Unfortunately many managers underestimate the power of a good cost management. In fact, without it, you can make your product/service lose competitiveness and then, several injuries come: the sales volume falls, the profit margins shrinks and so the team motivation. However, you don’t need to go through it. Here are four ways to control your costs:
1. Sign annual contracts
Negotiate with your customer with annually contracts and you will have a more precise notion of how much the projects cost. You will have the opportunity to discuss details that must be changed more often than if it was a multiyear contract. And if your company uses a project management tool with costs report, you can always check in real time how much money and time are being spent. That way, you can take instant steps to reduce them.
2. Talk to your customers
Ask them what they recommend to reduce the costs of your projects. Valuable insights can arise from that conversation and help both parties to save money and time. Also, by asking them how you can improve the product/service of your company, you prove that you care about their view, and create a more transparent and lasting relationship.
3. Adopt the concept “Just in Time”
This concept, used in industry, can be adopted in your agency, office or company, after all, your goal is to reduce, or even eliminate, all waste in production stages that may not be so clear to your employees. The waste is in the several reports forgotten in computers, waiting for an analysis. It’s in the incorrect data in the contracts, in the rework to fix them for approval. As in a factory waste is the sudden stop of a machine, in the office it’s in the poor dialogue between teams, and even within them, when they use email – what doesn’t happen when using a team management software.
4. Keep a lean staff
More people on the team results in more work being done, but not necessarily more profit. Don’t keep in the team people who are uninterested in the collective success. The smartest thing to do is to empower your current team, give it more autonomy and, more importantly, help them become more productive. By using an online manager, that’s what happens. And the cost management is all automated, through simple and complete reports.Runrun.it brings all these benefits. Try it for free: http://runrun.it
