Building on strong foundations
As any successful business owner will agree, to achieve company growth relies on having strong foundations in place. Whether growing organically or by acquisition, unless you have good existing working practices, it can be challenging to take on extra cleaning operatives or manage new clients or locations.
It’s important to invest in the systems to enable you to standardise and streamline working processes. Making your management team aware of the tools that they have at their disposal, and the capability that they offer, can also help run efficient operations. From supporting daily admin processes, such as managing working hours and payroll, to providing reports that can give insights into the business.
Choosing the right system
Choosing the right system that is scalable and can grow as your business demands is vital. It means that your workforce management platform will easily accommodate more users and data as you add new teams, regions or business units.
System performance and reliability are key to manage your service delivery and it’s important to check a system provider’s performance on downtime/outages. As an example, SmartTask customers benefit from 99+% uptime and the ability to scale up, thanks to flexible hosting arrangements with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
When going for growth, you also want the assurance that your investment will keep pace with technological advances, to avoid costly platform migrations later. Many providers that have cloud hosting models provide this flexibility for future proofing.
Automating processes enables growth
Flexibility within a system allows for adaption to support any new working process to help make expansion into new areas easier and more profitable. At SmartTask, we have worked with many clients that have invested in our software to automate and standardise working practices, achieving successful growth as a result.
As an example, Outsource Support, a leading company in Ireland providing facility and support services to over 700 clients, has been using SmartTask software for over ten years. It adapted its systems successfully to manage similar requirements for new business streams, including environmental pest control and cleaning services.
According to Graham Hughes, Managing Director, Outsource Support; “SmartTask has everything we need to manage our workforce, meeting all of our workforce management and scheduling needs.”
Expanding into new areas
In the same way, SmartTask’s standards-based approach has helped City Group Security (CGS) to expand its services into the cleaning sector. SmartTask workforce management software has been a key factor in helping the business both strategically and operationally to achieve its success. Using SmartTask to manage shifts for cleaning operatives meant that it could deliver the same attention to detail to services for which it was already known in the security industry.
“The flexibility of SmartTask’s software has been a significant factor in helping us manage the business through the complex challenges that rapid expansion brings. We've been using SmartTask software to manage daily operations, changing the way that we work with it to support different requirements as they emerge,” says Cara Clarke, Group Commercial Director, CGS.
Innovation and support along the way
At SmartTask, much of the positive feedback that we receive from clients is not only about the functionality of our solution. We also keep abreast of evolving industry issues, gathering feedback from users to continue to innovate and develop our software.
This diligence in product development, combined with regular updates, ensures that our software aligns with business needs. We also place importance on customer support – having a UK based team on hand to answer calls and questions can aid your growth journey.