Last week during Chancellor George Osbourne’s Autumn Statement, Britain’s growth predictions for 2012 were relegated to an uninspiring 0.7 percent. Added to this the Eurozone crisis continues, heaping further uncertainty onto our fragile economy. With this in mind, I have put together a couple of suggestions for how businesses can make savings while also improving performance…

Remote working

Corporate travel costs will rise next year, according to the American Express Global Business Travel Global Forecast. Train fares are expected to increase by up to 13 percent in 2012, and while the government has dropped its proposed fuel duty hike, the price of a litre of unleaded petrol has risen from 76.9p in 2000 to £1.34 this year, meaning car travel is still an expensive alternative. It has also been predicted that hotel prices could be up to 10 times higher in the capital next year due to the Olympics, and flight prices are expected to soar, so overseas visits will immediately have an even higher premium.

Savvy companies should be looking to reduce travel costs by deploying solutions which allow collaborative working across geographically diverse locations. We would encourage companies to seriously consider investments in mobile working and Unified Communications platforms that integrate data, voice and video, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology, which allow workers to access data on the corporate network from remote locations. Through leveraging these technologies companies can introduce far more flexible working options that can improve the employees working experience as well as bringing down costs.

Intelligent Procurement

It is tempting in times of austerity to bunker down and avoid investment; however sweating assets to breaking point can be counter-productive, resulting in downtime and decreased productivity. Whilst the climate is tough, it’s not the time to be short-sighted and businesses should prepare for growth – ensuring they are running at full efficiency is a must.

The key to this is planning. Businesses should look at their business strategy, understand what technologies are needed to support organisational goals and consider this over a 3-6 year period to understand the future impact. Then look at the best way to source this at the lowest possible price by speaking to licensing experts. We call this Intelligent Procurement, and have worked with hundreds of companies to provide consultancy in this area, finding on average that procurement costs are reduced by 36 percent.

Energy savings

In recent years, as focus has shifted to cost reduction and methods of increasing sales output, carbon reduction and energy savings have fallen down the agenda. However, we would suggest that companies are missing a beat by underestimating the cost benefits of having an organised energy reduction programme. A paper published earlier this year by the Guardian’s Professional Network called the Business of Energy Efficiency suggested the UK is wasting an astonishing £1.6bn or more every year on avoidable energy bills.

In our experience, we have found that waste is easily managed, and have worked with a number of companies, implementing simple procedures which reduce cost. The Guardian’s paper found that straightforward energy efficiency projects – like heating and lighting upgrades, energy saving policies and staff training – can deliver a 20 percent internal rate of return (IRR) . Even larger energy efficiency projects the Carbon Trust has been involved with have created an average IRR of 48%, and payback within three years. It’s definitely worth investing in training your people to understand the impact of waste and bring about a more energy friendly environment.

Want to know more?

At Trustmarque we work with hundreds of companies of varying size to help bring together people, process, strategy and business to improve cost savings. If you are interested in finding how you can make your company stronger, leaner, and more efficient then please contact our sales team on 0845 2101 500, or email info@trustmarque.com.