Tips for Cutting Overhead Expenses and Utilities

Invest in Technology

Investing in technology may seem costly but increase productivity. It saves time by automating some clerical tasks or making some complicated tasks quick and easy.

Recycle

Try to reduce, reuse, and recycle any product. Printer cartridges, cans, bottles, and mobile phones are examples that you may reuse. Reduce the use of electricity, water, etc., or recycle plastic or paper.

Use a Shared Workspace

Coworking space is a trending way of working now. You share your office space with other businesses. This helps your business save money on rent, electricity, maintenance, etc., without hampering your business.

Avoid Credit

Whenever possible, avoid giving credits as it may become an additional cost to you. You borrow money to provide credit to your clients, and you will increase your liability of paying interest.

Tips to Save on Business Equipments and Services

Go Paperless

Most of the business activities have turned digital. Reducing on paper will help you save overhead costs on paper.

Avoid Subscription-Based Services

Avoid auto-renew subscription services. Only subscribe when you need them.

Use Free Softwares

Many software can be expensive to buy. Look for alternative free open source or ones at lower prices. For example, many antivirus software is available for free online.

Conduct Virtual Meetings

It is now possible to have meetings over the phone or laptop. This helps the company save travelling expenses as well as time.

Shop Online

Another best cost-cutting idea for businesses also includes online shopping. Today, you can easily buy products online that offer great discounts and save on time and money for their delivery. Also, online stores have a return policy; thus, if the product is not up to the requirement, you can return it.

Tips to Increase Productivity and Reduce Labour Expenses

Take More Quotations

Cost-cutting business ideas also include contracting or outsourcing your work to a company or freelancers. Approach multiple vendors and compare their quotations. Then go with the one offering the best value for money. This gives quality work delivery and saves on the cost of hiring a full-time employee.

Reduce Fixed Costs

A high fixed cost means the sales required to cover the fixed costs must be higher. This leaves you with little money to cover your variable expenses.

Consider Low-Cost Advertising

Traditional advertising methods can be expensive. Try looking at modern business ideas like social media, a powerful tool today to reach new customers.

Shop the Used Market

Buying used office equipment and furniture is a good option. With a bit of repair, some assets can work as good as new ones.

Practice Inventory Management

Managing your inventory is very crucial to meet customer demands. When you buy in bulk, you get discounts which may save some cost.

Sell Unused Items

Try to sell any items and equipment you have lying around which is not in use. This saves in their maintenance costs and also generates some money.

Set a Budget

Having a budget is essential. It helps reduce business costs and limit expenses within the decided amount.

Commission Based Sales

Try to get your sales team’s remuneration based on commission. It helps reduce costs substantially as salaries will be paid based on sales made.

Other Top Business Cost-Cutting Ideas

Practice Outsourcing 

It is impossible to fulfil each task internally by business. Thus, try to outsource such tasks and look for freelancers who can do short-term projects for you. 

Hire Interns

Hiring interns for cold calling and data tasks is a win-win for both. Interns are temporary and are available at a fraction of the salary of a full-time employee. In turn, they gain experience by working with the business. 

Hire Smart Employees

Hiring intelligent and experienced employees might cost you a higher salary, but you can efficiently deal with them. They avoid mistakes, rework, and sub-standard work, thus improving business productivity and reducing costs of rework. 

Efficient Working Hours

Allow employees to work as per their comfort. This way, their efficiency, and loyalty would rise. In addition, this will reduce the use of office resources such as stationery or electricity and lower hiring and training costs of inexperienced staff. 

Review Financial Statements

Review your financial statements thoroughly and look to find any expenses that you can avoid. Such reviews help in identifying and reducing business costs. 

Create Partnerships

Creating partnerships provides new opportunities for businesses. It helps you identify the best practices of your partner organizations and enables you to grow. 

Loan Restructure

If your business has loans, try to restructure them. At times, you can get the loan transferred to a different bank with lower interest rates, which may help you save a lot of money on interest payments. 

Remote Working

Many tasks don’t require the employee to be present at the office. Working from a remote location helps reduce the required office space and save fixed expenses like rent. 

Rent Out

If you have any space that you are not using, consider renting it out. This will help you generate extra revenue while saving costs. 

80/20 Principle

Use the 80:20 principle. Here you shall figure out activities that don’t generate income and activities that generate revenue. Now curb 80% of those expenses that don’t generate income. 

Split Advertising Cost

Split the cost of advertising and promotion with neighbouring companies. Share mailing lists, distribution channels, and suppliers with companies that sell complementary goods or services to buy storage space or advance your marketing alliance. 

Barter System

Try the old practice of barter. There is nothing wrong if you offer your service in exchange for a service that your client provides. This way you build good relations and may also save on costs. 

Try Reducing Landlines

Landline phones are an age-old service that is no longer a necessity. Mobile phones are way cheaper and offer much flexibility. 

Conclusion

Business ideas are not just about working hard to get sales. It also involves innovative work that generates cost-cutting business ideas and increases revenues. These cost-cutting ideas for businesses are efficient strategies that are useful for all kinds of organizations. If you have more to add to the list, do put them in the comment section below. 

The post 30 Best Cost-Cutting Ideas for Businesses That Work! appeared first on PayU Blog.

1. Keep the business concept simple
2. The idea behind becoming an entrepreneur must have been the first thing that got you into the business.
3. Businesses that conceive the best entrepreneur ideas and keep them simple are often successful. It is worth remembering that simple business ideas must remain understandable for the lower management, the salesperson, the marketing agency, and the customer.
4. Focus on both – the market and the product
5. As first entrepreneurs, while you have looked for simple, effective, and the best business ideas – is the market ready for it? Does your product offer something unique or solve a problem? What about funds, operational costs, competition, and so on?
6. Adequate market research can give you an insight into the product’s viability, and your well-chosen advisors can add significant value to it.

Pick the Right People

It is naïve to think that you can start your business alone. Choose your core competency and concentrate on getting the process around it right. For instance, if you are a finance person, bring in operations, logistics, and marketing experts to assist you. Also important is having a good team around you. Your mentors will be your eyes and ears, but your wider team will ensure that your cavalry is ready to sell the product when you kickstart production.

Develop a Financial Model

An efficient financial model will also project future incomes accurately and budget with fewer deviations. These days, most businesses seek assisted payment platforms as a part of their financial model.

A new business can reach out to a local and a global market base with PayU. It will help you reach out to the Tier-II and Tier-III customer base with the incorporation of Hindi and other Indian regional languages on the PayU platform.

Keep Emergency Funds Aside

If there is one thing that the pandemic taught small businesses, it was the importance of a contingency fund. Small and new businesses mostly run on shoestring budgets. However, every entrepreneur needs to know that an emergency fund should be created along the way.

Networking

The best business framework can bootstrap its way to stability. But for the quantum leap, investments are the key. Successful entrepreneurs find time to connect with the right people, and so should a first-time entrepreneur. Strong networking skills can result in lucrative deals, collaborations, and, most importantly, investors.

Staying True to the Commitment

Businesses and products are often accused of not being what they used to be. Stay true to the entrepreneur’s business ideas that made it well-accepted in the first place. Once your business idea clicks, the focus should be on maintaining consistency in service or product delivery.

Conclusion

Steps like those mentioned above need to be the guiding beacon for businesses as they start. With these things taken care of, new business entrepreneurship can always be well-placed to take on the challenges as they come.

Wondering what else can PayU help you with? Check out this video to get a glimpse of the opportunities that PayU offers to expand and streamline your business:

Frequently Asked Questions

The post 7 Simple Ways to Start a New Business appeared first on PayU Blog.

The present-day business environment has become progressively competitive, and being culturally and technologically relevant is what businesses aim for. After understanding your business acumen and its need to manifest, we have here a list of online business ideas for 2022.

Online business is booming. Even traditional businesses are making the move to online. If you want to start an online business, there are few things to consider:

• What are you passionate about?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• What skills do you have?
• What resources do you have?
• How much effort are you willing to put into your business?
• Do you have the finances to invest in your own business?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you should have a baseline of what kind of business you could get into.
If you don’t have the financial resources, try and sell your skills.

You probably have more than one idea of what online business you want to pursue. Take the time to research that business. Check if others are doing the same business, find out what hurdles they faced and how they achieved success.

There is a very high chance that any space you are looking to get into has some competition. But don’t let that get your spirits down. With a little bit of creativity, you can find a way to add your flair to your online business.

Remember, online business has changed a lot in recent years. Online business growth in India has opened up a host of new avenues. It has also brought a set of challenges that businesses need to overcome.

Here are a few ideas for your online business. Make sure that you have the skills or are willing to acquire the skills required for your desired online business.

Content Creation

Content creation has been a sector that has seen exponential growth in recent years. It has secured a central position in pretty much all businesses. If you are looking to leverage your skills as a creator, here are some online business ideas for you:

Blogging

Blogging is a great way to make some money. No, it isn’t just a side hustle anymore. Here are some facts that make blogging an interesting online business idea:

• 4.8 billion people have access to smartphones.
• There are about 4.66 billion internet users around the world.
• More than 850 million blog posts are published every month.
• Blogging has increased by about 12% since 2015.

With increased access to mobile devices and the internet around the world, combined with a significant jump in their usage, blogging has become quite a popular online business.

While that does make the space sound a little crowded, this space is expanding, and the need for great content isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Over half of all content marketers agree that blogging is the most important content strategy.

If you’ve got creative writing skills or just want to share your experiences and joy with the rest of the world, this is a fun space to explore.

What do you need?

• A laptop or computer
• A reliable internet connection
• Creative writing skills
• Zero investment in infrastructure if you have everything mentioned above
• Choose a blogging site or use social media. You could also start a website.

Vlogging

Creating an online business that involves gripping video content has a high chance of success. Especially if you enjoy capturing moments on video

Here are some facts about content consumption:

1. On average, users spend about 3 hours and 15 minutes on their phones.
2. 70% of total digital media time is spent on mobile devices.

Even if the content isn’t very different from others in the same space, its presentation can be a huge factor in getting subscribers.

One thing to keep in mind is that we have all become used to ingesting short bits of information due to social media usage. Keep your videos short, creative, and full of specific information.

What do you need?

• A good phone camera
• A go pro (if your content involves a lot of movement)
• A reliable internet connection
• Video editing software
• Audio recording device
• A laptop or computer
• A social media account

Graphic Designing

Graphic designing is an integral part of content creation. It isn’t much fun staring at pages and pages of data if there aren’t any graphics to liven things up a little. If you are great at graphic design, start your own graphic design agency; you don’t need an office.

What do you need?

1. A laptop that can handle relatively intense graphics
2. Graphic design software (Adobe Creative Suite, Corel Draw, etc.)
3. A good internet connection
4. Build a portfolio (use Wix, Adobe Portfolio, or Canva)

If graphic design interests you and you aren’t yet comfortable with all the tools, enroll in a few online courses on Coursera or other such websites.

Sell Online

Take a look at a few online business ideas below that involve selling things you probably haven’t thought about. This could be anything, from dehydrated jackfruit to custom puppy clothes.

Domains

Domains are the real-estate of the online world. Essentially they are the location of your website on the internet or how people can find your content. They were created to make it easier to remember these locations instead of remembering complicated IP addresses.

Buying and selling domains at a margin is a smart way to make some quick turnover. If you can integrate a few add-on services, you may be able to create a little niche for yourself.
What do you need?

• A laptop or computer
• Internet connection

Online Courses

E-Learning

If you are a great teacher or just enjoy imparting knowledge, start online courses. This is a great online business. It could range from knitting to rocket science.

With fewer activities to keep people occupied and fewer distractions, more and more people are investing in learning new skills and hobbies.

What do you need?

• A computer or laptop
• An internet connection
• Design modules or outline your syllabus
• Post your course on other websites like Udemy (or start your own)
• Have a strong social media presence

If your e-learning course is video-based, you need:

• A camera
• Audio recording device
• A physical or virtual whiteboard
• A rough script

This will help you to carve out a little section in the ed-tech sector for yourself.

In Summary

Undoubtedly, the growth of online businesses in India has opened up lots of channels post the pandemic. Even, the tech revolution has played a huge role in changing how online business works. Thus, an exceptional idea coupled with undying effort is sure to make your online business idea a success.

The post Start Your Enterprise with the Best Online Business Ideas of 2022 appeared first on PayU Blog.