The Bank of England appointed a commission in 2018 to investigate the causes of UK small business low productivity. A year later they reported that the biggest single factor was low use of business systems.

These 6 tables from their Chief Economist’s speech say it all.

Since these charts relate productivity progress to systems investment and their accessibility it’s hard to argue that there isn’t a direct correlation. Intuitively, we know that anyway.

To be clear, productivity means output per person.

Very simply at least 50% of every increase (and decrease) in productivity goes straight to the bottom line. So, productivity really matters.

Yet we are awash with systems from apps to online platforms to the IT consultants who install them. And increasingly we must use them as there is often no choice. The very things that were designed to be time saving have become a new burden as so many suppliers and customers have shifted their work to customers under the guise of keen pricing and 24/7 uptime.

And whilst every business is to some extent invested in systems it is too often the result of haphazard imposition rather than strategic decisions to satisfy one or more of the 3 requirements that should be the only reasons for investing in or agreeing to use a system:

Automation of tasks that would otherwise be time-consumingly manual

Generation of data to spot trends and enable fast and informed decisions

Creation of records that keep the business efficient and secure from threats

So, are business systems working for you as intended or are you working for them instead?

Find out by taking a walk through your own, or your clients’ businesses looking at where there are systems (or not) to see how much these 3 requirements are (or could be) satisfied.

Business Function	To what % do I use this?	Does or could it (Y/N)…
Business Function	To what % do I use this?	*Automate a manual task?*	*Generate useful data?*	*Create secure records?*
Marketing
Contact Database
Digital Marketing
Ecommerce
Interactive Website
Sales tracking
Estimating/ Quoting
Operations
Project Management
Account Management
Stock Control
Distribution
Operating procedures
People
Personnel Management
Recruitment
Performance Reporting
Training
Messaging
Finance
Cloud Backup
Online Bookkeeping
Management Accounts
Forecasting & Budgeting
Data filing and retrieval
Business Planning
Imposed Systems?




How Integrated…	100%?	50%?	25%?	0%?

So, what it’s looking like? Are you (or your clients):

Invested in all the right systems?
Using any that serve no good purpose?
Integrating them to talk to each other?
Able to eliminate any?

In other words, do you have an integrated systems strategy for maximum productivity or a haphazard collection?

So, what next?

Book a free assessment of what impact your systems (or lack of) are having on productivity and profits

Or…

Discuss with us

By Duncan Collins duncan@runagood.com

Founder of Runagood.com Ltd

What's the Point of Business Systems?