How SMEs can make savings

After 14 consecutive months of interest rate rises up to September 2023 and no changes yet in 2024, along with generally tough financial conditions for SMEs, what practical steps can you take to make savings? 

There is a range of options available to you. Here are five to consider: 

Essential v discretionary 

As with personal finances, you can consider splitting your business spending into essential and discretionary items and review your business to see where you can make savings. Are you still using that expensive software? Do you really need that subscription to a food delivery company? Is there any unused office equipment or tech that you can sell? 

Re-tender employee benefits package 

Think about re-tendering your employee benefits package. By creating competition between providers you could secure a better deal for you and your employees, especially if it’s not something you’ve reviewed in a while. We know of companies who have made real savings thanks to this tip recently.  

Focus on retaining staff 

Keep hold of your staff. Hiring people takes time and money with the average cost of recruiting someone at around £3000 per employee. Recruit carefully and look after your team by offering them development in the business and looking after the company benefits package. 

Embrace ESG 

Embrace ESG as a central part of your purpose and values. This helps you do the right thing for the environment and for your stakeholders, but importantly the right thing for your business too. Current energy costs mean that any reduction in use could be significant while going paperless will help your bottom line in stationery costs. Taking an effective approach to ESG also puts you ahead of the pack when dealing with your suppliers and customers, especially if they are large corporates. Find out more how we can help https://elephants-child.co.uk/esg/ 

Review your business finance arrangements  

In partnership with Capitalise, we can help you understand and improve your credit profile, the range of sources of finance, as well as the tools available, to help you maintain healthy finances at every stage of your business journey https://elephants-child.co.uk/business-finance/