HOW STRATEGIC PLANNING IS KEY TO INCREASED EFFICIENCY

April 8, 2022 – Studies have shown that employee recruitment and retention and a lack of time and money are among the most pressing challenges faced by Irish SMEs post pandemic. In this blog on how to have a strategic approach to IT expenditure, we explain how strategic planning can lead to increased operational efficiency.

How Do You Ensure Your Customers Have a Wonderful Experience While Saving on the Scarce Resources of People, Time, and Money?

Because MCS works as a technology consultant across a range of industries, we know that Irish SMEs want to make business operations more efficient (i.e., reaching goals with reduced costs and less waste). These businesses usually have a variation of this wish list of improvements:

• Minimise time-wasting manual tasks and data-handling errors
• Reduce IT maintenance costs and dependence on multiple technology vendors
• Build a technology network that allows for the free flow of data and communication
• Have a technology network that is flexible to allow for planning and growth
• Partner with a technology solutions specialist that fully understands the business

Ideally, for a business to be successful, it should operate in the most efficient, integrated manner possible. However, the amount of change required to make enterprise-wide improvements can be so daunting, it’s often easier to keep operating ‘as before’ — or at least make only slight changes at a time.

The problem with being focused on the short term is that it usually ends up being more expensive overall.

One solution is to have a well thought out strategy to help your business move away from short-term cycles. This well allow you to get back to a sustainable path for the future.

What Does ‘Being Strategic’ Mean, and Why Does Having a Strategy Matter?

The word strategic originated from the Greek word stratēgēma meaning ‘to act as a general’. A stratagem is a clever plan or a scheme that should lead to a specific end.  Strategy is the ‘how to’ in achieving your goals.

Strategic planning when running your business allows you to achieve your goals if you

• identify the vision, mission, and goals for the business;
• plan each step involved in achieving those aims; and
• lead your army of employees.

The vision, mission, and goals are the foundation on which a stable, resilient company is built.  Working out timeframes for goals – for example, quarterly, yearly, 3-year, 5-year – will enable you to assign deadlines for tactical work. It will also allow you to identify optimum times to take on projects to modernize and improve your systems.

And finally, communication of your company’s vision, mission, and goals is an essential part of strategic planning. Communication will create alignment across the business.

Poor communication with employees is a leading cause of inefficiency because it leads to haphazard expenditure.  Conversely, good communication results in expenditure that is aligned with the overall goals of the business. It keeps everybody focussed on what’s important – leading to a more effective use of resources.

The MCS Approach

At MCS, our mission is to help our customers gain efficiencies by first optimising business management processes and then implementing integrated technology that reduces reliance on inefficient stand-alone software systems and manual processes. This requires excellent communication with our clients.

The first thing we do when undertaking an implementation of modern technology is to clarify what goals the customer is trying to achieve. This ensures that their IT expenditure is aligned with the business’s strategic goals. Taking time at the start to discuss customers’ aims ensures that every MCS implementation is a success for both the customer and MCS.

Because we consider the nuances of each individual business, we can always find a strategic solution that solves inefficiency problems.

Since we’ve gone live, we’ve had much greater visibility and control over every aspect of the business.”

— Stephen McCann, Owner, Bearfoot Flooring

Read about how we worked with Bearfoot Flooring to implement a strategic solution that resolved many of that company’s problems around legacy systems.

Written by Sarah O’Connell

Contact us at 01-4507846 if you would like to discuss how our tried-and-tested strategic approach to efficient business operations can work for you.