Most business industries are saturated with competition, but there are ways for SMEs to gain an advantage, and digital transformation is one of them, especially in South Africa where many companies still lag behind.
True digital transformation is when an organisation uses technology for efficiency, change, and innovation, starting right from the top down, in order to sharpen the overall customer experience and reduce costs by automating where possible.
Practice management software is the very first step towards transformation.
What is Practice Management Software?
Practice management software is an online tool to manage your clients, instead of an antiquated and cumbersome filing system.
It’s an internet platform that allows you to produce, collaborate, and track previous and future tasks, giving your entire team one central “hub” from which to work at any time and any place, and automating the most tedious, oft-repeated tasks.
How Practice Management Software Impacts SME Revenue
The primary benefits of practice management software are convenience, efficiency, and time-saving. Let’s take a closer look:
Increased efficiency
Practice management software automates much of the work and removes most of the paperwork to speed up operations.
As such, it reduces the time it takes to perform mundane tasks, freeing up resources for other work, and saving you the expense of hiring additional staff.
Enhanced reputation
This benefit goes hand in hand with increased efficiency.
Because you no longer need to rely on people remembering things, and cut out the need for notes and reminders jotted down on paper, your team is empowered by the system with reminders of tasks due. When clients are impressed because your team remembered things and due dates, it gives your company the edge.
A great customer experience builds loyalty and your clients will stay with you as a result, eliminating the need to continually source new business, and thereby reducing marketing and advertising costs.
Improved communication
According to Zippia, 86% of company leaders blame lack of communication as the number one reason for workplace failures.
Practice management software largely circumvents communication fiascos because the tool eliminates many of the most common communication breakdowns, such as company information notifications and client interaction reminders. All information pertaining to clients is put on a central “info hub”, and many scenarios that require communication - such as due dates for SARS, for example, are automated to reduce human communication blunders.
The tool is also used by teams to keep track of operations.
Scaling without the expense
While employing more team members is always a necessity to scale any business, it is possible to start growing a business not by hiring more resources, but by using the right software, and to its fullest potential.
In that way, you can bring on more or larger clients to boost revenue without increasing your costs to the extent of recruitment fees and monthly resource payments.
Next Steps…
Digital transformation is about bringing your business out of the past in order to become more efficient and cost-effective, and to gain an edge over your competitors by offering a streamlined, improved customer journey.
The first step to digital transformation is digitization - moving your paper-based tasks to a computer, followed by automating the most repeated and mundane tasks.
DataGrows is a South African-created practice management software for South African SME businesses; an industry-specific CRM is the first step to modernizing and optimising operations. Find out how we can get you started on your own customised transformation journey by scheduling a call with us today