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A lot of inexperienced small business owners wind up spending a fortune on maintaining their facilities. Most of their spare revenue goes into maintenance and upkeep, preventing them from becoming as profitable as they would like.
Fortunately, it turns out there are multiple ways for business leaders to cut these costs and operate more efficiently. But what are they? Well, you’re in luck because you’re about to find out. This post explores all the ways you can slash the costs you face and expand your margins. Here’s everything you need to know.
Manage Your Assets Online
One approach is to manage your assets online. Instead of tracking everything by hand, you can do it digitally using recent facilities management software. These tools help you keep track of everything by ensuring you are using your assets properly, identifying issues when they arise, and tracking everything centrally in the cloud so multiple team members can ensure your facilities continue running inexpensively, even if they are working remotely.
Automate Work Orders
Related to this approach, you can also try automating various work orders, helping you improve efficiency and reduce administrative burden. You can try streamlining your workflows and guiding technicians to the most productive tasks first.
Again, there are apps that you can use to facilitate these operations which improve efficiency as you operate at scale across multiple locations. Operatives move to the highest-value tasks first, taking their time to ensure they complete the job before moving on to the next issue.
Repair, Don’t Replace
Another approach to minimizing the cost of commercial facilities is to repair, not replace. Fixing problems is almost always more cost-effective than installing something new, even long-term.
For example, consider commercial concrete. Laying a new concrete base for a parking lot or vehicle route is expensive. However, fixing it using state-of-the-art techniques is not. Moreover, at the end of it, you have a patch of concrete that functions just the same.
Get Better Contracts
Another approach is to negotiate better contracts with your suppliers. Getting them to lower the costs of facilities management can be an excellent way to bring down the price if you lease.
Ask whether the management fees you currently pay are competitive. Are you getting value for money?
Also, consider whether your maintenance contracts are offering a reasonable return. Are you using these services or not?
Partner With Specialists
You may also be able to bring down facilities management costs by partnering with specialists. Getting experts to help you with looking after your buildings can cut costs compared to attempting it in-house.
The main reason for this is the fact they already have systems in place to effect proper management. If you try to do it yourself, you’ll need to build these.
Optimize Space
Finally, it can help to regularly assess your workplace’s use of space and whether you could consolidate it to reduce costs. Spreading out too much increases your bills without actually improving productivity. Look for ways to move into small footprints to cut rental expenses.
