We know that planning is essential to everything in life. Because it gives us the basis for making better decisions, setting goals, and charting ways to achieve them. And of course, it’s no different when it comes to your business. Planning, especially the budget, is what can give you a certain guarantee that things will work out. But at that time, many people overlook the importance of including costs with innovation and technology.
Having financial stability in a venture is not always a simple task. Entrepreneurs need strategies and tools to support them.
Here, you will understand better why integrating planning, innovation and technological resources should be a priority for your company to have recognition in the competitive landscape in which we live.
Budget planning
First of all, it´s necessary to understand what budget planning is, how and why it should be done.
Budget planning is the strategic financial plan for the management of companies and organizations, with estimates of inflows and outflows of revenue over a given period of time. This can be considered the main trick to manage any business and the key to success.
How to do it? Begin by evaluating accounting documents from previous years. Make an average monthly sales. Deal with possible sales deductions (such as taxes, commissions, returns, and cancellations). Design your costs with production, labor, and fixed operating expenses. And based on the past year’s investments, calculate how much you can invest the next year (or in the range, you intend to project).
Why plan? Because not knowing the objectives of the company can lead workers and managers to a strategic misalignment and vulnerability. Having a schedule makes evident the role of each employee and sector, making them more autonomous and engaged.
Speaking of engagement, nothing better than “the new” to keep active the involvement of employees and the desire of customers. Isn´t it?!
Innovation
Innovation is a concept constantly confused with technology. But innovation means identifying opportunities and taking action to achieve results. What is not necessarily connected with technology, but with the current horizon of growing digital transformation, it is a little difficult to decouple the two terms.
Another issue that confuses some entrepreneurs is the fact that they believe that investments in innovation are inevitably high. On the contrary, being bold only requires two obligatory: creativity and action.
But why this whole explanation? Simple. To show that innovation and budget planning allied to technology can leverage any business!
Technological resources in the budget
The internet and artificial intelligence have revolutionized our lives and the ways we work. The productivity, the quality of the goods and services provided, as well as the communication, were boosted thanks to the ease and instantaneousness of the various means to which we now have access.
Information Technology (IT) enables increasingly agile and efficient resolutions to complex issues. And it´s fundamental in the most varied areas of a company.
IT tools enable important decisions to be made based on information stored or collected in real time with the consumer. They are also indispensable in the marketing of modern companies. Even because we all know that digital marketing is the next big thing in promoting the business.
In terms of customer support, the many channels available 24 hours a day ensure higher levels of satisfaction. In addition to generating data that help the understanding of the behaviors of the clients to serve them better in future demands.
Today, we already have systems that provide management of all the resources of a company, such as ERPs.
An excellent investment for those who want to better serve customers and relieve the burden of employee tasks is to hire virtual assistants, more specifically chatbots – our specialty 😁 -.
Chatbots
Chatbots simulate human dialogues, solve problems, and automatically and immediately ask questions through chats and sending emails and voice and SMS messages. They are available on channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Twitter, Viber, among other options.
Best of all, when integrated with artificial intelligence, they learn from each interaction and, over time, become more “intelligent” and effective. Getting to meet even more demands.
Oh, and what you’ll definitely be interested in: chatbots reduce operating costs!
Do you wanna know more about how chatbots can improve your company’s performance? Get in touch with Push!
