Looking to improve your SME business overnight? Click here for seven unique ways you can start raking in the profits after just a few simple changes.

The overall structure of your business is integral to its long term success. The daily processes of you and your staff can have a dramatic impact on how effectively you achieve your long term company objectives; whether they are improving your customer retention rates, boosting your profit margins, or establishing a strong online brand reputation within your field or industry.

As such, if you have been looking for instant and efficient methods of improving your SME’s business structure, Post and Packing can help. Irrespective of whether you are an independent eBay Powerseller, a start-up with less than 25 employees, or a thriving small-to-medium sized business with a growing network of staff, by taking the following methods on board you can instantly improve your SME’s business structure, workplace productivity and sales figures.

1 – Keep daily, weekly & monthly records

In order to improve your SME’s business structure, you first need to equip yourself with detailed records about your company, its staff and your sales figures. Taking the time to compile accurate records of your daily, weekly and monthly profit margins will enable you to identify financial trends within your organisation and potential sales patterns amongst consumers.

Having access to this data and analysing it on a monthly basis will enable you to modify your existing business structure in a manner that will be the most beneficial for your company. For example, if you manage an e-commerce site and your monthly records report an increase in consumer traffic during certain months, you can redirect your staff during this busy sales period and invest in additional business support such as order fulfilment or packaging services. Doing so will enable you to fulfil more orders with a rapid turnover time, which will in turn enable you to sell more stock and increase your profit margins. In this way, keeping detailed company records can help you to improve workplace productivity levels and your annual turnover.

2 – Analyse your staff’s daily administrational processes

In addition to analysing your sales figures, it is also important that you analyse the workplace productivity of your staff. How do your staff spend the majority of their day? How much time is spent on resolving IT errors and administrational tasks, rather than high priority tasks which will support the advances of your company objectives? If you find that your staff are hindered by having to ship packages, order in stock and deal with computer problems, then you need to rapidly eliminate these disruptions in order to improve your overall business structure.

Business support services such as automated email applications and PO Box rental services can limit the amount of time your staff expend on low priority tasks and equip them with more time and resources to spend on customer support and following up on potential sales leads. These simple yet highly effective business support services can boost staff morale, increase efficiency levels and improve your SME’s overall business structure.

3 – Scrutinise your marketing strategies

According to the online publication Business Case Studies, for an “organisation to deliver its plans, the strategy and the structure must be woven together seamlessly.”

Consequently, when you set about improving your SME’s business structure, your marketing strategies need to remain at the forefront of your mind. Implementing targeted marketing goals and organising your business structure in a manner which will achieve these objectives will earn you a network of loyal consumers that will help you continue to expand your business.

Fortunately, there are a variety of offline and online methods through which you can devise and implement successful marketing campaigns. For example, at Post & Packing we offer a direct mail fulfilment service that will design, print, pack and deliver engaging direct mail content to your target market. Capitalising upon our bulk order discounts and combining these offline strategies with online marketing campaigns such as promotional emails, voucher codes and relevant discounts based on consumer buying patterns, you can increase your customer base without significantly depleting your financial resources. Taking control of your marketing strategies in this manner will earn you repeat custom from valued consumers and equip you with automated marketing processes to streamline the administrational processes of your entire business structure.

4 – Listen to customer feedback

One of the best ways to improve your overall business structure is to listen to your customer feedback and implement structural changes that will meet their recommendations. For example, if your customers have complained about customer support systems, you can redirect members of your staff to your customer service departments in order to meet consumer demand.

Similarly, if your customers have complained about the lack of next day delivery or international delivery options, you can implement alternative courier services and instruct your marketing department to advertise these newly updated services. Listening to this honest customer feedback and implementing changes which are directly related to them, will establish trust between you and your consumers – as well as improving your overall business efficiency levels.

5 – Take advantage of business automation processes

Business automation and an efficient business structure go hand in hand. As Sathvik Tantry of Formswift declares: “Business automation is not just a luxury; it is a necessity in today’s competitive environment…Automating monotonous tasks saves your employees time and allows them to do more productive tasks that require critical thinking or a human touch.”

Although many SMEs refrain from automating processes due to the cost, in the long term these expenditures will deliver increased profit margins and higher customer retention rates. At Post and Packing, we offer a variety of order fulfilment processes that will pick, pack and post all orders, as well as managing your stock levels and providing storage and archiving facilities. Whether you are an independent eBay Power Seller, or a growing business with multiple employees, these automated order fulfilment processes can free up your daily schedule and work space, leaving you with more time, energy and resources for expanding within your industry.

6 – Research your competitors

When it comes to improving your business structure, you should not underestimate the importance of researching your competitors. Investigating their strengths and weaknesses via online reviews and their product listings will enable you to identify areas of improvement within your own company, as well as aspects wherein your company surpasses your industry rivals.

Embracing what is unique about your company and making it the core of your business structure will help you to appeal to a key demographic who will purchase from your company for many years to come. In this manner, researching your competitors will allow you to streamline your business processes and concentrate on the strategies to improve customer retention rates.

7 – Set realistic goals

One of the best ways to improve your SME’s business structure in both the short long term is to set realistic, achievable business goals. Even SMEs with less than 10 employees, or eBay Power Sellers working independently, can set realistic achievable goals to expand and evolve their business structure. Look at your marketing practices, IT Support systems and think; how can I improve the efficiency of these processes and make better use of my time? By taking advantage of the order fulfilment and business support services mentioned throughout this article, you can improve the structure of your business and equip yourself with the necessary resources to expand your company in a rapid, efficient manner.