Rate Rise Should Spur Rethink
13 Nov 2023
Following the Reserve Bank’s decision to further hike interest rates, it’s timely for business leaders to explore how they can minimise any negative impacts on their companies.
Rowan Tracey, Partner at HLB Mann Judd, Australian businesses would need to “find efficiencies and cut operating costs”.
“The Reserve Bank’s decision … will impact business margins, particularly small to medium businesses with high debt and low capital. The natural reflex for businesses is to raise prices to even out the balance sheet, which would be fine in a more buoyant economy. (But) rising fuel prices and cost of living already has many scrambling to find ways of cutting costs, including their current expenditure.”
Rowan offers these alternative suggestions to businesses wanting to maintain margins without imposing price hikes:
1. Improve Productivity & Efficiency: Review processes and output and look at ways to improve or streamline your operations, such as automation of processes including business software.
2. Strategically Cut Costs: Review your current service providers and contracts and compare to the current market.
3. Revisit Your Banking & Financial Products: Look beyond the short-term and make sure the interest rate on your business loans is competitive.
4. Develop a Pricing Strategy: Look at ways to leverage or bundle existing goods and services.
5. Reconsider Your Supply Chain: Consider reducing risks by finding a domestic supplier to slash the costs of freight and storage.
6. Review Workforce Arrangements: Consider offering flexible work arrangements, nine-day fortnights, and training and development opportunities - particularly those subsidised by government.
One way to address Item #1 (“Improve Productivity and Efficiency”) is to reconsider how your business transfers data.
Moving data – between employees, with customers, and with your supply chain partners – is now a “core process” for every modern business. That makes it a target for improving efficiency and productivity.
A Managed File Transfer solution, such as GoAnywhere MFT, is more cost-effective and efficient than having your staff waste time on old-fashioned and risky manual approaches. In fact, a study by Aberdeen Group found that businesses which invested a little in a professional Managed File Transfer solution had a median return of almost 500 times their investment!
Generic Systems Australia are your local experts in file transfer technologies. Contact me if you’d like an obligation-free discussion, no cost trial, or Proof of Concept showing how GoAnywhere could boost your business’s productivity.