Saving money in any business comes down to reducing the cost of overheads and ensuring your business is run in the most efficient way. There are a number of ways of ensuring that you’ve got the best deal for your business from your suppliers, which are applicable to a business of any scale.

Shop Around

Check to see when your business last tendered out the products and services it purchases. If it’s not been for a while, how can you know you’re getting the best price on the market?

Shop around and if you find a more competitive price, challenge your existing suppliers to match or review their prices to keep your business.

Another option to find the best price for your regular supplies is to join a buying group, this could be for even the most routine items, such as, stationary, phones or even cleaning supplies. Through the economies of scale as a group your buying power is increased. This can be an invaluable tool for small business as it allows them the same buying power and low prices usually enjoyed by their larger competitors. By taking care of these relatively small items this should free up some valuable time to give due care and attention to managing salaries and higher price one off items.

Recycle

This can be one of the most effective tools for saving money. All it takes is an awareness of what might be easily reused in the future. This could be as simple as saving a cardboard box for deliveries or saving desks for future recruitment.

Buying recycled products can also comes with a hefty saving on the original price. For example, buying recycled printer cartridges could save you 80%.  What’s more, buying recycled products may help your company’s eco-friendly image as recycled cartridges save approximately 2.5KGs of CO2 per cartridge.

Buy Quality

When looking for your next purchase, don’t just dwell on the price but also bear in mind its quality. Although the initial investment may sting, by buying quality that lasts over the years with rigorous use, rather than continuously purchasing cheaper replacements, you will have saved your business money.

When you apply this rational to larger ticket items such as company cars you can make a significant saving. To avoid the incremental costs of repairs or replacements talk to reputable local dealers, such as, TW White.

Get Efficient

Getting your systems and processes as efficient as possible takes teamwork and collaboration. Get all your staff’s buy in to the initiative by opening up efficiency saving to all staff. By opening it up in this way you’re likely to gain an insight into inefficiencies at all levels and more likely to get your new initiative enforced if the whole team has had an in put.

This collaboration can also be extended to saving money with suppliers, by working with them to look at reducing costs in their own supply chain. It might also help internal efficiency to reduce the number of suppliers if possible. This can help to reduce the time spent on processing invoicing and orders.