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60 Practical Ways to Reduce Business Costs After COVID-19

Last updated on August 6th, 2023 at 07:33 am

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After the global pandemic, business owners will have to focus on increasing sales and lowering cost, unfortunately, eight out 10 SMEs fail within the first 18 months, says Bloomberg. In this post, we’ll share with you 60 effective ways to cut business expenses in Nigeria.

As a growing business, cutting down cost on basic business outlays without compromising quality is a good way to upsurge your margins.

Profit margin is a simple mathematical equation that is determined by two factors: revenue and expense. To achieve higher margins, you basically have two choices; you either increase your revenue or reduce the expenses.

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In an economy filled with uncertainties, where every penny counts, even the smallest growth in revenue or drop in expenses can have a noticeable impact on the profitability of any business.

The more you are able to cut off your business expenses, the better off your business will be, and the more you’re able to manage challenges in your business. The savings can be used to keep your business afloat, enlarge into new ventures, or increase your bottom line.

As a small business owner, you can start a small chicken rearing business at the back of your house to augment expenses.

So, what are the ways to reduce costs in the workplace, in a world which has been changed by the ravaging effects of coronavirus?

60 Cost Cutting Ideas for Large and Small Business in Nigeria

  1. Encourage Telecommuting
  2. Limit Travel Expenses
  3. Outsource whatever your company’s weakness
  4. Cut down on meetings
  5. Keep Salary Costs Down
  6. Buy used equipment
  7. Outsource Bookkeeping processes
  8. Embrace Technology
  9. Save On Utility Costs
  10. Reduce waste and improve team efficiency
  11. Take advantage of travel reward credit cards
  12. Use word of mouth marketing
  13. Hire freelancers
  14. Cut production costs
  15. Use online free tools
  16. Less Printing
  17. Operate Proactively Not Reactively
  18. Negotiate Better Prices
  19. Save electricity
  20. Reduce Paper Use
  21. Modernize your marketing methods
  22. Reduce Cost of Financial Services
  23. Buy bulk office supplies
  24. Less traveling
  25. Consider Letting Employees work remotely
  26. Outsource customer service jobs
  27. Freight and packaging
  28. Legal fees
  29. Four-day work week
  30. Reconsider maintenance
  31. Sponsor your events
  32. Barter with businesses
  33. Invest in energy-efficient appliances
  34. Stop using the landline
  35. Outsource your HR department
  36. Embrace A Remote Work Environment
  37. Pay Your invoices early
  38. Reduce inventory levels
  39. Use internet marketing
  40. Hire interns
  41. Automate time-consuming tasks
  42. Use free cloud storage services
  43. Look for insurance discounts
  44. Utilize working space
  45. Keep track of tax write offs
  46. Review expenses regularly
  47. Outsource administrative task
  48. Outsource software development
  49. Outsource your IT operations
  50. Void or reduce perpetual payments
  51. Reevaluate complex expenses
  52. Outsourcing Lead generation
  53. Usage of efficient time strategies
  54. Outsource payroll processing
  55. Focus on quality
  56. Cut superfluous expenses
  57. Hire temporary workforce
  58. Make sensible health care changes
  59. Invest in your employees
  60. Avoid interest at all costs
Also Read:  15 Proven Ways To Sell More During Holidays

Of the above cost-cutting expenses in office, we’ll briefly discuss 10 of them to help make adjustment as you strive to take your business to the next level.

Keep Salary Costs Down.

In as much as you employ highly qualified and scrutinized freelancers, you can save a bundle over employing full-time employees. Just ensure that you interview prospective candidates correctly, and let them know what’s expected of them.

This is much better than employing full-time employees, and you can save on payroll expenses as well.

Negotiate Better Prices

If you regularly work with merchants and suppliers, negotiating good prices can have an incredible effect on your expenses. Ask your supplier if a renegotiation is likely, and if they refuse, re-approach them with quotes from other suppliers.

By saving a few cents on every item you sell, you can decrease expenses and increase profits, significantly.

Less Printing

One of the ways business owners can cut business cost is by reducing printing. It may be unnoticeable, but the fact is that printing requires a lot of resources like ink, cartridges, says outsourcinginsight.com

Reduce waste and improve team efficiency

Understanding how to take full advantage of your groups’ competence is a good way to cut down expenditures. The unique thing about this approach is you don’t have to cut back and put the business growth at risk.

You just need to discover ways to allot resources in a proper manner and put people in posts that make the most of their talent. This can reduce costs as your team members will be more useful, meaning that better quality work will be done in less time.

Also Read:  10 Easy Steps To Milk Goat By Hand In Less Than 30 Minutes

Save On Utility Costs

Reduce the consumption of all utilities such as electricity by turning off unused office equipment after work hours, weekends and on holidays.

In general, cut down on the cost of heating, cooling, and lighting your working area. Use energy-saving office equipment to lessen electrical usage.

Embrace Technology

There are numerous online systems and software programs that can preset both essential and non-essential business functions that will save you a lot of resources. Most remarkable illustrations of these are integrated payroll systems, electronic invoicing & accounting systems, and cloud-based collaboration platforms.

Reduce Cost of Financial Services

Rather than engaging a group of accountants and finance officers, you can advance your payroll productivity by integrating payroll software into your business processes.

In due course, it would help you to make good savings on employee salaries when compared to subcontracting it to a service provider.

Operate Proactively Not Reactively

On a higher level, assuming a pre-emptive rather than reactive attitude can considerably increase the state of your business. Proactive establishments are continuously analyzing, evaluating, and optimizing their performance with respect to their business environments.

Embrace A Remote Work Environment.

Businesses can save cost by permitting employees to do their work remotely. It offers them a better work-life balance.

This aids businesses in saving money on hiring and training of new employees (because it improves employee retention, and also on costly office setup (instead of making use of co-working spaces) which enables you run a lean business.

Use internet marketing

This is one of the ways to control expenses in a company. Through search engine and social media, you can generate traffic t your side instead of spending millions on TV ads or billboards.

Also Read:  4 Steps to Obtain Import and Export Loan At Stanbic IBTC Bank

For instance, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn can fetch you leads, they are much cheaper than TV or billboards.

Final thought:

Most businesses around the World have attested to the impact of COVID-19, however, they should employ the most efficient way to cut down expenses and operating cost.

Are you presently paying monthly for a SaaS tool that you are not making use of? Are you paying a huge sum for internet access? Are your employees being used to their fullest capacity?

These are the kind of questions you should consider answering on a steady basis to ensure you are keeping your expenditures and operating costs in check. When you find unnecessary costs, do away with them.

Author

  • InfomediaNG

    The Infomediang Team comprises a group of researchers, data analysts, and financial experts who closely follow government policies and spending. Our passion lies in empowering people to make informed decisions about their investments by simplifying data for easy understanding. Find us @infomedia_ng on X.

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