INVEST IN YOUR PEOPLE, THEIR TRAINING AND TECHNOLOGY
Column by JAY PERRY
In a recent article from the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) entitled “Four Key Trends Shaping the Future of Canada’s Businesses,” the authors identify, in formal terms, four things we all know as business owners and managers.
We all know costs have increased. As a matter of fact, costs have never—in all of industry history—increased at the pace that they have in just two years. We all feel the pinch. Price increases, on average, have grown 35 percent from 2020 to 2022. Astounding! What this stat also points out is that, although inflation may return to previous levels, costs will stay elevated comparatively speaking. So, we must learn to be more efficient to maintain margins. Leaders must captain efforts with entire teams.
Customer preferences are shifting, and this puts additional pressure on pricing, environmental concerns, energy consumption, social integration and many more items that could potentially increase costs and/or affect the buying decisions of consumers and where they do business. Ignore these at your peril! Labour shortages are putting pressure on businesses, limiting their ability to deliver services and creating increased costs. Eightyeight percent of businesses are reporting this as a major concern. One thing you cannot ignore is implementing technology into the solutions to reduce labour requirements. It exists and more will appear soon with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). Training and development work needs to be invested in if you are to have a workforce that is competent. It is NOT a cost—it is a necessity! You must build your own team if you want to participate in the future of business!
You need a people strategy, which may include upskilling workers. Attitude is more important than ability—abilities are something that can be learned—thus, giving you opportunity to create the workforce you need through investment in education.
Technology is likely to have the greatest impact on the future. Throwing more people into the workforce pool has its limitations. Technology has limits too, but it is growing and advancing much more rapidly than the development of the workforce. What jobs can you automate? By looking at every job in your operation, you will see an opportunity to bring at least a partial solution today with the current available approaches.
Automated customer relations management (CRM) reduces office staff costs and frees up your people’s valuable time. AI-driven assistants in a variety of areas are also readily available. The BDC article pointed out that the average small business that invested in automation made only an approximately $10K expenditure. That can be recouped rapidly!
The bottom line in the article is act now to prepare for the future of your firm! As we that have been around for a while know, the challenges of running a business will always be present. It is how we prepare to combat those challenges that keep us the one who’s driving!
