The Wall Street Journal revealed that about 45% of economists believed that it would take until the second half of 2022 for there to be an improvement in the global supply chain issues. Furthermore, statistics show that there is a total of 11,642 supply chain disruptions worldwide during 2021.
This is alarming.
We can see this affecting Australia, as our construction costs have recorded an annual increase of a staggering 7.1%.
According to the World Health Organization, confirmed cases of Covid-19 have reached 435.4 million, Covid-19 confirm dates have reached 5.94 million, and more than 10.7 billion vaccination has been administered globally.
Although Covid-19 restrictions are slowly mitigating, the economic global aftereffect of the pandemic still leaves businesses with a lot of restrictions. The fact that the Covid-19 virus still evolves, given its Alpha, Beta and Omicron variant, it’s fair to say that the up and coming years are still full of uncertainty.
Here are our top four tips to fool-proof your business against staffing, skill, and supply shortages this 2022 and beyond:
Outsourcing
Australian Bureau Statistics reported a 2.7% increase in the Wage Price Index for 2021. The private sector and the public sector both rose 0.7% —- which was higher than usual. On top of that, Australian labour official data released in January 2022 showed that vacancies reached a record in the three months starting last November 2021.
Faced with this unfavorable situation, intuitive businesses are opting to outsource as a business strategy to cut down costs.
Did you know that outsourcing cuts down labour costs by up to a staggering 70%?
By 2025, experts see the industry growing by up to US$114 billion, with Human Resources being one of the lead contributors to this growth.
According to Outsource Accelerator, the Philippines and India remain to be the top 2 countries for outsourcing destinations.
The top non-core tasks that businesses outsource include customer service, data entry, IT support, content writing, personal assistance, and bookkeeping.
In Australia, 44% of companies outsource at least one business process.
The most popular platforms to find independent workers for outsourced work include:
- Onlinejobs.ph
- Upwork
- Fiverr
- Freelancer.com
- PeoplePerHour
- Indeed
Capitalise technology to automate processes
Fact: On average, 51% of companies globally are using automation since last year.
This is not surprising with 61% of businesses leveraging automation reported exceeding revenue targets in 2020.
One of the most prominent business areas in which automation is used is sales and marketing. Automating aspects of your sales process can increase productivity and decrease marketing overhead by approximately 15%.
Email marketing statistics show that for every $1 spent on email marketing there is a $42 return on investment.
Sales automation doesn’t necessarily replace your sales team but rather complements them as it helps them focus on more crucial matters.
In fact, sales automation is one of the key business activities that helped The Shower Repair Centre, one of Australia’s largest waterproofing businesses, to increase its online website enquiries by 700% and reduced its cost per client acquisition by 50% in just a year! You can read more about it here.
Strengthen business relationships
Building on robust relationships through human-to-human connection and years of banking positive goodwill breeds stability, loyalty, consistency, and priority. Staying connected with your contractors and suppliers during these times has never been more crucial.
With our global situation still ever-evolving without an end date secured insight, it is important that all stakeholders communicate more often than normal by leveraging technology. Using video conferencing apps as the primary mode of communication would help alleviate any distrust that might be building as it allows everyone to read body language.
On the other side of the coin, communicating with your customers when you can’t deliver and explaining the reasons why demonstrates that you value their time as much as you value yours. In a study of consumer behavior, 94% of customers are likely to be loyal to a brand that offers complete transparency. To foster positive relationships with your customers, honesty really is the best policy.
Fortify company culture
In the 2021 State of Remote Work by Buffer, difficulty in collaboration, communication and loneliness are the top 2 struggles of remote working according to 2,300 global respondents.
As organisations adopt the hybrid setup, it will become increasingly important for employers to create spaces where they can connect and communicate face to face to support that virtual existence. In a global survey conducted by TravelPerk, 76% of respondents confirmed that their companies shifted to a hybrid working model.
Related Post: Three New Emerging Work-From-Home Amenities That Sell
Based on our internal research, here are some of the things you can do:
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Adding collaborative and flexible spaces in the office including multipurpose furniture that is easy to move to promote collaboration or demountable partitions for moments of privacy.
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Organising weekly team meetings. Make sure the cameras are on so you can read body language and avoid miscommunication. Make meetings fun with games and the QA segment.
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For sales leaders or managers, we recommend that you read this article for tips to keep your team motivated amidst the pandemic.
Final words
The astute and proactive always wins.
Also read: Six Supply Chain Issues Affecting The Construction Industry
