Did you know that most SMEs fail to grow because they don't effectively manage their information?

Most SMEs, inordinate amounts of time are spent dealing with disparate, disorganised information and records. Strategies to collect and update information are often duplicated or missed out altogether, leading to wasted time and effort, not to mention, inaccurate information. The problem is, most day-to-day tasks in SMEs are done through inefficient, time-consuming manual processes. Even though we are living in the digital age, most organizations are still not taking advantage of all the benefits that technology can provide. We are wasting time and money because we are resisting investing in technology.

The three main ways by which most SMEs fail to effectively manage their information are:

1. Information Disconnect

   In the average SME, information is kept in a variety of places, and rarely centralised. The "silo" effect in most growing businesses means that customers and prospects communicate with your company through any number of points, such as your sales staff, admin staff or the company Web site. Each area probably has its own unique way of collecting relevant information, leading to disconnected customer profiles. The problem with this is that the bigger your business grows, the greater the opportunity to make multiple mistakes. For example, a customer's invoice could be sent to an old address, because a salesperson didn't inform your accounting staff of a new set of details. The cash flow implications for your business could be significant.

2. Inaccuracy

   If you have more than one person entering the same information in your business, you are duplicating your efforts and losing productivity. For example, if your accounts area is gathering the same pricing information that your sales person already has, or that your customer has already entered on your Web site, you are losing money. Worse still, the inaccuracy in your data arising from information being entered more than once will result in unclear communications internally and externally, and ultimately, the loss of customers.

3. Excessive Manual Processes

   Even in this digital age, many SMEs do not have a common interface across teams and processes. Many have no automated system in place for sharing new and updated business contacts, project tracking, and accounting information. What happens when marketing needs to know the success of its recent direct mail campaign? Every salesperson has to stop and manually tally the source of recent prospects.

Note that information sharing does NOT mean simply setting up a network in your office. Even if your computers are networked, you are probably still wasting time on manual processes such as sending out late payment reminders and direct marketing materials. Why not then, consider investing in technology to properly leverage one of your most valuable resources - information.

By ensuring that your processes and information management are be efficiently automated, you and your people can concentrate on the real task at hand - growing the business, instead of just managing it.

To find out how Freestylemedia can help your company address these 3 obstacles, contact Fred Schebesta on (02) 9818 7300 or email fred.schebesta@freestylemedia.com.au