In a world dependent on the Internet, most businesses (big or small) rely on tech to carry out and adapt operations — but fewer know how to wield it in a way that maximises efficiency.
Regardless of whether you’re a brick & mortar store owner, e-commerce wizard or professional driver, every company around the world needs to prioritise their efficiency.
If you don’t take efficiency seriously, you’ll never be able to get the most out of your business. You risk not making enough money to keep your operation afloat when problems inevitably come knocking at the door.
Enter tracking software — a form of technology capable of reporting real-time data that provides valuable insight into a business’s operations.
SEO tracking tools monitor ranking efficiency
Does your business have a website that you rely on for attracting new customers? While yes is the likely answer, many growing companies aren’t giving search engine optimisation (or SEO) the appreciation it deserves.
The internet is the ultimate marketing tool, but it’s not enough to simply attract traffic to your website.
In a digital world, it’s page one of Google or bust. Though the Amazons of this world are big enough to rank at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) despite their poor optimisation, your business must fine-tune its website to earn a valuable online presence.
Users are searching for solutions to their problems and find their answers in the form of web pages. If your business doesn’t appear prominently on SERPs, you’re handing industry authority and brand recognition over to your competitors.
The point being, you can never run a fully efficient operation while neglecting a website that has the potential to be your most lucrative sales channel. Therefore, adopting SEO tactics is a must for any business looking to grow in an increasingly digital economy.
Diverse and complex SEO tactics are broad in spectrum. With this in mind, here are some tactics outlined at Digital Ethos:
- Link building
- Local/national/international SEO
- Mobile/desktop optimisation
- Ecommerce SEO
But with all this good work being done, it’s also important to track progress and make sure your efforts aren’t being wasted in the wrong places.
You can track the effectiveness of SEO tactics through an array of uniquely valuable tools:
- Google analytics: to see how users interact with your website via measurables like bounce rate and session duration.
- Ahrefs: to target new relevant keywords, get updates on what you’re already ranking for, and analyse competitor backlink profiles.
- Semrush: to identify topics that resonate with your audience, track brand mentions, and observe your content’s reach.
The internet is the most effective marketing tool your business has at its disposal, so monitoring the efficiency of your ranking efforts is a must. After all, generating new audiences and fulfilling customer problems is the name of the game, you have to be visible to show your worth.
Telematics and tracking tools streamline the fulfilment process
Do you feel like your fulfilment process requires a dramatic overhaul? Delivering your product/service is the final stage in business, but it might be the most important, this is the moment your company makes good on its promises to the customer.
Some companies deliver in-house; others outsource to third party distributors like DPD or UPS — but whether you’re a courier business or simply running each stage of the business internally, your fulfilment process needs to consider one key efficiency-related question…
How cost-effective is your fulfilment process? Tracking software plays a critical role in uncovering the answer — this is because these tools enhance visibility throughout the process. Here’s how:
In terms of running your fulfilment process from a business perspective, you need to make sure deliveries are financially sustainable while balancing the quality of your service. As such, many companies that deal closely with the fulfilment process find addressing these issues helps establish a more effective operation:
- Cutting fuel expenditure
- Training wasteful/risky drivers
Firstly, the price of fuel chops and changes in tandem with the world economy. Sometimes it works in your favour, and you bag a bargain; other times you get short-changed. It’s this sort of gamble that makes your operation unsustainable over long periods.
Secondly, driver behaviour not only influences the condition of your vehicles and fuel usage, but dangerous driving can also impact other road users and your brand’s reputation. You have a duty of care to prevent fatigue and dangerous driving when you spot it.
Needing more control over the fulfilment process, vehicle tracking experts like iCompario suggest managers ought to embrace telematics (a key component of any tracking system) to communicate with a vehicle and share information on a range of variable inputs, such as:
- Driving harshness
- Average driving speed
- Vehicle health
By shining a light on these blind spots, data from your telematics system can then be leveraged to help improve efficiency throughout your fulfilment process.
You can use this information to maintain vehicles and check they are performing as expected — and if not, then at least you know to send them off for a service or address specific repairs.
You could go one step further and reimagine your training programmes by using this data to uncover gaps in knowledge, ironing out driving behaviours that could be contributing to wear and tear — or even be putting employee welfare at risk.
Time tracking software boosts personal productivity
When thinking about strong company culture, we often think of social gatherings and team-building exercises but forget that the foundations of good business management are built with efficiency at its core.
Whether you’re a digital agency bound by client results or an in-house operation looking to ship off its products for maximum profit, it’s crucial to align the way employees manage their time with your businesses efficiency goals.
No matter how talented a group of people you have at your disposal, if workers begin to take a little too long to complete tasks — or simply aren’t aware of time constraints — then it won’t be long until such inefficiencies start eating into your profit margins.
One solution to this invisible problem is to use time tracking software like Hourstack — an easy to adopt tool that lets you track ongoing tasks within an allocated time frame while also linking them to specific projects.
Using these tracking tools, your business can collect measurable data that helps identify:
- Which people you assign to certain projects
- Where there might be gaps in efficiency training/opportunities to improve
- Whether you’re under or overdelivering on your service
For your business to operate at peak performance, you should consider implementing non-invasive time tracking software (like the aforementioned Hourstack). On one side of the issue, you want employees to respect and understand time expectations; on the other, you don’t want to drive down team morale by making them live and die by the clock.
The Internet of Things is out of the bag, so you might as well reap the rewards — but how you use these tools in your own business is up for personal interpretation.
Whether you’re looking to dominate your niche on the web, cut the costs of running a quality fulfilment process or meet the time pressures of a fast-paced industry, tracking software is the ultimate solution to running a more efficient business in the modern world.