With all the sudden changes in the world, everyone’s facing new and unexpected problems. Many of our plans are thrown aside to adjust to what has become the new normal, and no one is spared from this. From individuals to companies, from big corporations to small to medium enterprises, everyone has to wiggle for more room.
Especially small-to-medium businesses. Many are struggling to stay up during this pandemic, and a lot has unfortunately succumbed to the circumstances. As a business owner, you want to keep looking for ways to increase profit and reduce costs. Otherwise, your business might not grow or worse, close shop. Thankfully, there are a lot of ways you can reduce business expenses without having to sacrifice much. Let’s take a look at a few.
Re-think Your Office
The pandemic has affected a lot of industries, and the real estate market was among the ones that suffered the worst. Even if you were granted leeway for your payment when the world was in a tight lockdown, it can be difficult to continue renting the same expensive office space with a decreased income.
At this point, it’s best to reconsider your office location. You can check with your mortgage agency if you have the option to move to a cheaper space. The reduced working capacity has severely affected many industries, and you might be surprised to find how the situation of commercial real estate is in your location.
Another idea is to operate your business remotely. More and more companies have adopted this work, as everyone needed to stay home for extended periods of time. Perhaps you’ve realized that there are many tasks that can be accomplished remotely, and this allows you to either rent a smaller working office or go completely online.
Look Into the Freelance Market
The freelance industry is booming, with the proliferation of freelance marketplaces that connects job hunters and job providers. More people are looking into freelancing as a full-time option, and many experts predict more will take the plunge to full-time freelancing in the future.
What this means for you as a business owner is that you can have temporary teams working on your projects. This lets you avoid spending on large expenses like training and insurance. Utilizing a team of freelancers allows you to be more flexible with your approach to accomplishing the task, while still keeping the overall quality by thoroughly selecting those you hire.
And as the freelancing market grows, you’ll most likely see an increase in quality options priced competitively. Even if you’re not planning to hire freelances because you have a proper team, keep this in mind because it just might help you in the future.
The Cloud is Your Tool for Cost-cutting
Businesses spend a lot on physical things, like papers, pens, folders, filing cabinets, paperclips, and all of those traditionally associated with ‘office work’. While they might seem like small expenses, when added up together, they take a considerable chunk of your budget.
Luckily, innovations in technology have provided us with a much more environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional solutions. Gone are the days when you need to use a paper for everything you write down, and then a cabinet to file them to; you can basically do all of these tasks on a computer! And not just that, you can consolidate all of your necessary files and information on the cloud, which grants you full access with whatever device you have that accesses the Internet.
You can reduce business expenses by completely doing away with paper and other material costs by simply going online. While some cloud services may require a fee, they’re a considerably cheaper option than having to continuously restock your office supplies.
Use Second Hand Equipment Instead
Many companies continuously upgrade their devices and hardware. As new technology springs up every year, multi-national companies tend to upgrade frequently, leaving their old but still reliable hardware for sale.
As a small business owner, there is absolutely no need for using cutting-edge technology when last year’s tech will do just fine. Consider purchasing used equipment instead, as they cost lower but still maintain their function and efficiency. There is little to no performance drop, and you will be doing the environment a favor by preventing these devices to go to a landfill.
This isn’t exclusive to computing hardware as well, as other business equipment such as tables, chairs, and even dividers frequently go for sale on the used items market. Take the time to look around and see if there are items that are useful to you, you’ll end up saving thousands of dollars purchasing used but functional equipment instead of buying new ones.
