How long have you been online today? With the internet becoming an increasingly important part of our lives, many of us are spending a good portion of our day connected to it – in fact, the average UK adult spends just over one day a week (25 hours) online[i]. That’s around 3½ hours daily!
It’s likely that some of this time is spent carrying out your work – whether it’s replying to emails from your colleagues or sending documents to clients. But are you using digital solutions to their full potential?
Here are some of the ways that going digital could make your job easier…
…by improving connectivity
In the pre-internet era, if you couldn’t reach the office then you often wouldn’t be able to work. Now that over 60 million of us in the UK have access to the internet[ii], it’s much easier for us to be able to carry out our responsibilities even when we can’t be physically present in the office.
If you work from home or travel as part of your job, being able to communicate with your colleagues in the office is crucial. Emailing is a well-established way of keeping in contact, and some companies are turning to instant messaging as it can be easier to create group conversations (so the whole team is kept up-to-date) and get quicker responses to urgent queries. Video conference calls are another good way to stay connected, ensuring that those that can’t get to the meeting can still participate – and potentially saving your business up to 30% in travel costs too[iii]!
How can SES Business Water help?
- Sign up for our online account management service and you’ll be able to view all of your business’s water bills and your consumption online, 24/7!
…by cutting the clutter
Filing cabinets could soon be a thing of the past if the current trend for storing documents online continues. Around 70% of all businesses now use at least one app in the cloud[iv], meaning workers can store and access documents online rather than keeping them on a local server or as a hard copy in the office.
There are lots of benefits to storing documents online – not only can your staff access these documents from wherever they can get internet access, but you can also reduce the amount of office space dedicated to storage. As long as you follow best practices for online security, cloud storage is a great way to keep critical documents safe – you might even want to create scanned copies of important paper documents so that you have a back-up in the event of losing the physical copy.
How can SES Business Water help?
- If you opt for our e-billing service, all of your bills will be stored in one secure location – and you’ll no longer receive paper copies!
…by increasing productivity
With so much interesting content available online, managers are often concerned that staff aren’t as productive as they could be when they have access to the internet. While monitoring internet use may be advisable, going digital can actually improve productivity in your business by reducing time spent on administration.
There are now numerous tech solutions available that will do menial tasks for you, so you can focus on the bigger picture. You could try implementing accounting software to handle payroll duties, or a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) system to keep all of your customer data in one accessible location. Cloud storage is another good way to improve efficiency, as it enables staff to work remotely – 91% of remote workers believe that they get more done when they’re out of the office, so this could significantly boost your productivity levels[v]!
How can SES Business Water help?
- With our consolidated billing service, you can receive just one bill for your water and wastewater across all of your sites, cutting down your admin time!
At SES Business Water, we know that whether your business is big or small, anything that can help to streamline your workload can make a real difference to your working day. If you’d like to talk to SES Business Water about how any of our online or offline services can make your role easier, give us a call on 01737 785842.
[i] http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-spends-more-time-online-sleeping
[ii] http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/uk/
[iii] https://www.pgi.com/blog/2014/07/7-statistics-video-conferencing/
[iv] https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/11/20/analytics-data-storage-will-lead-cloud-adoption-in-2017/#287d4b167e7a
[v] https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2016/05/02/are-remote-workers-happier-and-more-productive-new-survey-offers-answers/#50790b8f6663