Have you read the news – Former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn Fled Japan By Hiding Inside A Musical Instrument Case? How often do we hear news that a CEO used a box intended for musical instruments to escape the government officials of a country? Not very often. However, these irregular events are often the symptoms of underlying issues within a company or a regional business environment.
As small business owners, we operate and grow our companies within these ever-changing, business environments. Therefore, it is more important than ever to find ways to anticipate future changes.
To prepare for such regional disturbances, small business owners should monitor trends that might influence their businesses by following local business news. For instance, recent forecasts from BC Business experts revealed various trends that would most likely affect businesses in BC this year.
One of the negative trends the experts identified was a shortage of highly skilled labour. As a result of this, the experts predicted “employers will have to get used to relative labour scarcity” for the next few years 2018-2028. This means that labour demand is anticipated to be much higher than supply, creating a significant surplus of jobs in the labour market. The reason businesses should be concerned about such a shortage of skilled labour is that it could slow down business growth, decrease the production of goods, and potentially lower the market share of BC businesses.
To reach the equilibrium, either more skilled workers start looking for work in BC, or local businesses address their business needs without hiring more employees. One way to improve the situation is to attract high skilled workers from outside the province or country but local businesses have no control over some of the factors influencing the movement of workers like immigration policy, cost of living, and tax incentives.
Businesses can, however, slow down the need for new workers by automating routine processes. According to the HBR article 5 Questions We Should Be Asking About Automation and Jobs, automation affects not only labour demand but also the supply as people will be able to perform more work.
In order to use automation in business, business managers need to have a thorough understanding of their business processes to identify the tasks that could be automated. The article How to Break Down Work into Tasks That Can Be Automated mentions Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as a way to automate repetitive, independently executed, tasks and activities through software and IT systems. For example, RPAs can perform database scanning and analyses “as much as 15 times faster, with almost no errors” thus improving the efficiency and productivity of each employee conducting those tasks.
Automation of some repetitive business tasks can have effects on different levels. For example, on a provincial level, automation would mean that small businesses in BC would not be as impacted by changes in the labour market whether it is shortages or immigration policies. On a corporate level, automation of routine processes would mean improving the productivity of existing high skilled workers so they can address more complicated tasks.
Another way to help address a need for higher skilled workers is to help improve the skills of the workers already employed. According to the HBR article To Prepare for Automation, Stay Curious and Don’t Stop Learning, business owners can apply a refreshed approach to education by making vocational training opportunities available within their workplace. This would not only decrease demand for labour but also make businesses more attractive for skilled professionals.
Not everything can be automated within a business model, but you owe it to the strength and growth of your company to take the time to review your existing processes and see how a precise application of software and IT services can improve your outcomes.
If you are thinking of making a change in how your IT services work for you, remember:
A strong IT infrastructure is the backbone of a growing business.
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who will handle all day-to-day IT headaches, so you don’t have to!
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References:
https://www.businessinsider.com/carlos-ghosn-escape-yamaha-double-bass-warns-people-japan-2020-1
https://www.bcbusiness.ca/10-views-on-2020-Experts-analyze-the-year-ahead-for-BC
https://hbr.org/2018/12/5-questions-we-should-be-asking-about-automation-and-jobs?autocomplete=true
https://hbr.org/2019/02/how-to-break-down-work-into-tasks-that-can-be-automated?referral=03759&cm_vc=rr_item_page.bottom
https://hbr.org/2019/10/to-prepare-for-automation-stay-curious-and-dont-stop-learning
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