Battling the Resource Crunch

• Small businesses face challenges from every quarter as they go about trying to sell their products to target customers. Initially, they face teething problems like hiring the right work force and improving visibility amongst their target audience.

Once things start moving, they need to face competition from the bigger players in the niche, battle stagnating sales and a whole lot more. If they are unable to meet these challenges head-on, they’ll have to shut shop.

The good news is that for every challenge there is a solution that helps convert the challenge into an opportunity for fuelling business growth.

The following slides take you through challenges encountered by small businesses and their corresponding solutions.

HIRING THE RIGHT STAFF IN A LIMITED HIRING BUDGET

• Every successful business is backed by the right

team.

• Recruiting the right talent is one of the biggest

challenges for any small business.

• This challenge is accentuated because they have

a very limited budget to work with.

• Inability to hire the right person for the right job

can lead to disaster.

But a Solution Exists

HIRING THE RIGHT STAFF IN A LIMITED HIRING BUDGET - Solutions

• Cloud staffing is a great solution that will allow

you to bring down staffing costs.

• Cloud staffing allows small business owners to cut

expenses and still hire the best talent available

on the market.

• You can hire talent that can work remotely, which

brings down your overheads. The money you

save can be added to your hiring budget.

But a Solution Exists

EMPLOYEE RETENTION

• Small businesses cannot compete with large

organizations when it comes to implementing

policies that help retain employees.

• The challenge is to achieve an ideal employee

retention rate.

But a Solution Exists

HIRING THE RIGHT STAFF IN A LIMITED HIRING BUDGET - Solutions

• Offer employee perks to ensure they remain

healthy and happy.

• Offer flexibility in terms of both working hours

and leaves.

• Offer goal based incentives.

STAYING COMPETITITIVE

• Use inbound marketing tactics like SEO, content

marketing and social media marketing to

generate brand awareness, improve brand

reputation, and increase sales.

But a Solution Exists

STAYING COMPETITITIVE - Solutions

• Offer employee perks to ensure they remain

healthy and happy.

• Offer flexibility in terms of both working hours

and leaves.

• Offer goal based incentives.

Inbound marketing delivers below average cost per leads as compared to outbound strategies.

MANAGING and CONTROLLING CASH FLOW

• As small businesses grow, they find it difficult to

manage their accounts. Also, a limited staffing

budget means they might not be able to hire a

dedicated team to handle accounts and company

finances.

In order to grow their business, small businesses also expect extra services from accountants:

But a Solution Exists

MANAGING and CONTROLLING CASH FLOW - Solution

• Solutions are available in the form of financial

software that are packed with a gamut of features

to not only perform accounting tasks but also a

slew of functions like managing accounts

payable, accounts receivable, credit card

management and financial reporting.

Customer Relations

• Managing customer relationships is critical if

small products based business want to survive

and prosper in a highly competitive market.

• But the problem is, at times small business

neither have the time nor the resources to focus

on improving customer relationships as a means

of boosting growth.

But a Solution Exists

Customer Relations

• Invest in cloud based CRM software to manage

interactions with the current and future customers of

your company.

• With the cloud, you can subscribe to a pay-as-you-use

model allowing you to significantly bring down CRM costs

and ensuring you can scale up or down as per the

requirements of your business.

• Install web-based help desk from Zendesk or chat

products like Skype on their websites to answer

customer queries.

• Use a social media network like Twitter to get customer

feedback and answer queries.

Resources• http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/3-small-business-challenges-and-how-to-

overcome-them/ • http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/16/product-based-businesses-have-own-set-

of-challenges-rewards/?__lsa=f54f-e45e • http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/03/04/the-8-great-challenges-

every-business-faces-and-how-to-master-them-all/ • http://www.inc.com/michael-alter/small-business-survey-best-ideas-biggest-challenges-

resolutions.html • http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/06/10/companies-discover-value-b2b-e-

commerce-study-says • http://www.ezbob.com/6-challenges-small-businesses-face/ • http://www.nsba.biz/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Technology-Survey-2013.pdf • http://www.gallup.com/poll/167660/small-businesses-face-operational-regulatory-

challenges.aspx• http://www.square2marketing.com/blog/bid/156517/How-Inbound-Marketing-Delivers-

A-Dramatically-Lower-Cost-Per-Lead• http://www.gallup.com/poll/167660/small-businesses-face-operational-regulatory-

challenges.aspx• http://investor.j2global.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=777826• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-pugh/how-and-why-small-

busines_b_4620328.html• http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2014/04/smbs-want-accountant-2014-update/