equal to a 5-star review.

5 Internal processes you can automate today

Digital transformation rarely happens in a day. Most of the time it requires a lot of time to set up, implement, adapt with employees, etc. But BPA is a whole different ball game. You can apply it to existing manual tasks and let it do its magic, under ideal circumstances, in a single day.

Hiring Process – recruitment is a very important and delicate process. Instead of sifting through a ton of applications manually, you can make use of automated hiring tools that will do it for you a lot quicker.

On-boarding – after successfully recruiting a candidate using your new automated hiring tool, you will have to onboard them too. Instead of giving them mile-long explanations and showing them what to do, you can provide them with the tools so they can do that by themselves.

Social Media Management – every business is expected to have at least one account on a major social media platform. Most of them have multiple and managing all of them can be daunting. To minimize that effort there are social media automation tools that can take care of business faster and better.

Sales/CRM Process – salespeople love to close deals and hate to fill in information in a CRM. Activities like prospecting and having meetings are here to stay, but processes like call logging, filing, and handoffs to the implementation team can easily be automated.

Auditing – a potential nightmare of a task. If your business deals with complex financial operations or major investments you can take off some stress from your employees and transfer it to an automation tool, that wouldn’t mind it at all and will perform the tasks a lot quicker with a lot fewer errors.

Conclusion

BPA is a friend, not a foe. Every business should take advantage of some form of automation tools. The key is to pinpoint areas of your business operations that can benefit most from automation and implement the right solution there. Not everything can and should be automated, so perform your research before deciding on automating any processes. BPA and automation in general will definitely shine more in the near future, so let machines take care of things they excel at and let employees use their talents to innovate.

Selling isn’t easy. While irresistible charm and eloquent rhetoric can get you a long way, most of the time they need a helping hand, a friend if you will, and that friend comes in the form of sales decks. A tool used by every sales team to get that investor on their side or to convince the customer to try the product out. If you want to learn more about what’s a sales deck, what are the foundations of a good sales deck and how to create an engaging one, you’ve definitely come to the right place. As always, get that beloved beverage of choice, and let us press ahead.

What is a sales pitch deck?

A sales pitch deck also referred to as a sales deck is a presentation in slide format (Slides, Powerpoint, Keynote) that is used to summarize a company’s mission, vision, values, product/service, and team, and portray them in an attractive way so that potential investors or other businesses might be more interested to get involved. In other words, it’s a powerful sales tool every business should take advantage of.

“The goal of a sales deck is to “visually and textually present your sales narrative to your ideal customer in a way that convinces them to buy your solution.” – Peter Kazanjy

By combining visuals and strong messaging, the main point of a sales deck is to urge its audience to take action. The most desired outcomes are investing in the company or buying a product or a service from that company. 

Elements of a good sales pitch deck.

Again we’ll start with the usual disclaimer that every business is different and every sales deck should be structured and designed according to the organization’s goals and needs, therefore there isn’t a unique formula to creating a sales deck that will guarantee 100% success when pitched. But there are some ground “rules” that you can follow to give your sales deck a strong foundation. Some elements or checkpoints you might want to include in yours or take into account are:

1. Start with a hearty introduction – a single slide consisting of “Hello we are… and we do…” often does the trick. The key point is to not overdo it by talking about your company for half of the whole presentation.
   
2. Point out the customer’s pain – by doing this you put the focus on them and not on yourself, which is also an important part when pitching. Just remember to do it in a non-threatening or derogatory way – be empathetic.
   
3. Elevator pitch – talk about your product/service and how it will improve the quality of life of your customer/prospect in under 60 seconds. Be eloquent and concise and try to avoid going on tangents.
   
   
4. State your expertise – share why you are the right company to alleviate the customers’ pain in slide #2. Just don’t make it sound like you are bragging about it.
   
5. Provide proof – add some testimonials. A list of clients that you’re working with, short case studies, articles, etc. Basically, you can include everything that will solidify your position and will act as a foundation to build trust.
   
6. CTA – no matter how well the story is told until this point, without a proper ending it will just fall flat. Compel your audience to take the action that you desire.
   

How to create an engaging sales pitch deck?

We’ve all heard that storytelling sells best. A powerful story that is told well can easily prove a certain point or urge to take a specific action. An engaging sales deck should be constructed and pitched as a story. The simple 3-act rule can also apply when creating a sales deck. There should be a Beginning (Introduction), there should be a Middle (Elevator Pitch/Offer), and an End (CTA). Everything in-between should support the main message and should drive the story further in a streamlined way without overcomplicating it.

Before sharing a few bullet points about creating a sales deck, we want to underline probably the best thing you can do, when creating yours. The key is to think like a buyer, and not like a seller. You know your product and its features best and it’s natural for you to want to share every detail about it. But perhaps the person you are pitching to doesn’t really want to hear all that. By putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes, you increase your chances to drive the right message. When a person senses that you took the time to think about their pain points, they listen—and they buy.

As promised here are the bullet points we mentioned earlier:

• Customize and personalize your sales deck to meet different client demands
  
• Use branded visuals and avoid using too much text
  
• Adjust the sales deck for online or live, in-person presentations
  
• Build your storyline throughout the presentation to hold interest
  
• Don’t make it longer than it needs to be
  

Sales Pitch Deck Examples

In order to clear any confusion, we’ll share a few good examples of sales decks that we think combine everything we said so far.

Reddit’s sales deck is a gem. The custom memes and images that will probably make you laugh also illustrate that the platform can be a solid contender alongside other advertising giants.

Splunk’s sales presentation on the other hand offers a more in-depth approach by clearly explaining the advantages of the product and offering a step-by-step walkthrough of how it performs.

Last but not least we decided to include Snapchat’s 2015 sales deck which starts with a knockout punch right at the get-go. This strategy doesn’t waste time and space with fluffy intros and instead doubles down on a strong statement: “Snapchat is the best way to reach 13-34-year-olds”. After reading that you either are all ears or you continue with more important tasks. 

Final thoughts

When properly created and catered to the right audience sales decks bring enormous firepower to your sales arsenal. They are a powerful tool that helps sales teams close deals. But in the end, it’s just a tool and can’t win battles by itself.  Sales teams and company leaders must speak a common language when it comes to sharing the business’s narrative.

Remember that a sales deck is, in a way, a representation of your company’s values. Make sure to design it in a way, which will truly make your business shine and hopefully will catch the eye of future investors, partners, or customers.

Numbers, numbers, numbers, it’s all about numbers these days. But digits by themselves don’t mean much. As valuable as collecting information is, it’s made redundant if it’s not put to use in a way that benefits a business. By measuring specific metrics an organization can track important marks, which can give them a sign of whether they are on the right course or they are drifting away somewhat aimlessly. Key performance indicators, a.k.a KPIs, are these magical creatures that are crucial for operating a business properly. In this article, we’ll do our best to demystify them and get a better understanding of why they are so important. As always, grab that favorite drink of yours, and let’s plow ahead.

Definition of KPIs, Types of KPIs & Why using them is so important?

KPIs are measurable values that showcase how effectively a company is performing and how well it’s achieving essential business objectives. They are important because they act as a somewhat real-time feedback system, on how an organization is functioning – whether it’s achieving its goals, or whether it’s falling short. In other words, by implementing them a business is making sure it’s going to get where it has to go. After collecting metrics, which then are used in forming KPIs, they are analyzed and reports are made. 

Depending on the goal those reports can be structured roughly into three types – analytical, operational, and strategic.

Analytical – they are used across all areas of a business for a wide range of cases and can be as broad as this definition.

Operational – they are predominantly focused on the day-to-day activities of a business. Short-term outlines of how a company performs. 

Strategic – they are used to provide a clear picture of a company’s “health” and in which direction it’s heading. These reports show owners and stakeholders how the business is performing in the long run.

Benefits of KPI reports

There are many reasons why KPI reports are important. By analyzing and adjusting accordingly, a business can only benefit from them. Here are four ways how an organization can utilize KPI reports.

To strengthen employee morale

Probably the most under-utilized value of KPIs. We can all agree that a company’s culture is important for performance. Tracking KPIs promotes a sense of accountability and responsibility in employees and by hitting a mark at the end of the day/week/month/quarter/year, a sense of satisfaction is spread across everyone involved. This on the other hand can also motivate everyone else to push themselves more and to achieve even greater results.

Foster personal growth

In the previous paragraph, we mention the benefits which KPIs provide to employees, on a company level. The same logic can be applied on an individual level. If an employee is able to monitor their performance and respond at the moment, they can achieve their goals and better yet, understand how to do it better in the future. With KPIs, which are tracked on a real-time KPI dashboard, teams are able to see exactly how they are performing at any given moment. This sets a tone for constant improvement and a healthy environment for continued personal growth.

Help to make decisions

KPIs are very useful when it comes to making a decision, but they shouldn’t be the sole reason why a certain decision is made. When the time to make a call comes, having the bigger picture in mind is a must. KPIs are in a sense just numbers, the reasons behind those numbers can be many. Always fully examine an issue and never rely on a single KPI report. 

Help to set goals and plans

Every business has objectives and goals that it strives to achieve. Sometimes getting everyone to work on achieving a shared goal can be a difficult task. Once an overall objective has been set, KPIs will help to break the process of achieving it into smaller and more manageable chunks and allow for a step-by-step approach.

How to create a KPI report?

There are five simple steps for creating an effective KPI report.

Create an overview – The first step is crucial. An overview can be a simple outline of what the goals of the report are going to be, and how it’s going to serve the organization. By answering the following questions, a business should set the right criteria:

1. What is the goal of the report?
2. Who will the audience be?
3. How will the report be used – is it strategic or operational? Static or interactive?
4. When will it be distributed?

Define the KPIs – once the initial objective has been established a business will have a general idea about the metrics which are needed in order to compile the KPIs. The tricky part is how the organization obtains these metrics. Are they reliable and accurate, how are they obtained, etc? 

Present KPIs – visualize the data properly. Make sure everything is understandable and not overly complicated.

Build a prototype – create a first draft of the report. Use dummy data if none other exists and present it to colleagues. Gather their feedback and make the necessary adjustments.

Refine and release – finalize and distribute. Just like any business process, reports need to be adjusted and evolved in order to be efficient. Make sure to perform regular maintenance to avoid report “bloat” and to keep information straight to the point and up to date. 

Examples of KPI reports in different industries

To hopefully make things a bit more clear, we will share a few examples from different industries.

This is what a retail report can look like. This particular example shows information about relevant shopper engagement and associate performance indicators to maximize profits, featuring KPIs such as by-channel sales, and return by % of sales.

A manufacturing report can highlight information such as supply chain and operational efficiency to optimize costs. It can feature KPIs such as availability, performance, quality, etc.

A financial services report can look like this. This demo example shows information regarding relevant customer and team indicators that drive growth while reducing costs. It features KPIs such as utilization, returns on assets, returns on equity, etc.

Closing lines

Every business has to set, measure and analyze relevant KPIs. That’s the surefire way to navigate properly and achieve various objectives with ease. It doesn’t matter if you use a complex CRM or a simple Excel spreadsheet, integrating your KPIs onto an analytics dashboard can be a huge upgrade. Having real-time metrics, all in a single place, allows teams and individuals to improve. Being able to have a detailed overview of which metrics need improvements and which ones are performing well can enhance an organization’s health and allow it to work more efficiently.